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Rota PlannerSchedule shifts and manage your team

Time & Attendance

Time TrackingTimesheets, clocking in, and more

Leave & Absence

Leave TrackingHoliday and absence management
View all features One plan · £3 per employee per month

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Staff rotas for UK gyms, leisure centres and pools

Rota Software for Gyms & Leisure Centres

Gym rota software for gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools in the UK. Cover 06:00 to 22:00 with opening, middle and closing shifts, keep a separate rota for the gym floor, the pool and reception, and publish the week to your staff's phones. Holiday and sickness show on the same grid, and casual staff clock in on their own phones. It is the same staff rota software used across TimeTally, and the £3 per employee per month also covers holiday, sickness and timesheets for casual and contracted staff.

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Week of 16 June

All departments
Publish Rota Published
Employee
Mon16
Tue17
Wed18
Thu19
Fri20
Sat21
Sun22
AR

Amelia

Kitchen

Open

Open

Evening

Close

Open

JK

James

Front of House

Close

Early

Mid

Open

Open

Early

PS

Priya

Kitchen

Leave

Mid

Close

Open

Early

MP

Maya

Front of House

Early

Close

Leave

Mid

Close

TW

Tom

Bar

Open

Open

Mid

Open

Close

Templates

Open
Close
Mid
Early
Evening

Rota Published!

Your team has been notified

Shift Templates

New Template New Template

Open

09:00–17:00

Close

12:00–20:00

Mid

10:00–18:00

Early

06:00–14:00

Evening

17:00–22:00

New

New Template

Evening

Start

17:00

End

22:00
Save Template Saved!

Shift Swap Request

Awaiting your approval

JK

James K.

Open · Thu

PS

Priya S.

Early · Sat

Approve Approved!

Shifts published!

Week of 16 Jun

Swap approved

James ↔ Priya

Evening added

Wed · 17:00–22:00

9:41

16 Jun – 22 Jun

this week · 40h

Mon

16

Tue

17

Wed

18

Thu

19

Fri

20

Sat

21

Sun

22

This week

40h total

Mon, 16 Jun

09:00–17:00

8h

Open

Tue, 17 Jun

09:00–17:00

8h

Open

Wed, 18 Jun

Today

17:00–22:00

8h

Evening

Thu, 19 Jun

12:00–20:00

8h

Close

Fri, 20 Jun

09:00–17:00

8h

Open

“The app is simple to use, reliable, and makes managing holidays, absences, and staff records straightforward. The system has saved us a significant amount of administration time.”

CLI ManchesterJordan Ingoe, CLI Manchester

See how gyms and leisure centres plan their rota with TimeTally

Build next week's rota, staff clock in against the shifts you assigned, and approved leave feeds straight back into the plan. One system, no re-keying between them.

Free gym rota template: build your leisure centre rota online

A gym and leisure centre rota template you fill in on this page. It opens with four job roles (duty manager, fitness instructor, lifeguard and receptionist) and a row for each, so swap in your own team. Tap a day and choose Use a shift template to add Open 06:00–14:00, Middle 10:00–18:00, Close 14:00–22:00 or Weekend 07:00–13:00. Each person's hours add up as you go, and the rota flags less than 11 hours between shifts, more than six hours without a 20-minute break, and weeks over 48 hours.

Building it is free and needs no account. Printing or downloading it needs a free account (a 14-day trial, no card), and signing up carries the rota into TimeTally.

Build the gym staff rota by dragging shifts onto the grid

The rota is a week grid: one row per member of staff and one column per day. Tap an empty cell and the shift form opens for that person and day. Drag a shift to another day when an instructor moves their day off, or onto another name when a colleague covers. Copy last week forward and change only what is different, rather than rebuilding the whole week.

A rota week with a row per person and a Morning 06:00 to 14:00 shift being dragged onto an empty Wednesday

  • Click a cell to add a shift

    Tap an empty day to put an instructor or lifeguard on it, or drag the shift to another day or person

  • See who is on the pool rota

    Someone already rostered on another rota that day shows that rota's name, so you can't book them twice

  • Paid hours under every day

    An Hours row totals each day and the week, with each role's unpaid break taken off

  • Publish when the week is ready

    Until you publish, the week is a draft only managers see. Then you choose whether to email the team

Casual Staff See Their Shifts and Clock In on Their Own Phones

Publish the week and every instructor, lifeguard and receptionist sees their own shifts in the TimeTally app for iPhone or Android, or in a browser. The same app is where they clock in, book holiday and check their hours, so casual staff have one login for all of it.

