UK Ofsted Inspections Scraper

UK Ofsted Inspections Scraper

Scrape Ofsted inspection reports for schools, nurseries, and childcare providers across the UK. Get ratings, report dates, URNs, and provider details in one flat dataset. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Ofsted publishes inspection outcomes for every school and childcare provider in England, but the official reports are spread across thousands of pages and not built for bulk analysis. This Actor searches the public Ofsted register by name, postcode, or URN, and returns each inspection as a clean row. Use it to monitor ratings, compare providers, or build your own local education dataset.

Who uses it	What they scrape Ofsted for
Education consultants	Benchmarking school performance across a local authority
Property developers	Checking nearby school ratings before marketing new homes
Parent groups	Comparing nurseries and primary schools in their area
Data journalists	Tracking changes in Ofsted ratings over time
Local authorities	Monitoring the quality of childcare providers in their region

What it does

This Actor collects Ofsted inspection records by search query and returns each one as a flat row with provider details and inspection outcomes.

• 🔍 Search by anything: provider name, postcode, town, or URN.
• 📄 Flat rows: each inspection is one record, ready for spreadsheets.
• ⚙️ Pagination control: set max pages to limit or expand the crawl.
• 📊 Bulk export: collect up to a million inspections per run.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Ofsted data

📈 Track school ratings over time.

A local authority runs the Actor monthly for all schools in its area to spot any decline in Ofsted ratings and intervene early.

🏡 Support property decisions.

An estate agent scrapes inspection data for schools near a new development to include ratings in property listings.

👶 Compare childcare options.

A parent group collects ratings for all nurseries in a postcode to shortlist the best-rated providers.

📰 Investigate education trends.

A data journalist scrapes inspections across England to analyse regional differences in school quality.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Uses the public Ofsted register, no registration needed
Structured data	Every inspection returned as a flat row with consistent fields
Scalable	Collect up to a million inspections per run
Flexible search	Find providers by name, postcode, town, or URN

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Ofsted the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	UK Ofsted Inspections Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Ofsted changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a search query for a provider name, postcode, town, or URN, and control how many inspections and pages to collect. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "searchQuery": "oxford",
  "maxItems": 10,
  "maxPages": 1
}

A larger pull:

{
  "searchQuery": "oxford",
  "maxItems": 200,
  "maxPages": 1
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.10
1,000 results	$21.00
10,000 results	$210.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the UK Ofsted Inspections Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Ofsted through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/uk-ofsted-inspections-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your search query. Try a broader term like a town name or a partial postcode. Also ensure maxPages is at least 1.

The run stops before collecting all inspections.

Increase maxItems or maxPages. If you hit the maxPages limit, the Actor stops crawling further result pages.

Some fields are empty in the output.

Not all providers have every field populated on the Ofsted register. Empty fields mean the data was not available for that inspection.

Can I search for a specific school by name?

Yes, enter the full or partial school name in the search query. The Actor will return all matching inspections.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is Ofsted?	Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. It inspects schools, nurseries, and childcare providers in England and publishes ratings from Outstanding to Inadequate.
What data does this Actor return?	Each row includes the provider name, URN, inspection date, overall rating, and other details available on the Ofsted register. The exact fields are shown in the sample output.
Can I search by postcode?	Yes, enter a full or partial postcode in the search query field to find providers in that area.
How many inspections can I collect?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 per run. Use maxPages to control how many result pages are crawled.
Do I need an API key or login?	No, the Actor reads the public Ofsted register directly. No registration or API key is required.
What is a URN?	A Unique Reference Number (URN) is assigned to every provider on the Ofsted register. You can search by URN to get the exact inspection record.
Can I export the data?	Yes, you can export the results to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify dataset.
Does this cover all of the UK?	Ofsted covers England only. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have separate inspectorates.
How often is the data updated?	The Actor reads live data from the Ofsted register each time it runs, so you always get the latest published inspections.
Can I schedule regular runs?	Yes, you can set up a schedule in Apify to run the Actor daily, weekly, or monthly and receive updated datasets.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Ofsted. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.