London padel costs 79% more and nearly half the courts still leave you exposed to the weather

Padel’s rapid expansion across Britain has created some extraordinary regional differences. Nowhere is that more obvious than London.

New analysis shared by Padel Genie finds that the average peak-time padel court in London costs £55.82, compared with £31.20 in Northern Ireland.

That makes London 79% more expensive.

Ordinarily, you might put most of that difference down to London property prices, wages and operating costs. But there is another number that makes the comparison much more interesting.

According to the analysis, just 45% of London's padel courts are covered, compared with 95% in Northern Ireland. London venues also average only 3.55 courts per club, against 4.95 in Northern Ireland.

In other words, London players are apparently paying considerably more for access to smaller venues where they are also more likely to have their game interrupted by the British weather. And yet people keep booking them. That suggests this isn't simply a pricing story. It's a supply-and-demand story.

Britain's padel boom isn't slowing down

The wider numbers provide some context. At the end of 2025, the LTA counted 1,553 courts across 559 venues, with 860,000 people having played during the year. By May 2026, the governing body said participation had passed one million players, with court numbers reaching 1,825. And the market has continued expanding extraordinarily quickly.

PadelYeti's independently maintained database counted 2,468 open UK courts across 711 venues as of 20 September 2026. That works out at only around 3.6 courts for every 100,000 people nationally.

Another live market tracker, Playskan, currently puts UK average court occupancy at 61% and estimates the average booking price at £34 per hour. Its figures suggest the country has added around 960 courts in the past 12 months alone. So London's £55.82 peak figure isn't just expensive compared with Northern Ireland. It also sits considerably above the national market average.

But how expensive is too expensive?

There is an important counterargument. Strong demand might allow London operators to charge £50, £60 or considerably more for a court today, but that doesn't necessarily mean those prices are compatible with turning occasional padel players into regular ones. Oxygen Consulting's 2026 UK Padel Report found the median peak-time price among Britain's nine largest chargeable operators was £42 per court hour.

More interestingly, its player price-sensitivity research found acceptable ranges of approximately £13–£21 for uncovered outdoor courts, £15–£25 for covered courts and £18–£28 for indoor courts. Oxygen stresses that these aren't recommended prices, but measurements of perceived value among players.

That creates an intriguing problem for London. The market may currently be capable of supporting £55-plus courts because demand exceeds convenient supply. But operators shouldn't necessarily interpret a full booking sheet as evidence that price doesn't matter. There may be another group of potential customers who simply aren't playing.

"How are people going to afford to pay £60 or £70?"

That question has already been raised by Mark Hewlett, founder and CEO of Soul Padel, whose business has deliberately pursued a lower-cost model.

Discussing some of the early UK padel business models, Hewlett questioned their scalability outside London:

Soul Padel has instead positioned affordability as part of its model, with Hewlett saying the company doesn't want price to become "a barrier to entry". It's an important distinction.

There is nothing inherently wrong with premium padel. London can almost certainly sustain high-end clubs offering hospitality, gyms, bars, restaurants and other facilities alongside the courts. But a healthy sports market probably needs more than one proposition.

Padel's great advantage is supposed to be accessibility: it is social, relatively easy for beginners to start playing and normally involves four people sharing the cost of a court. If scarcity pushes the price sufficiently high, one of those advantages starts disappearing.

So is London actually under-built?

This is where the original analysis becomes particularly interesting. There is evidence pointing in that direction, although the picture isn't completely clear-cut.

One 2026 market analysis counted 333 courts across 73 London venues, equivalent to approximately 3.7 courts per 100,000 residents. Interestingly, the same analysis describes venue density as low and London as underserved, while its broader investment score simultaneously points towards greater competitive pressure — a useful reminder that simply counting courts doesn't tell us whether they are in the right places, available at the right times or offered at the right prices.

Planning is also struggling to keep pace with the national appetite for the sport. UK padel planning applications increased 113% in 2024, from 163 to 348, according to Searchland data, with hundreds more developments subsequently entering the pipeline.

London adds another layer of difficulty: exceptionally expensive land, competition for suitable buildings, planning constraints, noise considerations and the cost of creating genuinely indoor facilities. That could explain the apparent contradiction.

London doesn't necessarily just need more padel courts. It may need more of the right padel courts.

More covered and indoor courts. More locations with enough courts to generate operating efficiencies. More affordable propositions alongside the premium clubs. And, crucially, more supply in the areas where players actually want to play.

The £55.82 number could therefore be an opportunity as much as a warning

London's prices can be interpreted in two very different ways. One interpretation is that padel is becoming too expensive and risks turning itself into an affluent leisure product rather than a mass-participation sport.

The other is that operators are simply discovering what happens when a rapidly growing customer base competes for insufficient peak-time capacity in one of the world's most expensive cities. Both can be true.

The challenge for investors is determining whether today's pricing represents sustainable willingness to pay or merely what enthusiastic players will tolerate while alternatives remain scarce. And the challenge for the wider industry is bigger still.

Britain has gone from 15,000 padel participants in 2019 to more than one million today. The next phase of growth isn't simply about persuading another million people to try padel once.

It's about making sure they can afford to come back next week.

Credit: This article builds on regional pricing and facility analysis originally published by Padel Genie, whose figures put London peak court hire at £55.82 versus £31.20 in Northern Ireland, with covered-court provision of 45% and 95% respectively. I couldn't independently locate the original publication from the wording supplied, so I've left the author's name as a placeholder rather than incorrectly attributing the data.