  • Publishing asks whether to email the team. Staff with rota emails on get one, and a week published again emails only the people whose shifts changed. There are no push notifications.
  • Staff clock in and out on their own phone with their own login. There is no shared tablet or kiosk mode at reception.
  • With the GPS add-on, clock-in can require staff to be within 25 metres to 5 kilometres of the site. Their position is taken only when they clock in.
  • A manager approves each timesheet, and approved hours export to Xero, QuickBooks or CSV for payroll.
GPS clock-in Get Started
The staff app on a phone with a Start Shift button, a Submit Timesheet Form option and this week's hours

Staff Swap Shifts and a Manager Approves

Student staff change their plans around lectures and exams. Instead of messaging the duty manager, they arrange the swap in the app, and the rota only changes once a manager has approved it.

  • Swap with a colleague

    A lifeguard picks a colleague's shift to swap with. The colleague accepts, then a manager sees both shifts and approves or rejects

  • Give a shift away

    Someone who can't work a shift can offer it to a named colleague, with the same accept-then-approve steps

  • Turn swaps off if you prefer

    Swaps are on by default. Turning them off for the organisation stops the requests in the database as well as in the app

  • Who's on with me

    A separate setting, off by default, lets staff see who else is working their shift
A shift swap request between two colleagues, showing both shifts with Approve and Reject buttons

Save your open, middle and close shifts as templates

Most gyms and leisure centres run the same few shifts every week. Set up each shift a single time, with its hours, role and unpaid break, and pick it from a list from then on. An Open 06:00–14:00 with a 30-minute break is 7.5 paid hours every time, with nobody working it out again.

Adding a shift from a saved template: the template picker, start and end times, role, break and a Save Shift button

  • A colour per shift

    Open, middle, close and weekend each get their own colour, so early and late cover shows without reading the times

  • Short weekend shifts

    A Weekend 07:00–13:00 template with no unpaid break suits casual staff who only work Saturday and Sunday mornings

  • Term time and holidays

    Save a whole week as a week template, for example one for term time and one for the busier school holidays, and drop it onto any future week

  • Copy a week forward

    Copy this week onto the following weeks in one go. Days that already have a shift are left as they are

Leisure rota software for long hours, a pool and a casual team

Rota software for leisure staff has to cope with a 16-hour day, separate teams for the pool and the gym floor, and a team that is largely part-time, casual or still studying. Leisure centre staff scheduling also has to sit beside holiday that builds up from irregular hours. For the holiday rules in more detail, see zero-hours staff management and the variable hours holiday guide.

A week of shifts across the whole team, one row per person, with an unfilled shift outlined in red
Hours

Open 06:00 to 22:00, seven days a week

A gym or leisure centre is open longer than any one person works. Most sites split the day into an opening shift and a closing shift, add a middle shift for the busy hours, and run shorter shifts at the weekend.

  • Save Open, Close, Middle and Weekend as shift templates, each with its own colour, so the week reads at a glance
  • Filter the grid to the Duty manager role to check every opening and every closing shift has one
  • A staffing alert counts the people with a shift that day, not how many are on at 21:30, so the shift times still need reading
Areas

Gym floor, pool and reception

The pool, the gym floor and reception are staffed by different people with different skills. TimeTally lets you name a rota for each area and switch between them from one menu.

  • Each rota has its own member list, so a lifeguard appears on the pool rota and not on the gym floor's
  • A duty manager or a receptionist who covers the pool can belong to both, and a day already taken on one rota shows its name on the other
  • A person has one shift a day. A split day, such as 06:00–10:00 and 16:00–20:00, is one shift with two time blocks
Casual

Casual, student and zero-hours staff

Leisure staff are often students and casual workers with no fixed week. Their holiday is where a spreadsheet usually goes wrong, so it is worked out in the same app as their shifts.

