A New Digital Architecture for Virgin Active

Virgin Active Limited is a world-leading health club operator with 245 clubs across 10 countries, including 45 in the UK and a clear ambition to scale further. To support this growth, Virgin Active required a modern digital ecosystem and new website underpinned by a scalable, resilient technical architecture capable of delivering seamless member experiences across channels.

However, their existing technology landscape had evolved into a fragmented and overly complex environment. Legacy systems, brittle integrations and siloed data created operational inefficiencies and restricted their ability to launch new digital services, innovate at pace and support a consistent member journey.

IXN Consult led a comprehensive discovery programme in partnership with branding agency Human After All. This combined strategic insight with on-the-ground immersion to build a complete picture of Virgin Active’s operational reality, organisational structure and member touchpoints.

This included stakeholder workshops at the Milton Keynes CSC and Barbican Head Office, site visits to multiple clubs, surveys with General Managers across the UK, and digital audits of competitors and adjacent brands. These activities surfaced critical insights into system pain points, user experience gaps and opportunities for transformation.

IXN undertook a deep technical audit of Virgin Active’s data architecture, system integrations and platform landscape. We identified excessively complex point-to-point integrations, outdated and unmaintainable legacy code, and inconsistent data flows that inhibited performance and scalability.

Our analysis highlighted the need for a fundamental simplification of the integration model, alongside modernisation of infrastructure and development practices. This technical clarity enabled us to define a practical path forward that balanced strategic ambition with real-world implementation constraints.

We designed a simplified integration layer to replace fragmented connections, enabling streamlined data exchange and improved system reliability. This architecture empowered functionality such as class booking, performance tracking, self-service membership management and scalable digital service expansion, while being implemented by Virgin Active’s internal development team to ensure long-term ownership.

We also recommended a distributed and resilient cloud hosting architecture, adoption of React.js for web and React Native for mobile, and the introduction of end-to-end testing, unit testing and OpenAPI-based documentation standards. This created a robust foundation for continuous innovation and future AI-driven capabilities.

The transformation strategy delivered by IXN enabled Virgin Active to modernise its digital foundation and establish a clear pathway to scalable growth and enhanced member engagement. The new architecture reduced complexity, improved system reliability and positioned the organisation for accelerated innovation.

• 60% increase in booking conversion rate.
• 50% reduction in integration complexity
• 40% faster time-to-launch for new digital features
• Improved website performance and load times by up to 60%
• 11% increase in retention through self service improvements.
• Reduced operational support requests relating to system failures