The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK childcare providers has just been published. Learn how 12 of the largest UK childcare providers perform across the digital space. 

The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK Childcare providers has just been published. It covers 12 large national childcare providers, including Bright Horizons, Childbase, Thrive Childcare and Education, Kids Planet, Monkey Puzzle Day Nurseries, Little Pioneers, Banana Moon Franchise, Family First Day Nurseries, Fennies Nurseries, Grandir UK, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools, and The Old Station Nursery Group.

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other childcare providers to win brand exposure locally, build organic visibility, and generate online enquiries. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2026 WINNERS LEADERBOARD*

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these 12 childcare providers on, check out our quick-look table below;

To understand what the  *CTM Digital Performance Index™ is click here. Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing childcare providers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each site based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing.  Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

For Q1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK childcare providers was£1,417 with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £20.This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Kids Planet reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at£0, and Bright Horizons has the highest at £52.

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Family First Day Nurseries has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £2,470, and BusyBees has the highest at £24,600.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. Childcare providers won't have content which faces frequent changes, such as product pages, so brands in this sector should be able to effectively maintain technical website compliance.

In our previous audit, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools received the most 404 errors (84). This quarter, Happy Days Nurseries &Pre-Schools has since increased their 404 errors to 258 — continuing to make them the childcare provider to watch. Using custom 404 pages can support a proactive user experience strategy. While they don’t prevent errors, well-designed 404 pages guide users back to relevant content, reducing frustration and ensuring that a mistake doesn’t become the end of their journey.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Building trust is crucial for brands within the childcare sector, so these providers will want to ensure their site is fast, and gives an excellent impression of their services at every touch point.

In our previous report, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools received the slowest mobile site speed (13).This quarter, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools continues to sit at the bottom of the leader board, decreasing their mobile site speed to 3. Fast mobile site speed improves user satisfaction, engagement, conversions, visibility, and brand trust, while supporting stronger marketing performance and long-term growth.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. An effective digital PR strategy can help any childcare provider achieve high-value backlinks.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our last report, Little Pioneers reported the lowest DA score (4.9). This quarter, Little Pioneers has increased their DA score to 26, so they’re no longer at the bottom of the scoreboard. Currently, the childcare provider with the lowest DA score is Thrive Childcare and Education (23). Websites can proactively strengthen their domain authority by consistently publishing high-quality, original content that genuinely answers user needs. Search engines reward sites that demonstrate expertise, relevance, and value, which naturally attracts organic links and builds long-term authority.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. Though many sectors we specialise in are seeing the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, and battling for a smaller pool of potential customers, childcare is an essential service for many families, limiting the potential for users to turn elsewhere for alternative solutions.

Seven brands reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Monkey Puzzle Day Nurseries reporting the biggest loss(-69%). On mobile, seven brands reported a drop in organic traffic, with the biggest decrease being -86%. Local search behaviour is far more dominant on mobile devices. Users searching on mobile are more likely to look for nearby services, directions, or immediate solutions. Brands that are not optimised for local SEO may see lower mobile organic traffic compared to desktop traffic.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For childcare providers, who want to build trust, 'reviews' and 'image pack' results are a great way to tell (and show) parents more about their nurseries.

Bright Horizons continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (8,129) — an increase from 3,784 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (6,900).

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Longtail keywords for nurseries may reflect prospective parents looking for specific details about the locations, such as for information about food menus and outdoor facilities, or they could be focused on fee information and funding.

Busy Bees secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,706) — an increase from 1,595 previously. Busy Bees also secured the most appearances for positions 4–10 (2,550). Longtail keywords support stronger content relevance and user satisfaction. By matching specific search queries, websites can create content that directly answers user needs, improving engagement, time on page, and overall experience. Search engines reward this relevance with better rankings and visibility.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Childcare providers can use Facebook ads to target specific areas where they have more places available, and advertise any upcoming open days that can provide in-person opportunities to convert.

We’ve included screenshots of Family First Day Nurseries’ sponsored Facebook posts. This UK childcare provider should reduce the amount of text per post, keeping to a maximum of three lines of text to encourage social media users to stop and read their content.

Top Social Shares & Content

When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Childcare providers can look to creating shareable content about child development, nutrition, and education as a simple way to get high levels of engagement and build trust in their brand.

BusyBees secured the most Facebook Likes (56,900) and the most Instagram followers(23,700). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Kids Planet received the highest total engagement rate (1,734) and the highest average engagement (61).

Website Readability & Accessibility

20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. For childcare providers needing to build trust, they must ensure accessibility is one of their foremost considerations when developing their site.

In our previous report, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools flagged the most accessibility alerts (273). This quarter, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools has dramatically reduced their accessibility alerts — currently reporting zero. Currently, the childcare provider with the most accessibility alerts is Fennies Nurseries (a total of 97). Proactively training teams on accessibility best practices reduces long-term alert issues. When designers, developers, and content creators understand accessibility requirements, fewer errors are introduced during everyday updates and content changes.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2026 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.