  • Holiday can build up from the hours on each approved timesheet, at 12.07% by default, rounded to the whole hour
  • With leave priced from the rota, a day off costs the paid hours of the shift they had that day
  • Bank holiday sync books a bank holiday only on the days a person actually works
Cover

Covering a lifeguard's holiday

When a lifeguard books a week off, the pool still needs someone on the poolside. Approving the holiday and finding the cover happen in one place.

  • Approve a holiday request and TimeTally lists the shifts that person was rostered on for those days
  • Against each shift it lists who is free: no shift and no leave that day, pending requests included, with people on the same rota first
  • It does not know who is qualified. Keep lifeguards on the pool rota so they are the names listed first, and check the choice yourself
Get Started

Two Settings to Set Up for a Gym or Leisure Centre

The rota works without any setup. These two settings decide how short-staffed days are flagged and where pay hours come from, so they are worth choosing on the first day.

Staffing alerts

Get a warning when the pool or gym floor has too few people on.

Set a minimum number of staff per day for one rota, for every rota, or for a department. For example, fewer than three people on the pool rota on any day. A day below it shows as a red line above the grid, and the same warning appears when you press Publish.

It is a headcount. It counts the people with a shift that day, whatever their hours and whatever their qualifications, and it does not know how many are poolside at 19:00. A short-staffed week can still go out; the warning just makes sure you see it first.

The same alerts can watch hours and wage cost, such as the gym floor going over its weekly hours budget or anyone working more than 48 hours in a week.

Where hours come from

Pay casual staff from clock-ins, or salaried staff from the rota.

With timesheets on, hourly staff clock in and out on their own phone or fill in a timesheet, and a manager approves it. Reminder emails for late timesheets can be turned on in Settings; they are off until you choose them.

If your team is paid for the shifts they were rostered on, switch time tracking off and turn on Pay from rota shifts (Settings, then Pay). The published rota then becomes the hours record. Unpublished shifts, and shifts on a day of approved full-day leave, do not count.

How timesheets and clock-in work

Gym and leisure centre rota examples

Five common shapes of leisure rota and how each is built in TimeTally. Your own times will follow your opening hours, so borrow the shape, not the clock. A plain printable grid is in the staff rota template is a free download.

An independent gym open 06:00 to 22:00

One rota, two duty managers, a handful of fitness instructors and a receptionist. Save Open, Close and Weekend as templates. Build the week so each Open and each Close has a duty manager, then filter to the Duty manager role to check. Put instructors on the Middle shift on the days the gym floor is busiest. Copy the week forward and change only holiday and swaps.

A leisure centre with a pool

Create three rotas: Gym floor, Pool and Reception. Add lifeguards to the Pool rota and give them the Lifeguard role. Add duty managers to all three. Set a staffing alert for the Pool rota at the fewest people you ever run with, then read the shift times to check the poolside cover your operating procedures set for each part of the day. Publish each rota on its own.

Casual lifeguards and students

Students often work evenings and weekends in term and more hours in the holidays. Keep a term-time week template and a holiday week template. Let staff propose swaps around exams for a manager to approve. Set their holiday to build up from the hours on their approved timesheets, so it follows what they actually work. The zero-hours holiday calculator shows the same 12.07% arithmetic.

Under-18 staff and minimum wage

Leisure centres often take on 16 and 17 year olds as pool or reception staff. Young worker limits apply: normally no more than 8 hours a day or 40 a week, a 30-minute break after 4 and a half hours, and 12 hours off between working days. The Weekend 07:00–13:00 shift fits inside them. TimeTally does not check these limits. Minimum wage rates also depend on age; the minimum wage calculator has the current rates.

Split days around the quiet hours

Some sites run a lifeguard on the early swim and again in the evening, with the afternoon off. That is one shift with two time blocks, for example 06:00–10:00 and 16:00–20:00, saved as a template so it can be placed in one click. The paid hours add up both blocks. For a rotating pattern of who opens and who closes, the shift pattern calculator works out the dates.

