Who are the game shots?

Shooting, as I have noted in these pages before, is a broad church, taking in people from all over the UK, and from all backgrounds. But beyond this, can we learn a bit more about who the game shots actually are - where they live and what they do?

The Game Shooting Census, sponsored by Lycetts and conducted in association with BASC, Countryside Alliance and GWCT, offers not only an opportunity to examine the shooting community as it is in 2021, but also to look back over nearly a decade’s worth of data and reveal any changes or trends that may (or may not) be emerging.

Is shooting an old man’s game?

Shooting, contrary to what may be supposed, is far from the exclusive preserve of the aged. According to the Census, those aged 55 and over do account for a good proportion of the shooting public: 63%. That said, looking back over the last few years, the trend seems to indicate that the average age of a game shot is increasing - in 2013, 64% were under 55. The age group that has seen the biggest decline is the 46-55 age bracket - from 29% overall in 2013 to 17% in 2021. The 26-35 age bracket and the 36-45 age bracket have also seen a drop over the same period.

What can we read into this? Are fewer people entering the sport? Is there a wider societal reason for the fall in younger game shots? One factor could be macroeconomic. Millennials - those born between 1981 and 1996 (or currently aged between 25 and 40) - famously had a pretty tricky start to their careers, and with the well-documented challenges of getting on the housing ladder, it could well be that dropping a few hundred quid on shooting every year is an expense few of them can justify. (Speaking as a member of this cohort, this feels like a pretty good bet!). 

But are game shots actually getting older?

It would be great to see shooting providers attempt to create more affordable shooting opportunities for those with less disposable income. Interestingly, according to the 2021 data, the 25-45 age group are more heavily involved in pest control, wildfowling, walk-one stand-one days and sim shooting than older age groups, perhaps because they are more accessible.

Many teams of guns have a broad age-range

However, this increase in age could simply be down to the increasing confidence that the older age bracket have with digital technology - the Census being carried out online. It may simply be that we are getting a better picture now of the age demographics of the shooting world than we were in 2013, and that the 2021 figure is correct, where the 2013 figure was skewed as a smaller proportion of older game shots were actually completing the survey. 

Younger ladies taking up shooting

When it comes to the gender split, despite the good work carried out by organisations like Country Girls UK, female participation in game shooting has remained solidly below 5% every year since 2013. This being said, among millennial women and the generations that came after them, this rises to 8.7% in 2021, so maybe there is some hope there. The 2021 Census also reveals that 52% of male game shots have at least one female family member who is involved in shooting, though that may be in another capacity, such as picking up, beating or clay shooting.

Town vs Country

Confounding the notion that most game shooters are ‘city boys’, the fact is that only 3.7% of those who completed the Census are Londoners, and only 8.5% live in cities. When it comes to the types of communities game shots live in, it probably won’t come as a huge surprise that the vast majority, just shy of 50%, live in villages with a further 20% saying that they live in “remote” locations.

Despite the popularity of shooting in regions like Yorkshire, Wales and Scotland, the greatest proportion of shots live in the South East (18.51%), perhaps not surprising given that this is the most populous region of the UK. 

What may come as a greater surprise is that 16% of the shooting population live in the South West, and 13% in East Anglia. These two regions have significantly more than their fair share of game shots, since only 8% and 9% respectively of the UK population live in these regions, perhaps a reflection of the more rural nature of the areas. The popularity of shooting among residents of East Anglia could be one reason that this is the most commonly searched area on GunsOnPegs.

East Anglia is a hotbed of game shooting

Earning a crust

Given the age data discussed above, it is not terribly surprising that 35% of game shots are retired. Of those who have not yet hung up their boots, 50% describe their occupation as “Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations”, which could be a reflection of the cost of shooting, or another function of the age demographics - the older you are, the more ‘senior’ a job you are likely to hold. 

As well as a good contingent of ‘lower managerial’ occupations, there’s a sizable (7%) group of small business owners. That group of retired guns are the more likely than average to belong to a syndicate, while the ‘higher managerial’ occupations not only shoot one more day per season than the average (10 vs 9) but are also more likely to do most of their shooting on larger commercial shoots (bags of 150+).

One size doesn’t fit all

As (possibly) Disraeli said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” As useful as the above can be for getting a big-picture overview of the shooting world, it must be said that it doesn’t provide all the detail - it's a blurry picture. As with all averages, there are outliers, and exceptions to the rule. However, what the data does tell us is that game shots are hard to pigeon-hole, and that lazy assumptions are unlikely to be very helpful. The stereotypes, as seen from both outside and inside the shooting community, rarely hold true.