VAS Sheffield Jobs Scraper

Scrape voluntary-sector vacancies from jobs.vas.org.uk — Voluntary Action Sheffield's dedicated jobs board. Pulls every live vacancy via the public WP-JSON REST API: title, sector taxonomy, posted date, full description HTML, featured image, and the external apply URL extracted from the listing body. JSON or CSV out, no compute charge per run, just per result.

How it works

✨ Why use this scraper?

Building a Sheffield / South Yorkshire voluntary-sector dashboard? Tracking nonprofit hiring across charities, faith-based orgs, and community groups in the city? Need a clean dataset without manual scrolling?

• 🎯 Three starting points. The /current-vacancies/ page, a direct /vacancies/<slug>/ URL, or the WP-JSON endpoint — all auto-classified.
• ⚡ WP-JSON REST API as the data source. One fetch returns every active vacancy (~25 live at any time).
• 🏷️ Sector taxonomy inline. Administration, Community Development, Fundraising, Project Work, etc. embedded via WP-JSON _embed — no extra HTTP calls.
• 📧 External apply URL captured. VAS posts often link out to the org's own ATS / vacancy page — the body's first outbound link is extracted as externalApplyUrl.
• 🇬🇧 Sheffield-specific. Voluntary Action Sheffield is the city's CVS — every vacancy is local to Sheffield / South Yorkshire.
• 📤 Clean exports. One row per vacancy, all fields inline. JSON + CSV exported automatically.

🎯 Use cases

Team	What they build
Sheffield CVS / regional CVS network	Cross-region nonprofit recruitment comparisons
Voluntary sector recruiters	Daily new-vacancy feeds across the city
Workforce strategy / funders	Sector-by-sector hiring trends in Sheffield voluntary orgs
Researchers	Sheffield third-sector labour-market datasets
Job aggregators	External apply URLs (typically charity websites, JotForm, charity ATS) for redirect-and-track

📥 Supported inputs

URL pattern	Behaviour
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/current-vacancies/	Full listing — scrapes every live vacancy
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/vacancies/<slug>/	Single vacancy — translates to slug-filtered WP-JSON query
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies	WP-JSON endpoint — pass-through
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies/<id>	WP-JSON single record — translates to ?include=<id>

Leave startUrls empty to scrape every live vacancy.

Not supported: filtering by sector via URL query string; hosts outside jobs.vas.org.uk.

🔄 How it works

1. Classify each startUrl and translate it to the canonical /wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies shape.
2. Fetch the WP-JSON endpoint — typically just 1 request, since VAS has ~25 vacancies (fits in one page of 100).
3. Parse each vacancy item — title, content HTML, sector taxonomy, featured-media URL, author, dates.
4. Extract the apply target — first outbound mailto: → applyEmail, else first outbound URL → externalApplyUrl.
5. Push one normalised row per vacancy to the dataset.

⚙️ Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	array	["https://jobs.vas.org.uk/current-vacancies/"]	Browser URLs, single-vacancy URLs, or WP-JSON endpoints. Empty = scrape everything.
enrichTaxonomies	boolean	true	When true, embeds sector term names + featured image via WP-JSON _embed. Zero extra HTTP cost.
maxItems	integer	1000	Hard cap on rows pushed (~25 live).
maxConcurrency / minConcurrency	integer	5 / 1	Parallel WP-JSON page-fetch limits.
maxRequestRetries	integer	5	Retries before a failed request is given up.
proxy	object	No proxy	Site does not anti-bot — proxy optional.

📊 Output overview

Each scraped vacancy is one single dataset row of type: "job". Row count equals vacancy count exactly.

📦 Output sample

{
  "type": "job",
  "source": "jobs.vas.org.uk",
  "jobId": "12345",
  "slug": "administrator-finance-officer",
  "jobUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/vacancies/administrator-finance-officer/",
  "wpJsonUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies/12345",
  "title": "Administrator/Finance Officer",
  "description": "<p><a href=\"http://www.thefurnival.org/vacancies\">www.thefurnival.org/vacancies</a></p>",
  "descriptionText": "www.thefurnival.org/vacancies",
  "companyName": null,
  "companyWebsite": "http://www.thefurnival.org/vacancies",
  "companyDomain": "thefurnival.org",
  "location": "Sheffield, South Yorkshire",
  "remote": false,
  "salary": null,
  "sectors": ["Administration", "Community Development"],
  "categories": ["Administration", "Community Development"],
  "employmentTypes": [],
  "contractType": null,
  "status": "publish",
  "postedDate": "2026-05-19T20:14:23Z",
  "modifiedDate": null,
  "applyType": "external",
  "applyUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/vacancies/administrator-finance-officer/",
  "applyEmail": null,
  "externalApplyUrl": "http://www.thefurnival.org/vacancies",
  "featuredImageUrl": null,
  "authorId": 1,
  "authorName": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-20T00:13:00.000Z"
}

🗂 Key output fields

Group	Fields
Identifiers	type, source, jobId, slug, jobUrl, wpJsonUrl, scrapedAt
Role	title, description (HTML), descriptionText (plain)
Dates	postedDate (ISO), modifiedDate (ISO)
Employer	companyName (often null — VAS doesn't expose employer field), companyWebsite (≈ apply URL), companyDomain
Location	location (always Sheffield, South Yorkshire), remote
Taxonomies	sectors[], categories[] (mirror of sectors), employmentTypes[], contractType
Apply flow	applyType (email / external / internal), applyUrl, applyEmail, externalApplyUrl
WordPress meta	authorId, authorName, featuredImageUrl

❓ FAQ

Why is companyName always null? VAS Sheffield's WP custom post type is plain — it doesn't include WP Job Manager's _company_name meta. The employer is usually in the linked external page (e.g. thefurnival.org/vacancies). We extract the URL but don't follow it.

Why is salary always null? Same reason — no salary meta field. Salary information lives in the PDF or microsite the externalApplyUrl points to.

Can I get the full job spec? Not directly — but the externalApplyUrl typically links to a charity's vacancy page or a downloadable PDF with the full spec.

Can I scrape private pages or applicant data? No. Only the public WP-JSON endpoint.

How do I limit results? Set maxItems. VAS rarely has more than 25 live vacancies, so maxItems: 100 covers everything safely.

💬 Support

• For issues or feature requests, please use the Issues tab on the actor's Apify Console page.
• Author's website: https://muhamed-didovic.github.io/
• Email: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com

🛠 Additional services

• Custom output shape, additional fields, or one-off datasets: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com
• Similar scrapers for other CVS / volunteer hubs (Doing Good Leeds, VA Rotherham, York CVS, Barnsley CVS, BCVS): drop an email.
• For API access (no Apify fee, just usage): muhamed.didovic@gmail.com

🔎 Explore more scrapers

See other scrapers at memo23's Apify profile — covering job boards, real estate, social media, and more.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Voluntary Action Sheffield (VAS), jobs.vas.org.uk, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

The scraper accesses only the publicly available WP-JSON REST endpoint and public vacancy pages on jobs.vas.org.uk — no authenticated endpoints, recruiter-only features, or content behind a login. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with jobs.vas.org.uk's Terms of Service, applicable data-protection law (GDPR, CCPA, etc.), and any contractual obligations of their own organisation.

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