When a spreadsheet is still fine

A small studio with three staff and the same hours every week can run on a printed grid. It usually stops working once there is a pool, a team of casual staff, or a duty manager answering messages about who is on tomorrow. That is when a rota staff can check on their own phone saves more time than it takes to set up.

Pool safety, records and limits

Lifeguard cover, qualifications and what TimeTally will not do

A leisure rota is a pool safety decision as well as a scheduling one. TimeTally schedules the staff and keeps a record of who was rostered. These are the parts that stay with the duty manager.

Pool Supervision Is Your Call

How many lifeguards a pool needs at each time of day is set by the operator, in your normal operating procedure and emergency action plan, following HSE guidance. TimeTally does not calculate pool supervision. Its staffing alert counts the people with a shift that day, for a rota or a department, and warns before you publish if the number is below the minimum you set. It does not know who is poolside at 19:00 and it never blocks a publish.

No Qualification Records

TimeTally does not store qualifications, so it can't tell you whether someone's NPLQ or first aid certificate is current, or whether a first aider is on shift. Give lifeguards the Lifeguard job role to see who is on, and keep qualification and training records in your HR or leisure management system.

It Is Not Gym Management Software

There is no class timetable, member booking, membership billing or door access. TimeTally covers the team: shifts, time off and hours worked. It works alongside your gym management or booking system, and the two do not connect.

Self-Employed Trainers and Instructors

Personal trainers and class instructors who are self-employed are not your employees. You can add them to a rota at £3 a month if you want them on the grid, but TimeTally does not invoice them, pay them or track their client sessions.

Who Can See What

You can make a duty manager a manager limited to their own department or named people. They approve holiday and timesheets only for those people, and can only add, move or remove shifts for them. They can still see every rota. Pay can be hidden from them, which keeps hourly rates and the cost row off their screen.

What TimeTally Does Not Do

It does not build the rota for you: every shift is placed by a person. There is no availability form and no open shifts for staff to claim. The rota in the app does not warn about rest gaps or young worker limits while you build; the 11-hour and 48-hour checks are only in the free rota maker on this page. Notifications are emails, not push notifications.

Simple, Transparent Pricing

One price for the whole product. GPS clock-in is £1 extra per employee. A leisure centre with 40 staff pays £120 a month.

£3/employee/month

Billed monthly. Cancel anytime.

A rota for the gym floor, pool and reception
Open, middle and close shift templates
Shift swaps and holiday cover suggestions
Holiday tracking and timesheets included
Get Started

No credit card required

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In short

What is gym rota software?

Gym rota software plans which staff work which shifts in a gym, leisure centre or swimming pool, and shares the rota with them. TimeTally does this for UK sites at £3 per employee per month. You save shifts such as Open 06:00–14:00, Middle 10:00–18:00 and Close 14:00–22:00 as templates and place them on a week grid, one row per person. The gym floor, the pool and reception can each have their own rota. Holiday shows on the same grid, and approving it lists the shifts it leaves open and who is free to cover them. Staff see their published shifts on their phones, propose swaps for a manager to approve, and clock in with their own login. Holiday tracking and timesheets are included. It does not check lifeguard qualifications or pool supervision: a staffing alert can warn about headcount, but the cover decision stays with the manager.

Price
£3 per employee a month
Areas
A named rota per area
Staff
Shifts and clock-in on their phones
Pool cover
Headcount alert only
Includes
Holiday and timesheets

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I make a leisure centre staff rota?

Start with your opening hours and the shifts that cover them, for example Open 06:00 to 14:00, Middle 10:00 to 18:00 and Close 14:00 to 22:00, plus a shorter Weekend shift. Put approved holiday and anyone's fixed days off on the rota first. Then fill each area, the gym floor, the pool and reception, day by day: check there is a duty manager on every opening and closing shift, and that the pool has the lifeguard cover your pool safety operating procedures ask for at each time of day. Finally, check each person's weekly hours and publish the rota so staff can see it. The free gym rota template on this page opens with those four shifts and the four usual roles, so you can build the first week without an account.

Can I run separate rotas for the gym, pool and reception?

Yes. Create a named rota for each area, such as Gym floor, Pool and Reception, and add the staff who work in each. Someone who covers more than one area can belong to several rotas, and a day they are already working on one shows that rota's name on the others, so they can't be booked twice. You switch between rotas from a menu above the grid, and each rota's week is published on its own.

