The growth of the leisure society, more flexible patterns of working and advances in technology have given Britons huge opportunities to expand the horizons of their free time beyond an evening in front of the television during what has traditionally been the working week.

Spending in the leisure market at large has enjoyed robust growth during the current decade but is now coming under sustained pressure from the depth and duration of the ongoing recession. And the weekday sector is proving most at risk as consumers circle their financial wagons to ring-fence their weekend leisure and ‘trade down’ from going out midweek to staying in at home. Their appetite for weekday leisure remains strong but the market’s supply side faces new challenges in unleashing it, and not just economic ones: consumers’ inertia, strength of habits and perceptions of time and energy are all shaping the scale and nature of their participation.

This report examines consumers’ weekday leisure habits, the range of leisure opportunities available to people between Monday and Thursday, and their attitudes towards their free time midweek. In so doing, it tests the hypothesis that: “the pressures of time and money imposed on consumers by the current recession have combined with television’s dominant position in the market to restrict Britons’ weekday leisure options and their ability to exercise them”.

Main issues

How much weekday leisure time do British adults have?

How do our weekday leisure habits differ from our weekend ones?

What do we like to do with our spare time in the week?

How have our leisure habits changed since the recession began to bite?

To what extent does television viewing dominate the weekday leisure landscape?

How are changing attitudes towards work/life balance affecting attitudes towards leisure time?

How do the demands of domestic chores restrict our leisure options?

What areas of leisure spending are being hardest hit by the recession?

How can technology improve the quality of our weekday free time?