National Minimum Wage Naming Scheme Employer API

What does National Minimum Wage Naming Scheme Employer API do?

This tool returns the UK government's official minimum wage naming scheme data: the periodic rounds in which the Department for Business and Trade names and shames employers found to have underpaid the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage. Each record is one named employer from one round, with their location, arrears owed and workers affected, sourced directly from the official press release on www.gov.uk. HR teams, compliance and due- diligence researchers, journalists and payroll advisers use it to check whether a company has ever been named, and to track each new round as it is published.

What you get

• Employer: name, town/location and postcode district as published (outward code only, e.g. BB1 - the source never gives a full address or postcode). Companies, charities, schools, councils and other organisations are named; sole traders and partners the source names as people are not (see "No named individuals" below).
• The underpayment: arrears owed (£) and number of workers affected.
• The round: round number, the date it was published, and a link back to the official press release for every record, plus the original published sentence for every employer so you can always check a record against the source.
• Filter by employer name or fetch one specific round by number.
• An only-new alert mode so a scheduled run only returns rounds published since the last run.
• Export to JSON, CSV or Excel, or push straight to Google Sheets; usable from AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

Alerts: only new rounds

Turn on Only new rounds since last run and schedule the Actor (e.g. weekly). It remembers the highest round number it has already delivered for your employer filter and, on later runs, returns only naming rounds published since then - so a scheduled run never re-sends the same round twice.

How much does it cost?

You pay per employer record saved, with no monthly fee: $3.00 per 1,000 records on Apify's free plan, and 10-40% less on paid Apify plans. Each run also costs $0.001 to start. Apify's free plan includes $5 of credit every month, enough for about 1,650 records. Prices as of October 2026; the price shown on this page is the one that applies.

Use	Records	Cost on the free plan
The latest naming round	~650	about $1.95
One past round by number	~250-650 (varies by round)	about $0.75-$1.95
A weekly scheduled alert run (new rounds only)	~0-650 a month	about $0-$1.95 a month

Set Maximum cost per run to cap any run; the Actor stops cleanly at the cap and keeps everything it saved.

Ready-made inputs

{ "rounds": 1 }

The latest naming round (tested locally: Round 24, 657 employers).

{ "rounds": 1, "roundNumber": 22 }

One specific past round by its official round number (tested locally: Round 22, 491 employers).

{ "rounds": 1, "employerName": "B&Q" }

Only employers whose published name contains this text, in the latest round (tested locally: matches "B&Q LIMITED" in Round 24).

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
rounds	integer	required, prefill 1	How many of the most recent naming rounds to fetch, newest first. Ignored if roundNumber is set.
roundNumber	integer	0	Fetch one specific round by its official number instead of the most recent ones. 0 means "use rounds".
employerName	string	""	Only return employers whose published name contains this text (case-insensitive).
onlyNewSinceLastRun	boolean	false	Alert mode: only return rounds published since the last run with this employer filter.
maxItems	integer	5000	Stop after this many employer records.

Output

One dataset item per named employer. A real item from a local test run (Round 24):

{
  "round": 24,
  "roundDate": "2026-09-03",
  "employerName": "B&Q LIMITED",
  "nameWithheld": false,
  "location": "Eastleigh",
  "postcodeDistrict": "SO53",
  "arrearsGbp": 456934.72,
  "workersAffected": 4530,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/government/news/short-changing-staff-isnt-a-shortcut-to-success-nearly-660-employers-announced-as-failing-to-pay-the-minimum-wage",
  "rawListing": "1. B&Q LIMITED, Eastleigh, SO53, failed to pay £456,934.72 to 4,530 workers."
}

location is null when the source publishes no town for that employer. postcodeDistrict is the outward code only (no full postcode is published). A handful of employer names published by the source themselves contain a comma (mostly NHS trusts, e.g. "St George's, Epsom and St Helier..."); for those the employerName/location split may not be exact - rawListing always has the original published sentence, unedited, so you can check any record against the source.

For a listing whose employer is a named person, nameWithheld is true and employerName, location and rawListing are null; the round, postcode district, arrears, workers affected and source link are kept, so totals per round stay complete.

Use it from AI agents

Add the Actor to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client through the Apify MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tabulary/uk-minimum-wage-naming-scheme). Ask in plain language, for example: "Has B&Q ever been named in the UK minimum wage naming scheme?" The agent fills in the input and gets structured records back.

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tabulary~uk-minimum-wage-naming-scheme/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"rounds": 1}'

The same works with the Apify Python and JavaScript clients. See the API tab for details.

Data source and limits

• Source: www.gov.uk, via the public GOV.UK Search API and content API (no key, no login). Terms and content are published under the Open Government Licence.
• There is no dedicated API or index for the naming scheme: each round is one Department for Business press release, found by searching recent press releases and checking which ones list employers. This Actor scans up to the 40 most recent Department for Business press releases per run; a round that is older than that (roughly a year or more back) will not be found by roundNumber, and the Actor says so rather than returning nothing silently.
• The employer list is parsed from the press release's own published text, not from the attached spreadsheet. The source has changed this text's exact formatting between rounds (a plain list vs a table) without changing its wording, which this Actor already handles; a future wording change could require an update.
• The underlying government department has changed name mid-scheme; this Actor checks press releases under both its current and previous name so a rename does not stop new rounds being found. A further rename would need a code update.
• No named individuals: the source also names sole traders and partners as people (about 8% of a round, e.g. "Mr A Smith"), and the Open Government Licence does not cover personal data. A name is kept only when it is clearly an organisation (Ltd, PLC, LLP, CIC, school, council, trust, charity and similar) and carries no personal title; otherwise it is withheld. A few trading names without such a marker are withheld too. The source never names individual workers.
• Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department for Business and Trade or any other publisher.

Other Tabulary tools

Clean data from official and public sources, priced per result:

• UK Payment Practices Report API
• UK Modern Slavery Statements
• UK Gender Pay Gap Reports

FAQ

Is this data official? Yes. Every record comes from the Department for Business and Trade's own published press release on gov.uk, word for word.

How far back does it go? As far back as a naming round can still be found among the most recent ~40 Department for Business press releases - in practice roughly a year or more. Use roundNumber to try a specific past round; the Actor tells you plainly if it can't be found in that window rather than returning nothing.

Why is location sometimes missing or combined oddly with the employer name? The source itself publishes a flat, comma-separated sentence per employer with no fixed structure. This Actor splits it as "name, then location", which is right for the vast majority of employers but can be imperfect for the few names that themselves contain a comma. rawListing always has the untouched original text.

Why are some employer names withheld? They name a person rather than an organisation (sole traders and partnerships). Tabulary does not republish lists of named people; the row's arrears, workers affected and postcode district are still included, and sourceUrl links to the original announcement.

Something broke? Open an issue on the Issues tab. The Actor is tested daily.

Changelog

• 2026-11-02: employers named as people (sole traders, partners) are now withheld: nameWithheld is true and the name, location and raw line are left out.

• 2026-10-31: first version: discovers each naming round via the official GOV.UK Search API and parses the employer list straight from the press release, with filters by employer name or round number and an only-new alert mode by round number.

About Tabulary

This tool is part of Tabulary: clean tables from official public sources. Every Tabulary tool uses the source's official API or open data where one exists, collects no personal data, and is tested on Apify every day. Questions or ideas? Open an issue on the Issues tab.