Reading a new report entitled The Pro-Am Revolution by the think tank Demos has left me with a feeling I never thought I’d have: nerd envy.

Yes, thanks to a group of policy wonks I now long to get in touch with my inner anorak, become a trainspotter, buy a shed and go geek. Let me explain.

The report presents a remarkable picture of contemporary Britain. It’s of a land awash with committed, capable and energetic amateurs of every persuasion — astronomers, writers, painters, magistrates, soldiers, landscape gardeners, sportsmen, anglers, actors, pet breeders, political activists and computer programmers. These people are having more fun than the rest of us.

To which you might be tempted to say: that’s nice, dear, now off you go for a potter in your shed and you’ll soon see reason.

But according to Demos, it’s time we stopped laughing and started learning from these people. They are the vanguard of a social revolution and will “have a huge influence on the shape of society in the next two decades”.

What the researchers have discovered is a new breed of amateur they have dubbed the Pro-Am. They are extremely knowledgeable about their hobby and connected to a community of fellow enthusiasts. Pro-Ams are breaking down the barrier between work and leisure, generating social capital and innovating important ideas.

This research directly contradicts the Bowling Alone thesis of Robert Putnam, the American sociologist, who argued that membership of clubs and community activities is in decline. On the contrary, argues Demos, in Britain Pro-Am activities are creating new forms of community based not on neighbourhoods nor class but on common interests and hobbies.

What I envy about Pro-Ams is their passion and devotion to something outside the realm of work. They are motivated by pure love for what they do — or so we are to believe.

But who are these people who spend every moment of their free time painting, writing, protesting, gardening and innovating — and why aren’t they stressed out, exhausted and slumped in front of the television watching I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! like the rest of us? And is this really a social revolution in the making or just the kind of sociological delusion that think tanks are prone to? Apparently rap music, the Linux open software movement and the Sims computer phenomenon are examples of big cultural developments that are by-products of the Pro-Am movement. Rap music began in the bedrooms of largely poor urban blacks in America. Linux — a software system that has become one of the biggest challengers of Microsoft — was started by Linus Torvalds, a pasty-looking computer geek in Finland.

Britain’s Pro-Ams have also made their mark. The Jubilee 2000 campaign began life with one campaigner in a shed near London’s South Bank in the mid-1990s. Since then about $36 billion (about £18.5 billion) of developing world debt has been cancelled.

You could say that Trevor Baylis, the inventor of the clockwork radio, Nicholas Grimshaw, the creator of the Eden project, and the Paralympic gold medallist Aileen McGlynn are examples of the Great British Pro-Am at their best.

The amateur has always played an important role in British life. Go back to the industrial revolution and you find gifted amateurs such as James Watt and Josiah Wedgewood.

Throughout the last quarter of the 19th century, Britain’s elite — “gentlemen” with an education in the classics — were essentially amateurs and yet ruled one of the largest empires the world has known. Even as late as 1941 George Orwell could write: “We are a nation of . . . stamp collectors, amateur carpenters, darts players.”