The Q4 2025 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 Q4 2025 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 Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these 12 childcare providers on, check out our quick-look table below;
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.
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.
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 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 Q4 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK childcare providers was £84, 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 £135 . 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, The Old Station Nursery Group reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £13, and Bright Horizons has the highest at £1,520.
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, Busy Bees Nurseries has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £82, and Bright Horizons has the highest at £6,080.
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.
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 reported the most 404 errors (376). This quarter, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools remains the provider to watch, though they’ve dramatically reduced their total 404 errors to 84. The remaining websites can prevent 404 errors by regularly auditing their internal and external links. Proactive link monitoring ensures a smoother browsing experience.
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 audit, Grandir UK reported the slowest mobile site speed (9). This quarter, Grandir UK has moved from the bottom of the leaderboard to the provider to beat, with a mobile site speed score of 58. Currently, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools is the one to watch, with a mobile site speed of 13. Websites can regularly increase their mobile site speed by optimising image sizes and formats. Using next-gen formats like WebP and compressing large visuals reduces load times without compromising quality. Regularly reviewing media assets ensures the site remains lightweight and efficient.
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, Banana Moon Franchise received the lowest DA score (13). This quarter, Little Pioneers is at the bottom of the leaderboard, with a DA score of 4.9 — well below the ‘average’ zone. Building strong backlinks from reputable websites is another key step. Reaching out for guest posts, partnerships, or mentions in industry publications can improve link quality. The more authoritative the linking sites are, the greater the impact on domain authority.
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 providers reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Monkey Puzzle Day Nurseries receiving the biggest loss (-84%). On mobile, 6 providers reported a drop in organic traffic, with Little Pioneers receiving the biggest loss on this device (57%). Optimising on-page SEO elements like meta titles, descriptions, and headers also boosts visibility. These elements help search engines understand page relevance while encouraging higher click-through rates from users. Regular optimisation ensures strong performance across all devices.
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 is the brand to beat for the most Universal Search appearances (3,784) — an increase from 3,152 previously. The majority of this brand’s appearances came from ‘images’ (3,200).
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 Nurseries continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,595) — overtaking Bright Horizons from the previous quarter. Busy Bees Nurseries also reported the most appearances for positions 4–10 — overtaking Bright Horizons again. Including longtail keywords in meta titles, descriptions, and headings improves search engine visibility. These areas are highly weighted in SEO, so well-chosen phrases can help pages rank for precise, intent-driven searches. It also makes content more engaging and informative for readers.
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 Busy Bees Nurseries’ sponsored Facebook posts. This UK childcare provider utilised branding throughout their posts to help people identify them easily.
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.
Busy Bees Nurseries secured the most Facebook Likes (56,500) and the most Instagram followers (23,300). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Little Pioneers received the highest total engagement rate (351) and the highest average engagement (20).
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 audit, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools reported the most accessibility alerts (301). This quarter, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools remains the childcare provider to watch, though they’ve since slightly decreased their total accessibility alerts to 273.
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.