We extract ministerial spend, geographic boundaries, transport feeds, and environmental metrics from data.gov.uk. Delivered as clean JSON, CSV, or Parquet to S3, BigQuery, or Snowflake on your cadence.
Structured, schema-consistent data across all major object types — delivered clean, typed, and ready to query.
Complete list of extractable fields for Dataset Metadata objects from data.gov.uk. All fields typed and schema-versioned.
"dataset_id": "8a3c8c22-921a-4299-81a6-0683a48e8971", "title": "Ministry of Defence spending over 25000", "publisher": "Ministry of Defence", "date_updated": "2026-03-14T10:00:00Z", "license": "Open Government Licence v3.0", "resource_count": 142, "frequency": "Monthly"
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Complete list of extractable fields for Resource Files objects from data.gov.uk. All fields typed and schema-versioned.
"resource_id": "b1a7c5c2-612a-4299-81a6-0683a48e8971", "dataset_id": "8a3c8c22-921a-4299-81a6-0683a48e8971", "name": "MOD Spend March 2026", "format": "CSV", "url": "https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/112/mod-spend-march-2026.csv", "size_bytes": 4581920, "last_modified": "2026-04-10T09:15:00Z"
| # | resource_id | dataset_id | name | format | url | size_bytes |
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Complete list of extractable fields for Government Spend objects from data.gov.uk. All fields typed and schema-versioned.
"department": "Ministry of Defence", "entity": "Defence Equipment and Support", "date": "2026-03-15", "expense_type": "IT Infrastructure", "supplier": "BAE Systems", "transaction_number": "TXN-884921", "amount": 145000.0, "currency": "GBP"
| # | department | entity | date | expense_type | expense_area | supplier |
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Complete list of extractable fields for Geographic Data objects from data.gov.uk. All fields typed and schema-versioned.
"feature_id": "E09000001", "geometry_type": "MultiPolygon", "boundary_name": "City of London", "region": "London", "area_sqkm": 2.9, "local_authority": "City of London Corporation", "publication_date": "2026-01-01"
| # | feature_id | geometry_type | coordinates_wkt | boundary_name | region | area_sqkm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Complete list of extractable fields for Publisher Info objects from data.gov.uk. All fields typed and schema-versioned.
"publisher_id": "cabinet-office", "name": "Cabinet Office", "type": "Ministerial department", "contact_email": "open.data@cabinetoffice.gov.uk", "dataset_count": 342, "active_status": true, "website_url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/cabinet-office"
| # | publisher_id | name | type | contact_email | dataset_count | sub_agencies |
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Our data.gov.uk scraper handles the complexity of the UK government open data portal: CKAN API pagination, legacy file format parsing, broken link resolution, and schema normalisation across thousands of publishers.
Handles both the official CKAN API layer and HTML fallback extraction for undocumented endpoints or deprecated datasets.
Maps fragmented CSV headers from over 1,400 government publishers into a unified relational schema for immediate querying.
Detects 404s on resource URLs and automatically searches web archives or alternative government domains to retrieve the missing files.
Streams and parses multi-gigabyte CSV and XML dumps directly to cloud storage without memory exhaustion or timeout failures.
Translates legacy XLS files, RDF structures, and malformed XML documents into clean JSON or Parquet formats.
Tracks updates to modified dates and hash values to only pull changed resources, ignoring silent overwrites.
Extracts and normalises GeoJSON and Shapefile boundaries into standard WKT formats for geospatial analysis.
Manages concurrency and IP rotation to avoid triggering rate limits on public sector APIs during bulk historical pulls.
Configures automated syncs for monthly spend publications or daily transport feeds to keep your warehouse current.
Brief in. Clean data out.
Provide publisher names, category tags, or specific dataset IDs. We map the required schemas and file formats.
We configure extraction logic, normalisation rules for malformed CSVs, and file-streaming handlers.
We test schema alignment across different local authorities and ensure large file downloads complete successfully.
Clean JSON, CSV, or Parquet files pushed to your data lake or warehouse on a daily or monthly cadence.
Government data is open but rarely clean. Here is how we turn fragmented files into production-ready warehouse tables.
Different local authorities format dates and currency differently. We build normalisation layers that cast strings to strict ISO dates and numeric floats, ensuring your downstream queries do not fail on type mismatches.
Government departments frequently restructure their websites, breaking resource URLs. Our pipeline detects 404 errors and automatically attempts to retrieve the file from the UK Government Web Archive or alternative endpoints.
Many datasets are still published in proprietary XLS formats or XML with inconsistent nesting. We extract the raw data, strip formatting artifacts, and output clean columnar data.
Geographic boundary files and national transport datasets can exceed 5GB. We use chunked streaming to process these files sequentially, bypassing memory limits and preventing pipeline crashes.
Publishers often overwrite files to fix errors without updating the CKAN metadata timestamps. We calculate cryptographic hashes of file contents to detect these silent updates and trigger a fresh extraction.
Suppliers analyse historical government spend to identify contract renewal cycles and target local authority bids.
Consultancies overlay OS boundary data with demographic metrics to optimise retail site selection and infrastructure planning.
Corporations track Defra emissions statistics and flood risk datasets for mandatory ESG reporting and risk assessment.
Logistics firms ingest road traffic statistics and public transit schedules to optimise routing algorithms.
Think tanks aggregate local authority performance metrics across multiple regions to evaluate policy outcomes.
Developers cross-reference land registry data with local planning authority datasets to identify viable development plots.
"The UK government publishes petabytes of open data, but fragmented schemas and broken links mean it requires heavy engineering to make it queryable."
Extracting data from data.gov.uk is not just about hitting an API. With over 1,400 publishers, you deal with malformed CSVs, legacy XLS files, undocumented schema changes, and silent file overwrites. DataFlirt normalises this chaos into clean, typed warehouse tables so your analysts can query government data immediately.
Everything supported by our data.gov.uk scraper — rendered SPA elements, auth walls, rate-limit evasion and beyond.
Open-source tooling on proven cloud infra — no vendor lock-in, full observability.
Scrapy handles concurrent extraction of CKAN metadata while custom download handlers stream the underlying resource files.
Python-based parsing layers handle proprietary XLS files, malformed CSVs, and nested XML structures, converting them to flat relational schemas.
Pipelines run on Kubernetes with S3 used as an intermediate staging area for large file downloads before normalisation and warehouse loading.
Data delivered to where your team already works — no new tooling required.
About data.gov.uk scraping, legality, and pipeline operations.
Ask us directly →Yes. Data on data.gov.uk is published under the Open Government Licence (OGL v3.0), which permits commercial exploitation and automated extraction. We adhere to rate limits and terms of service to ensure responsible access.
We build custom normalisation layers per dataset category. If 50 local authorities publish spend data with different column names, our pipeline maps them all to a single, unified schema before delivery.
We flag the resource as inactive in the metadata but retain the historical file and data in your warehouse. We also attempt to locate the file in government web archives.
Yes. We extract GeoJSON, Shapefiles, and KML files from data.gov.uk and convert them into standard WKT (Well-Known Text) formats suitable for spatial database ingestion.
We configure pipelines to poll the CKAN API daily or hourly. When a publisher uploads a new resource or modifies an existing one, the pipeline extracts and delivers the update within minutes.
Both. We extract the full CKAN metadata record and download, parse, and normalise the underlying resource files (CSV, XML, XLS) into queryable formats.
20-minute scoping call. Pilot dataset within the week. Production within two. Whether you need a one-off historical export of local authority spend or a continuous feed of Defra environmental metrics, we scope and operate the pipeline. Tell us what you need.