Does it check lifeguard qualifications or pool supervision ratios?

No. TimeTally has no qualification records, so it can't tell whether someone holds a current NPLQ or first aid certificate, and it does not calculate pool supervision. Those come from your pool safety operating procedures and stay your responsibility. What it can do is warn about headcount: you can set an alert such as fewer than two people on the pool rota in a day, and a day below it shows as a red line above the grid and again when you publish. It counts people with a shift that day, not who is poolside at a given time, and it warns rather than stops you. Giving lifeguards the Lifeguard job role lets you filter the grid to see who is on.

Can casual staff see their shifts on their phone?

Yes. Once you publish a week, staff see their own shifts in the TimeTally app for iPhone or Android, or in a browser. Publishing asks whether to email the team; staff with rota emails switched on get one, and when you publish a week again only the people whose shifts changed are emailed. There are no push notifications. Staff can also propose a swap or give a shift away, which is useful for students around exams: the colleague accepts, then a manager approves before the rota changes.

How is holiday worked out for casual and zero-hours leisure staff?

For staff with irregular hours, holiday can build up from the hours on their approved timesheets. The rate is 12.07% by default and each amount is rounded to the whole hour. Staff with a regular part-time week can have a yearly allowance instead, worked out from the days they work and the weeks a year they work. The zero-hours holiday calculator on this site shows the same arithmetic if you want to check a figure.

Does it replace our gym booking software?

No. TimeTally has no class timetable, member bookings, memberships or payments. It covers the staff side: the rota, holiday and sickness, and timesheets. It works alongside whichever gym management or booking system you use for members, and the two do not connect. Self-employed personal trainers and class instructors can be added to a rota at the same £3 a month if you want them on the grid, but TimeTally does not invoice or pay them.

Can staff clock in at the gym?

Yes, on their own phone. Each person clocks in and out with their own login in the TimeTally app; there is no shared tablet or kiosk mode at reception. With the GPS add-on (£1 per employee per month) you can require staff to be within a set distance of the site to clock in, anywhere from 25 metres to 5 kilometres. Their position is taken only at the moment they clock in, and nobody is tracked during the shift. A manager approves the timesheets, and approved hours export to Xero, QuickBooks or a CSV file for payroll.

What does gym rota software cost?

TimeTally is £3 per employee per month, with no setup fee and no minimum contract. A leisure centre with 40 staff pays £120 a month, and a small gym with 12 staff pays £36. That covers the rota, holiday and sickness tracking and timesheets. GPS clock-in is an optional add-on at £1 per employee per month. There is a free 14-day trial and no card is needed to start it.

Still have a question? See all FAQs

Related Resources

Tools and guides for gym owners and leisure centre managers

Free Rota Maker

Build any rota online, free, with your own roles and shift timesOpen the maker

Staff Rota Template

A free Excel and Google Sheets grid to print or sketch onDownload template

Zero Hours Holiday Calculator

Holiday for casual staff from the hours they have workedOpen calculator

Minimum Wage Calculator

Check pay for young staff and apprentices against the age bandsOpen calculator

Shift Pattern Calculator

Work out the dates when staff take turns to open and closeOpen calculator

Part-Time Bank Holiday Calculator

Bank holidays for staff who work some days of the weekOpen calculator

Pro Rata Holiday Calculator

Holiday for part-time staff on a regular week and mid-year startersOpen calculator

Staff Holiday Tracker

Requests, approvals and balances for the holiday that shows on the rotaLearn more

Time Tracking

Clock-in, timesheets and manager approval for hourly and casual leisure staffLearn more

How to Create a Staff Rota

A step-by-step guide to writing a rota that covers the weekRead the guide

UK Rota Laws

Rest breaks, the 48-hour week and notice of shiftsRead the guide

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Get next week's gym and pool rotas to your team today.

Try TimeTally free for 14 days. Build the gym floor, pool and reception rotas from your own shift templates, see holiday on the same grid, find cover when a lifeguard is off, and publish the week to your staff's phones, with holiday tracking and timesheets included in the same £3.

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