VAS Sheffield Jobs Scraper

Scrape voluntary-sector vacancies from jobs.vas.org.uk — Voluntary Action Sheffield's dedicated jobs board. Pulls every live vacancy via the public WP-JSON REST API: title, sector taxonomy, posted date, full description HTML, featured image, and the external apply URL extracted from the listing body. JSON or CSV out, no compute charge per run, just per result.

How it works

✨ Why use this scraper?

Building a Sheffield / South Yorkshire voluntary-sector dashboard? Tracking nonprofit hiring across charities, faith-based orgs, and community groups in the city? Need a clean dataset without manual scrolling?

• 🎯 Three starting points. The /current-vacancies/ page, a direct /vacancies/<slug>/ URL, or the WP-JSON endpoint — all auto-classified.
• ⚡ WP-JSON REST API as the data source. One fetch returns every active vacancy (~25 live at any time).
• 🏷️ Sector taxonomy inline. Administration, Community Development, Fundraising, Project Work, etc. embedded via WP-JSON _embed — no extra HTTP calls.
• 📧 External apply URL captured. VAS posts often link out to the org's own ATS / vacancy page — the body's first outbound link is extracted as externalApplyUrl.
• 🇬🇧 Sheffield-specific. Voluntary Action Sheffield is the city's CVS — every vacancy is local to Sheffield / South Yorkshire.
• 📤 Clean exports. One row per vacancy, all fields inline. JSON + CSV exported automatically.

🎯 Use cases

Team	What they build
Sheffield CVS / regional CVS network	Cross-region nonprofit recruitment comparisons
Voluntary sector recruiters	Daily new-vacancy feeds across the city
Workforce strategy / funders	Sector-by-sector hiring trends in Sheffield voluntary orgs
Researchers	Sheffield third-sector labour-market datasets
Job aggregators	External apply URLs (typically charity websites, JotForm, charity ATS) for redirect-and-track

📥 Supported inputs

URL pattern	Behaviour
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/current-vacancies/	Full listing — scrapes every live vacancy
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/vacancies/<slug>/	Single vacancy — translates to slug-filtered WP-JSON query
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies	WP-JSON endpoint — pass-through
https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies/<id>	WP-JSON single record — translates to ?include=<id>

Leave startUrls empty to scrape every live vacancy.

Not supported: filtering by sector via URL query string; hosts outside jobs.vas.org.uk.

🔄 How it works

1. Classify each startUrl and translate it to the canonical /wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies shape.
2. Fetch the WP-JSON endpoint — typically just 1 request, since VAS has ~25 vacancies (fits in one page of 100).
3. Parse each vacancy item — title, content HTML, sector taxonomy, featured-media URL, author, dates.
4. Extract the apply target — first outbound mailto: → applyEmail, else first outbound URL → externalApplyUrl.
5. Push one normalised row per vacancy to the dataset.

⚙️ Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	array	["https://jobs.vas.org.uk/current-vacancies/"]	Browser URLs, single-vacancy URLs, or WP-JSON endpoints. Empty = scrape everything.
enrichTaxonomies	boolean	true	When true, embeds sector term names + featured image via WP-JSON _embed. Zero extra HTTP cost.
followExternalPages	boolean	false	When true, follows a job's external apply page (charity microsites etc.) to fill any salary / closingDate / contractType / hours the VAS listing didn't state. Best-effort and slower (one extra request per applicable job); skips PDFs and JavaScript-only boards like Workday.
postedWithinHours	integer	(none)	Only return rows posted in the last N hours (24 = last day, 72 = last 3 days). Empty/0 = all. Ideal for daily monitoring runs that only want fresh postings.
maxItems	integer	1000	Hard cap on rows pushed (~25 live).
maxConcurrency / minConcurrency	integer	5 / 1	Parallel WP-JSON page-fetch limits.
maxRequestRetries	integer	5	Retries before a failed request is given up.
proxy	object	No proxy	Site does not anti-bot — proxy optional.

📊 Output overview

Each scraped vacancy is one single dataset row of type: "job". Row count equals vacancy count exactly.

📦 Output sample

Structured fields (companyName, salary, closingDate, location, contractType, hours, employmentTypes) are mined from the listing body and the employer's logo file — populated when the listing states them, and null when it genuinely doesn't.

