Gyms in Toronto, London and Sydney compared, for a fitness chain choosing a city

Within 10 km of each city centre, xMap's places database lists 1,112 gyms in London, 692 in Sydney and 246 in Toronto (November 2026). Branded gyms hold roughly a quarter of the market in all three, but the brands differ, the bar on ratings differs, and Toronto shows far more recent openings than the other two. For a fitness chain, London is the deepest market, Sydney the hardest to impress, and Toronto the smallest and most in motion.

This piece is written for the expansion team of a gym or studio brand that has to rank cities before it spends money on a site search. It reads the three market pages the way such a team would: who already holds the market, how good the rivals are, and whether the market is still moving.

What an expansion team needs from a city count

A raw count only says how many doors there are. A chain weighing a city asks three sharper questions. How much of the market do other brands already hold? How good are the gyms a new club would be judged against? And are people still opening gyms, or has the market settled? The table below answers all three for each city.

xMap's places database, gyms within 10 km of each city centre, November 2026. Toronto's figures cover every gym in the circle; London's and Sydney's are worked out from the gyms nearest the centre, as each market page says.

Toronto: a small circle with brands already in it

Toronto's circle holds the fewest gyms of the three, yet 72 of its 246 belong to a chain, the highest share here. Boutique studio formats sit near the top of the list: F45 Training alone has 23 locations in the circle, ahead of GoodLife Fitness with 15. A newcomer would not be walking into an empty, owner-run market. It would be choosing between the gaps those two brands left.

What stands out is movement. 14 of the 246 gyms opened in the twelve months before November 2026, about 6%, against roughly 2% in each of the other cities. That is worth a closer look before anyone reads it as growth: an opening date in the listing can also mean a gym that moved, rebranded or was listed late. Open the newest ten on a map and check them before you build a forecast on them.

London: the deepest market, measured near the middle

London lists four and a half times as many gyms as Toronto inside the same circle. The details on its market page come from the 353 nearest the centre, roughly a third of the listing, so they describe central London, not the whole circle. Among those 353, a quarter are branded and PureGym leads with 20, followed by Fitness First with 11 and F45 Training with 9.

The rating bar is a little lower than in the other two cities: 189 of the 307 rated gyms score 4.5 or more, about 62%. A chain that wins on service has slightly more room to stand out in central London than in Sydney, though the difference is modest.

Sydney: the hardest crowd to impress

Sydney's market page shows the strongest ratings: 228 of 301 rated gyms are at 4.5 or more, about three in four. A new club there will be measured against rivals that members already rate highly, so a launch that relies on being better than the neighbours has the least slack. The branded share is similar to London's, but no single brand dominates: Fitness First, Plus Fitness and Anytime Fitness hold 15, 14 and 12 of the 347 nearest the centre.

A made-up scenario: choosing between two of the three

Imagine, purely for illustration, a mid-sized gym brand with eight clubs in another country that can afford one new city next year. Its team narrows the choice to Sydney and Toronto. Sydney offers more than twice as many gyms to compete with but no dominant rival and a very high rating bar. Toronto offers a smaller market already shaped by two strong brands, with more recent openings that may signal demand or churn.

Neither city wins on these figures alone. What they do is tell the team where to look next: in Toronto, which districts the two leading brands have not reached; in Sydney, whether there are neighbourhoods where rated gyms fall below the city's high average. Both questions need the gyms mapped by district, not a city total.

Mistakes that cost expansion teams time

• Treating the category as one format. A 24-hour budget club, a boxing studio and a yoga room can all appear as gyms. Search the types that match your format, and look at the brand names before deciding who your real rivals are.
• Reading a high chain share as a closed market. 29% branded still leaves most of Toronto's gyms owner-run. The question is where the brands are, not how many.
• Comparing the cities' totals as demand. A count is supply. Whether 246 gyms are too few for central Toronto depends on how many people live and work there, which Demographics can show for Toronto and Sydney but not for London, where xMap has no population figures.
• Taking one month as a trend. These are November 2026 figures. Run the same count again in three months before calling any market growing.

Keeping the comparison current with an AI employee

An expansion decision usually takes months, and the market moves while you decide. An AI employee in xMap Flows can repeat this reading each month and add the district view the city pages do not give:

1. Schedule: the first Monday of each month.
2. Area of interest: the districts you are weighing in each city, drawn or typed, each as its own area.
3. Nearby places: the types that match your format, such as Gym and Fitness center, with each place's brand, chain flag, rating and opening date.
4. xMap LLM, working on the whole list: count the branded gyms, the gyms rated 4.5 or more and the recent openings in each district, and name the districts where your two biggest rivals are absent.
5. Make a report: a short PDF for the expansion committee.

The report lands in your inbox each month with the same layout, so the committee can see how each district moved. Once a site is chosen, a second flow with When something changes can watch for a new gym opening near it. The template Where to open the next gym starts from the first flow, and Competitor density around each site counts rivals around the addresses on your shortlist.