About Us

Strength is at the heart of everything we do; that’s because here at Depot Climbing we believe that comes in many forms, it’s not just about strength of body, but of character too.

We believe we can conquer any challenge in life with greater strength, whether climbing on plastic and rock or conquering life’s daily challenges. We aim to provide you with the training aids to build strong climbers and strong characters.

Climbing in all of its various disciplines is becoming more and more popular by the day!

So why climbing?

If you’ve found this wonderful sport recently, or you are thinking of chalking up for the first time, find out about the social and physical benefits of this amazing sport.

Find out what makes climbing so awesome below.

We aim to be as accessible and inclusive as possible, and we are always looking at how we can remove barriers to entry in any of our climbing walls.  We aim to be able to offer climbing to everyone, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, everyone at Depot Climbing is equal and will be treated equally when visiting.

If you have any contributions or have some changes you’d like to see, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]

Bouldering is a style of climbing that does not involve ropes or a harness, climbing at lower levels and relying on matting underneath the wall to mitigate the risk of falling.  Our walls are up to 4 meters high, and the matting does not guarantee your safety, so roped climbing may be more suitable if you have reservations about the risks involved in bouldering.

BIG Depots are the roped climbing facilities within the Depot Climbing group, offering all types of climbing styles from auto belays and top ropes to lead climbing. Climbing using a rope involves 2 people, but can be done in a group, with the person climbing the route tied to the rope that is controlled by another person (belayer) on the ground.

Top roping and lead climbing are the most popular forms of roped climbing.  Top rope climbing is when the rope is already in place at the top of the wall, with the rope coming down to the climber from above.

Lead climbing is a more advanced technique where the climber manages the rope as they ascend the wall, clipping it to protection points as they move up.

Auto belay climbing is similar to top rope climbing, but without the need for a belayer to manage the rope from the bottom, instead, a mechanical device is located at the top of the route that has a mechanical breaking system to gently lower the climber to the ground when they either fall off the route or reach the top.

Read centre-specific Accessibility Statements by selecting your local Depot Climbing centre below

With over 170 employees across the business, we take care to recruit the friendliest, keenest people to make up our teams; because our walls can only be as good as the staff who keep them running.

All of our Wall Assistants, Managers and Instructors are DBS-checked and NSPCC Child Protection trained so you can be sure you’re juniors are in the safest hands. 

We are also an official partner of the NSPCC, ensuring you can be comfortable in the knowledge that our centres are a safe space for families to enjoy their love of climbing.

To ensure our staff are here to support you, we support them with benefits such as unlimited climbing, staff deals and discounts within our shops and with our suppliers, career progression opportunities, and an Employee Assistance Program to help with their mental and physical well-being.

Our brand of setting is carefully constructed to build power, and resilience, and nurture our playful sides.  Our climbs are easy to understand and suitable for each level of climbing, ensuring there is something for all climbers at any stage of their journey.

Our colour-coded climbing circuits are tailored not just in difficulty, but in hold styles too, providing you with an experience that is conducive to taking your indoor climbing to the first steps into outdoor rock climbing if your journey takes that direction. 

Each graded circuit is artistically designed to be accessible to climbers of those grades, with a clear visual pathway for them to map out their progression through the levels.  We ensure that all indoor climbing on our walls are accessible to users of those grades, to enjoy and learn, and become stronger.

Our easier bouldering circuits and roped climbs are curated to be accessible to beginners, children and older climbers while remaining engaging for experienced and stronger climbers. Meanwhile, our harder climbs should be accessible to those smaller in stature, being hard doesn’t mean just making the holds further apart!

We’ve structured our setting team in a hierarchical system to ensure that at every stage of our route setting we not only have the best people in posts, but they are held to account for successfully delivering world-class indoor climbing experiences.

Consisting of a Head of Climbing who is part of our Senior Management team, overseeing area Head Setters, who in turn manage individual site-setting teams built of in-house route setters and freelancers.  This structure ensures consistency of product across every Depot Climbing wall and allows for a range of diverse problem-solving from some of the best setters in the indoor climbing world.

We are proud to host an in-house route-setting program that increases the diversity of our setting teams across the business and provides a career pathway for those looking to progress. This program is open to any member of Depot Climbing staff who shows an interest and a passion for indoor climbing, bouldering, and problem-solving.

Our Depot Climbing shops mirror our climbing philosophy; by putting climbing at the heart of every decision. Combining our extensive knowledge, climbing background, and training directly from our suppliers, we can bring our community the best products on the market, for every stage of their climbing journey. 

All of our sites have a retail space, providing a range of hand-selected products.

We provide extensive staff training, often working with brands and suppliers to guarantee our teams have the best knowledge possible to make sure we find the right product for your needs; from climbing shoes, harnesses and accessories to bouldering mats, hardware, guidebooks, and consumables (chalk).

Across Depot Climbing, we are proud to support emerging brands alongside our longstanding relationships with some of the biggest names in climbing equipment. Our Retail Team and dedicated Retail Manager work closely to make sure we are well stocked with the season’s best products, as well as setting up brand events and making our shops accessible countrywide via our website. 

We love working with brands to make our retail and in-centre practices good for the planet as well as for climbers, from La Sportiva recycle bins to using carbon-neutral DPD delivery.

We have also been working with our partner Scarpa to make our rental shoes not just great to climb in but regularly re-soled. So far we have re-soled over 200 pairs of shoes across our sites since we started the program at the end of 2022.