{
  "type": "job",
  "source": "jobs.vas.org.uk",
  "jobId": "2994",
  "slug": "office-manager",
  "jobUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/vacancies/office-manager/",
  "wpJsonUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/vacancies/2994",
  "title": "Office Manager",
  "descriptionText": "RAW People is recruiting an Office Manager. Salary: £26,277.50 – £30,000 per annum …",
  "companyName": "Raw People",
  "companyWebsite": null,
  "companyDomain": null,
  "location": "Rotherham Town Centre",
  "remote": false,
  "salary": {
    "currency": "GBP",
    "min": 26277.5,
    "max": 30000,
    "raw": "£26,277.50 – £30,000 per annum (depending on experience)",
    "unit": "year"
  },
  "salaryRaw": "£26,277.50 – £30,000 per annum (depending on experience)",
  "sectors": ["Mental Health", "Administration"],
  "categories": ["Mental Health", "Administration"],
  "employmentTypes": ["Full-time"],
  "contractType": null,
  "hours": "37.5 hours per week",
  "postedDate": "2026-06-05T09:00:00Z",
  "closingDate": "2026-06-30",
  "closingDateText": "Closing Date: Tuesday 30th June 2026 at 12pm",
  "modifiedDate": "2026-06-05T09:00:00Z",
  "applyType": "external",
  "applyUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/vacancies/office-manager/",
  "applyEmail": null,
  "externalApplyUrl": null,
  "featuredImageUrl": "https://jobs.vas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/raw-people-logo.jpg",
  "authorId": 1,
  "authorName": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-11T09:34:00.000Z"
}

🗂 Key output fields

Group	Fields
Identifiers	type, source, jobId, slug, jobUrl, wpJsonUrl, scrapedAt
Role	title, description (HTML), descriptionText (plain)
Dates	postedDate (ISO), closingDate (ISO, when stated), closingDateText (raw phrase), modifiedDate (ISO)
Employer	companyName (mined from the employer's logo file — ~3 in 4 jobs), companyWebsite / companyDomain (from an outbound apply link, when present)
Compensation	salary ({ currency, min, max, raw, unit }), salaryRaw
Location	location (street/area when the listing states it, else Sheffield, South Yorkshire), remote
Classification	sectors[], categories[] (mirror of sectors), employmentTypes[], contractType, hours
Apply flow	applyType (email / external / internal), applyUrl, applyEmail, externalApplyUrl
WordPress meta	authorId, authorName, featuredImageUrl

❓ FAQ

Where do companyName, salary, closingDate, etc. come from? VAS Sheffield's WP custom post type is plain — it carries no structured job meta (acf is empty on every record). So the actor mines them from what each listing actually publishes: the org name from the employer's logo filename, and salary / closing date / contract / hours / location from the labelled text employers paste into the description body. These are best-effort and high-precision — populated when the listing states them, null otherwise (no noisy guesses).

Why are some of these fields still null on certain jobs? Because that listing genuinely doesn't state them. Smaller charities often post a few paragraphs of prose with no salary or closing date, and a generic image instead of a logo. The actor never fabricates a value — a null means the source didn't provide it.

Can I get the full job spec? The full description / descriptionText is always included. For anything beyond what the listing states, the externalApplyUrl typically links to a charity's vacancy page or a downloadable PDF with the complete spec — and enabling followExternalPages will automatically pull a missing salary / closing date / contract / hours from that page when it's a readable web page.

Can I scrape private pages or applicant data? No. Only the public WP-JSON endpoint.

How do I limit results? Set maxItems. VAS rarely has more than 25 live vacancies, so maxItems: 100 covers everything safely.

💬 Support

• For issues or feature requests, please use the Issues tab on the actor's Apify Console page.
• Author's website: https://muhamed-didovic.github.io/
• Email: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com

🛠 Additional services

• Custom output shape, additional fields, or one-off datasets: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com
• Similar scrapers for other CVS / volunteer hubs (Doing Good Leeds, VA Rotherham, York CVS, Barnsley CVS, BCVS): drop an email.
• For API access (no Apify fee, just usage): muhamed.didovic@gmail.com

🔎 Explore more scrapers

See other scrapers at memo23's Apify profile — covering job boards, real estate, social media, and more.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Voluntary Action Sheffield (VAS), jobs.vas.org.uk, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

The scraper accesses only the publicly available WP-JSON REST endpoint and public vacancy pages on jobs.vas.org.uk — no authenticated endpoints, recruiter-only features, or content behind a login. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with jobs.vas.org.uk's Terms of Service, applicable data-protection law (GDPR, CCPA, etc.), and any contractual obligations of their own organisation.

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