Totaljobs Jobs Search Scraper

Extract structured UK job vacancies from official TotalJobs search and detail pages. The Actor supports keyword search, one detail URL, or a bounded list of detail URLs. It follows detail pages before saving data and fails closed instead of publishing search-card fragments as complete jobs.

What it extracts

• Job title, company, location, and canonical job URL
• Salary text and normalized minimum/maximum values when published
• Employment type, work arrangement, and contract information
• Full job description and description HTML
• Skills, benefits, category, seniority, and education fields when available
• Publication and expiry dates when exposed by the source
• Source provenance, stable job ID, extraction timestamp, and detail-verification metadata

TotalJobs controls which fields are available for each vacancy. Missing optional source fields remain null or empty; the Actor never invents values.

Input modes

Search

Set mode to search, provide query and location, and bound the run with maxItems, maxPages, and maxRequests.

{
    "mode": "search",
    "query": "software engineer",
    "location": "London",
    "maxItems": 3,
    "maxPages": 1,
    "maxRequests": 4
}

Single job

{
    "mode": "single",
    "jobUrl": "https://www.totaljobs.com/job/example-job/example-company-job123456789"
}

Multiple jobs

Set mode to multiple and provide at least two official /job/...-job<ID> URLs in jobUrls or startUrls. Direct URLs are canonicalized and deduplicated.

Proxy and access

The default is a direct connection. TotalJobs can return Akamai challenge pages or 403 responses from some data-center networks. If that happens, enable proxyConfiguration; a country-matched residential proxy is generally more reliable for this UK source. Proxy use is optional and billed according to the selected proxy service.

{
    "mode": "search",
    "query": "software engineer",
    "location": "London",
    "maxItems": 1,
    "maxPages": 1,
    "maxRequests": 2,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
    }
}

The Actor uses the browser bundled in its container on Apify Cloud and can use installed Google Chrome during local execution.

Output

Each dataset item is one detail-verified job. The dataset schema provides table, JSON, and overview views. The OUTPUT key-value-store record contains the run summary, including requested and extracted counts, runtime, access method, diagnostics, and proxy telemetry.

{
    "jobId": "123456789",
    "title": "Software Engineer",
    "company": "Example Ltd",
    "location": "London",
    "description": "Full source-provided job description...",
    "url": "https://www.totaljobs.com/job/example-job/example-ltd-job123456789",
    "source": "TotalJobs",
    "detailVerified": true
}

Reliability and limits

• Search results are paginated only up to maxPages and stop after maxItems complete records.
• maxRequests is a hard request ceiling and must allow one search request plus the requested detail pages.
• Requests use bounded timeouts, retries, and an optional delay.
• Job identity is checked between the requested URL and extracted page data.
• Duplicate IDs and URLs, challenge pages, non-job pages, and incomplete detail records cause a diagnostic failure instead of partial output.
• Vacancies can expire between search discovery and detail extraction. Reduce maxItems or rerun with fresh URLs if the source removes a listing.

Local development

npm install
npm test
apify run --purge --input-file INPUT.json
npm run validate:dataset

Use small inputs when validating source behavior. Automated use remains subject to TotalJobs terms and applicable law.