UK Civil Service Jobs Scraper

Scrape civil service jobs and UK government jobs from civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk into clean, structured JSON — no API key and no login required. Get every live Civil Service vacancy with title, department, grade, salary band, location, closing date, reference number and a direct apply link.

There is no official Civil Service Jobs API, and the popular free GitHub scraper stopped working in February 2025. This Actor is the maintained, structured way to get the data — export to JSON/CSV/Excel or call it from an AI agent via MCP.

What does UK Civil Service Jobs Scraper do?

It scrapes live UK Civil Service vacancies straight from the official civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk recruitment site and returns each one as a structured record. Run it with no configuration to pull every current vacancy, or filter by keyword, department or location. The site sits behind an ALTCHA browser check and has no public API — this Actor handles that for you and gives you analysis-ready data.

• ✅ Every live vacancy, refreshed on each run (no stale cache)
• ✅ Structured fields: title, department, grade, salary (min/max + raw), location, contract type, working pattern, closing date, reference, apply URL
• ✅ Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or stream via API & webhooks
• ✅ MCP-ready — callable by Claude, ChatGPT and other AI agents
• ✅ Zero-config: just press Start

What data can I extract?

Field	Type	Example
title	string	Senior Data Scientist
department	string	Department for Work and Pensions
grade	string	Grade 7
salaryMin	number|null	54358
salaryMax	number|null	65000
salaryText	string	£54,358 - £65,000
location	string	Leeds, Manchester
contractType	string	Permanent
workingPattern	string	Full-time
closingDate	string (ISO)	2026-07-04
reference	string	388291
applyUrl	string	https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=388291
description	string	full job summary, person spec, selection process…
scrapedAt	string (ISO)	2026-06-17T09:12:00Z

Why scrape Civil Service Jobs? (use cases)

• 📊 Track UK government hiring trends and headcount growth by department
• 💷 Benchmark Civil Service salary bands and grades
• 🔔 Monitor new vacancies daily and trigger alerts / Slack / email
• 🤖 Feed structured gov-jobs data to an AI job-search or research agent via MCP
• 🏛️ Fill the analytical gap — even the Institute for Government lacks vacancy-level data

Is there an official Civil Service Jobs API?

No. A Civil Service Jobs API existed around 2009 but was retired around 2012, and the data.gov.uk dataset was discontinued (last updated 2016). Today the data is only available as HTML on the live site, behind an ALTCHA browser check. This Actor is the only maintained, structured way to access it — it returns the same vacancies as the website, as JSON/CSV.

Why did the free GitHub Civil Service jobs scraper stop working?

The well-known open-source scraper (heathd/civil_service_jobs) stopped collecting data on 19 February 2025, when the site added a CAPTCHA its HTTP-only approach couldn't pass. This Actor is the maintained, ALTCHA-solved replacement: it runs a real browser, clears the check automatically, and keeps a stable, named output schema.

How to use it (Quick Start)

1. Click Start with the default input to scrape all current vacancies (or set Max results to cap spend while testing).
2. Optionally add a Search keyword, Department or Location filter.
3. Wait for the run to finish (a capped test run returns in ~2–3 minutes).
4. Download results as JSON / CSV / Excel, or pull them via the API.

Input

{
  "searchKeyword": "data",
  "departments": ["Department for Work and Pensions"],
  "location": "Manchester",
  "maxResults": 100,
  "includeFullDescription": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

All fields are optional. An empty input {} scrapes every live vacancy.

Output sample

{
  "title": "Senior Data Scientist",
  "department": "Department for Work and Pensions",
  "grade": "Grade 7",
  "salaryMin": 54358,
  "salaryMax": 65000,
  "salaryText": "£54,358 - £65,000",
  "location": "Leeds, Manchester",
  "contractType": "Permanent",
  "workingPattern": "Full-time",
  "closingDate": "2026-07-04",
  "closingText": "11:55 pm on Sunday 4th July 2026",
  "reference": "388291",
  "applyUrl": "https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=388291",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-17T09:12:00Z"
}

Exports: JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, plus API access and webhooks.

Pricing

$0.005 per result. Failed runs are not charged, and the first 25 results are free so you can try it risk-free. A full scrape of every live vacancy (~2,000) costs roughly $5–$20 — there is no other structured source for this data.

How fresh is the data?

Every run fetches live data at execution time — there is no cached copy. Schedule a daily run to keep a continuously fresh feed of UK government vacancies.

Use it with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is exposed through Apify's MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com, so AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT, LangChain, custom agents) can call it per query — e.g. "find current Grade 7 data roles in DEFRA closing this month."

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

Is it legal to scrape Civil Service Jobs?

This Actor collects public job postings only — no personal data. The vacancy content is Crown copyright, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, and collection is supported by a documented Legitimate Interest Assessment.

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the UK Civil Service, the Cabinet Office, or any government department.

Why GovJobs Data?

• Reliability is the product. Government sites change layouts and add bot-checks — we maintain this scraper so it keeps working, including the CAPTCHA handling that breaks DIY scripts.
• Clean, predictable output. Flat JSON, stable field names, ISO dates — ready for spreadsheets, databases, and AI agents, every time.
• Compliance-first. Public, non-personal job postings only, under the Open Government Licence — and recruiter contact details are automatically redacted.
• We respond. Need an extra field, a new filter, or hit a problem? Open an issue — we take requests and fix breakages fast.

Built and maintained by GovJobs Data — structured, reliable UK government & public-sector datasets.

FAQ

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Changelog

• v1.0.0 — Initial release (2026-06). Full live-vacancy scrape, ALTCHA handling, structured schema, MCP support.

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Maintained by GovJobs Data. Questions, a missing field, or a dataset request → open an issue on this Actor and we'll respond.