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The role of the recreation assistant is to support, enhance and deliver the day-to-day operations of a leisure facility.
practitioner
The role
Recreation assistants support, enhance and deliver the day-to-day operations of a leisure facility. They typically service sport and physical activities in wet environments, such as swimming pools, water slides and saunas, and/or dry environments, such as activity areas and sports pitches.
Working as a part of a team, recreation assistants assist with the opening and closing of facilities as well as maintaining the cleanliness and safety of the environment. They ensure that programmed activities and services are available by preparing, assembling, dismantling and storing equipment such as trampolines, badminton nets and event seating. A recreation assistant is also expected to supervise activity and ancillary areas, ensuring that customers are safe and enhancing the services offered through their product knowledge and sales skills.
As a first point of contact, recreation assistants are expected to provide high levels of customer care in their delivery of this rewarding and varied role.
What it takes
The following common or transferable skills are most frequently asked for by employers in recreation assistant job adverts across the UK:
| Skills and behaviours | % Prevalence in job ads |
|---|---|
| Customer Service | 84% |
| Operations | 23% |
| Cleanliness | 19% |
| First Aid | 14% |
| Communication | 13% |
| Swimming | 12% |
| Organisational Skills | 10% |
| Management | 10% |
| English Language | 9% |
| Mathematics | 8% |
To find out more about the minimum knowledge, skills and behaviours an individual must understand and demonstrate to become a recreation assistant, you can visit our occupational professional standards library.
Getting in
There are several ways you can become qualified as a recreation assistant. Look at the options below to explore what option works best for you.
You do not need to hold a qualification to become a recreation assistant. However, there are qualifications and continuous professional development (CPD) courses that you can choose to complete to excel in your role such as the Level 2 Diploma in Sports Industry Skills (Sport and Active Leisure Recreation Assistant).
You can browse all of the CIMSPA-endorsed recreation assistant qualifications and CPD delivered by our Training Provider Partners in our Endorsed Training Directory.
The Leisure Team Member apprenticeship allows you to train as a recreation assistant. This apprenticeship also offers options to qualify as a gym instructor, swimming teacher, pool lifeguard and first aider alongside the recreation assistant role.
You can find out more about completing a Leisure Team Member apprenticeship in via The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) website.
Training
Typical earnings
Not currently available
Demand
Not currently available
Typical working patterns
Not currently available
As well as exploring new career pathways, as a recreation assistant you can also choose to progress your career by completing further training or continued professional development (CPD) in your role.
The content of the job posts displayed on the CIMSPA jobs board are pulled in through feeds from websites which are not under the control of CIMSPA.
CIMSPA will not be liable for any false, inaccurate, inappropriate or incomplete information presented on the jobs board.