The UK’s Top 20 Nurseries 2025-2026: NurseryCompare Excellence Award Winners
Twenty nurseries across England, Wales and Scotland have been named in the top 20 nurseries UK 2025-2026 list published by NurseryCompare, a UK nursery discovery and comparison platform. The list forms the NurseryCompare Excellence Awards 2025-2026 and is based on parent review scores recorded up to 30 May. It is a shortlist rather than a ranking, so no nursery is placed first, second or third.
The full list appears below with locations, age ranges and profile links, followed by an explanation of how nurseries qualify, what the award does and does not tell you, and how to use the list if you are choosing childcare for your own child.
Which nurseries are in the NurseryCompare Top 20 for 2025-2026?
The 20 award recipients are listed below in the order they appear on the NurseryCompare Awards 2025-26 page. That order does not indicate rank. Locations and age ranges are taken from each setting’s NurseryCompare profile.
| Nursery | Location | Age range listed | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purple Bees Day Nursery | Inwood Road, Hounslow, London | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Trinity Playcentre Daycare and Preschool | Church Elm Lane, Dagenham, London | 12 to 48 months | View profile |
| Pop Up Day Nursery in Irchester | School Road, Irchester, Wellingborough | 9 months to 5 years | View profile |
| The Dream Nest Nursery Oaklands | Wick Lane, Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Lowen Harts Day Nursery | School Lane, Redruth, Cornwall | 0 to 8 years | View profile |
| Craigard Nursery | Victoria Road, Dullatur, Cumbernauld | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Peapods Early Learning Centre Hayes | Waltham Avenue, Hayes, London | 0 to 8 years | View profile |
| Cybertots On The Green | Drayton Green, West Ealing, London | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Brambles Wilton | South Street, Wilton, Salisbury | 1 to 5 years | View profile |
| St Nicholas Nursery | Salmon Street, Kingsbury, London | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Jumping Jacks Day Nursery | St Asaph Avenue, Kinmel Bay, Rhyl | 3 months to 7 years | View profile |
| Little Trees Day Nursery Hucclecote | Hucclecote Road, Gloucester | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Children’s House Nursery | Station Road, Southwell, Nottinghamshire | 3 months to 11 years | View profile |
| Once Upon A Time Day Nursery | Railway Terrace, Llanelli | 3 months to 12 years | View profile |
| The Willows Day Nursery | Redditch Road, Kings Norton, Birmingham | 0 to 8 years | View profile |
| Woodville Nursery School | Blacksmiths Lane, Woodville, Swadlincote | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Busy Bears Nursery | Vicarage Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham | 6 months to 11 years | View profile |
| Cherry Tree Nursery School | Orford Lane, Warrington | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Montessori Minds Day Nursery | Eastern Road, Romford, London | 3 months to 5 years | View profile |
| Edgbaston Nursery School | Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham | 1 month to 5 years | View profile |
The Top 20 is unranked. The order shown matches the NurseryCompare Awards 2025-26 page and does not indicate placing.
Age ranges reflect what each setting has published on its NurseryCompare profile. Several nurseries are registered to care for older children through holiday or wraparound provision, which is why some ranges extend beyond school age. Confirm the ages a setting is currently taking directly with the nursery.
How are the NurseryCompare Excellence Award winners chosen?
The NurseryCompare Excellence Awards recognise nurseries with the strongest parent review scores on the platform during a defined 12-month window. According to the published methodology on the awards page, a nursery must meet four conditions:
- It must have a verified profile on nurserycompare.com.
- It must have received at least five reviews between 30 May of the previous year and 30 May of the current award year.
- Its review score as of 30 May determines selection.
- It must remain compliant with all relevant regulatory standards.
Scores shown on nursery profiles can change after the assessment date as new reviews are added, so the figures visible today may differ from those used during the award period. NurseryCompare states that the awards acknowledge excellence rather than ranking recipients in order.
This matters when you are reading the list. There is no number one nursery in the 2025-2026 Top 20. A setting listed twentieth has not been judged weaker than one listed second.
Where are the 2025-2026 award winners based?
