Jobs.ac.uk Scraper — Academic, Postdoc & PhD Jobs

Scrapes live job listings from jobs.ac.uk, the canonical UK academic employment board. Returns postdoctoral positions, PhD studentships, lectureships, professorships, and research roles — with salary bands, closing dates, contract type, and discipline.

What It Does

Paginates the jobs.ac.uk search endpoint by keyword (default: postdoctoral). Each page returns 25 results. The actor extracts the listing-card fields immediately and — when you enable detail-page fetching — enriches each record with the full job description, discipline classification, and structured contract data parsed from the site's inline JSON.

Key features:

• Searches by configurable keyword (postdoctoral, phd, lecturer, or anything else)
• Extracts 12 fields per listing from the search results page
• Optional detail-page pass adds full description, discipline, job type, hours, and contract type
• Paginates automatically up to maxPages pages (25 jobs each), or set 0 for unlimited
• No proxies required — site returns 200 from any datacenter IP

How It Works

1. Sends a request to /search/?keywords=<your keyword>&sortOrder=1&pageSize=25&startIndex=1
2. Parses the 25 job cards on the page — title, employer, department, location, salary, closing date, and date placed
3. Follows the "Next" pagination link up to your maxPages limit
4. If fetchDetailPages is enabled, fetches each job's detail page and parses the inline structured JSON for discipline, job type, hours, and contract type
5. Returns all records to the dataset; respects maxItems if set

📥 Input

{
  "keywords": "postdoctoral",
  "maxPages": 5,
  "maxItems": 100,
  "fetchDetailPages": false
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
keywords	string	postdoctoral	Search term. Try phd, lecturer, professor, or a subject area.
maxPages	integer	5	Pages to crawl (25 jobs per page). Set to 0 for unlimited.
fetchDetailPages	boolean	false	Fetch each job's detail page for full description, discipline, job type, and contract data. Slower but richer.
maxItems	integer	—	Hard cap on returned records. Omit or set 0 for unlimited.

Listing-only run (fast, ~25 results per page, no detail pages):

{ "keywords": "postdoctoral", "maxPages": 10, "maxItems": 250 }

Detail-enriched run (slower but includes full description and discipline):

{ "keywords": "phd studentship", "maxPages": 3, "fetchDetailPages": true }

📤 Output

Each record is a flat JSON object. Fields populated by listing-only vs. detail-enriched runs:

{
  "job_title": "Postdoctoral Research Associate in Computational Biology",
  "employer": "University of Cambridge",
  "department": "Department of Genetics",
  "location": "Cambridge",
  "salary": "£37,999 to £45,585 (per annum depending on experience)",
  "hours": "Full Time",
  "contract_type": "Fixed-Term/Contract",
  "placed_on": "04 Jun",
  "closing_date": "30 Jun",
  "job_type": "Academic or Research",
  "discipline": "Biological Sciences",
  "job_url": "https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ABC123/postdoctoral-research-associate",
  "description": "<p>We are seeking a talented postdoctoral researcher...</p>"
}

Field	Source	Description
job_title	Listing	Job title as posted
employer	Listing	University or institution name
department	Listing	Department or faculty
location	Listing	City or region of the position
salary	Listing	Advertised salary band
placed_on	Listing	Date the listing went live
closing_date	Listing	Application deadline
job_url	Listing	Direct link to the job listing
hours	Detail	Full Time / Part Time
contract_type	Detail	Fixed-Term/Contract, Permanent, etc.
job_type	Detail	Academic or Research, Management, Professional, etc.
discipline	Detail	Subject area (Biological Sciences, Computer Science, etc.)
description	Detail	Full job description HTML

Note: hours, contract_type, job_type, discipline, and description are empty strings unless fetchDetailPages: true.

🔍 FAQ

How do I scrape jobs.ac.uk? Jobs.ac.uk Scraper handles it end-to-end. Set your keywords input, choose how many pages to crawl, and optionally enable detail-page fetching. Results land in the Apify dataset as structured JSON.

What data can I get from jobs.ac.uk? Jobs.ac.uk Scraper returns job title, employer, department, location, salary, closing date, and job URL from every listing. Enable fetchDetailPages to also get the full description, discipline category, job type, hours, and contract type.

How much does the Jobs.ac.uk Scraper cost to run? Jobs.ac.uk Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing at a 0.9x coefficient — slightly cheaper than the Apify platform baseline. A typical run of 250 records costs around $0.25. Detail-page enrichment doubles the request count, so budget accordingly.

Can I filter by subject area or contract type? Jobs.ac.uk Scraper doesn't support faceted filtering directly. Use the keywords field to narrow by subject area (computational biology, machine learning, economics) or role type (phd studentship, lecturer). Post-filter the JSON output by discipline or contract_type after the run.

Does Jobs.ac.uk Scraper need proxies? No. jobs.ac.uk returns 200 from any datacenter IP without geo restriction or bot mitigation. Proxies would add cost with no benefit here.

Use Cases

• Academic recruiters building candidate pipeline databases for UK institutions
• PhD applicants and postdocs monitoring open positions across all UK universities
• Research offices tracking competitor hiring activity and departmental openings
• Data analysts studying salary trends, field growth, and closing-date lead times in UK academia
• Career services teams aggregating opportunities for advisees across all disciplines

Why Use Jobs.ac.uk Scraper?

Targeted — runs a live keyword search rather than crawling the whole site, so you get exactly the positions you want.

Complete fields — covers the data that academic job-seekers actually need: closing dates, salary bands, contract type, and discipline classification. Other actors return the title and a URL.

No proxies, no drama — the site doesn't block datacenter IPs. Cheaper runs and no flakiness from proxy rotation.

Need More Features?

Need custom fields, subject-area filtering, or a different job board? File an issue or get in touch.