The 20 settings are spread across three UK nations and a wide mix of urban, suburban and rural areas.
| Area | Award recipients | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Greater London | 6 | Hounslow, Dagenham, Hayes, West Ealing, Kingsbury, Romford |
| Birmingham | 3 | Kings Norton, Kings Heath, Edgbaston |
| Wales | 2 | Kinmel Bay near Rhyl, Llanelli |
| Scotland | 1 | Dullatur, Cumbernauld |
| Rest of England | 8 | Irchester, Egham, Redruth, Wilton, Gloucester, Southwell, Swadlincote, Warrington |
Three of the recipients, Woodville Nursery School, Cherry Tree Nursery School and Edgbaston Nursery School, are operated by the same group, Storal. The remaining 17 include independent single-site settings, small local groups and village hall provision.
Provision types vary considerably. Pop Up Day Nursery in Irchester lists 28 places, while Woodville Nursery School lists 110. Purple Bees Day Nursery in Hounslow opens 07:30 to 18:30, Once Upon A Time in Llanelli opens 07:00 to 19:00, and Trinity Playcentre in Dagenham runs 09:00 to 16:00. A short list of award winners is not a short list of interchangeable options.
Looking for a nursery in your own area?
Award winners are a useful starting point, but the right nursery for your child usually comes down to location, hours, fees and how a setting feels when you visit. Search by area and compare settings side by side.
Is a NurseryCompare award the same as an Ofsted rating?
No. A NurseryCompare Excellence Award is a platform award based on parent reviews. Ofsted, the regulator and inspector for education and children’s services in England, carries out statutory inspections and publishes its own judgements. The two are separate and measure different things.
Parent reviews capture how families experience a setting day to day: communication, settling in, staff warmth, food, outdoor space, flexibility. An inspection assesses a setting against the applicable regulatory framework on a specific date, including safeguarding, curriculum and leadership.
Nurseries in Wales are regulated by Care Inspectorate Wales and those in Scotland by the Care Inspectorate, so two of the 20 recipients sit outside the Ofsted system entirely. If you are researching an English setting, look up its current published position at reports.ofsted.gov.uk rather than relying on any third-party summary, including this one.
An award on this page tells you that a group of parents rated a setting highly during a defined period. It does not tell you what an inspector found, whether the setting has places, or whether it suits your child.
What should parents actually do with a Top 20 list?
Use it as a prompt rather than a shortlist. Nurseries are chosen locally, and a well-reviewed setting 200 miles away has no practical value to your family. The more useful move is to apply the same questions to the settings that are realistically within reach of your home, work or commute.
| Factor | What to check | Why it matters | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Location and journey | Actual door-to-door time at drop-off, not map distance | A 20 minute detour twice a day is roughly 160 hours a year | What time do most families arrive, and how does parking or drop-off work? |
| Opening hours | Published hours against your working pattern | Some settings close at 16:00, others run to 19:00 | Are there late collection charges, and what is the cut-off? |
| Age range and rooms | Whether the setting takes your child now and keeps them until school | Moving a settled child is disruptive | How many room moves will my child have, and how are transitions handled? |
| Places and waiting list | Availability on the specific days you need | Popular settings often have no midweek space | What is realistic availability for my days, and how does the list work? |
| Funding | Whether the setting accepts your entitlement and how it applies it | Funded hours do not always cover the full week or year | How are funded hours delivered, and what extra charges apply? |
| Fees | Full monthly cost including consumables, meals and deposits | Headline daily rates rarely reflect the real bill | Can I see a full written fee breakdown for my pattern? |
| Regulatory position | The latest published inspection or registration record | It is the only independent quality reference point | When were you last inspected, and what has changed since? |
| Feel on the day | How staff interact with children while you are there | This is the part no rating captures | Can I visit at a busy time rather than a quiet one? |
If you want a printable version of this process, the nursery comparison checklist for new parents covers the same ground in more depth, and the guide on when to apply for nursery in the UK explains typical timings for waiting lists.
How does funded childcare affect your choice?
In England, eligible working parents can access up to 30 hours a week of government funded childcare for children from nine months old until they start school, taken over 38 weeks of the year. The entitlement expanded to cover under-twos from September 2025 and is administered through GOV.UK, where you can also check the application deadlines that apply to each term.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland operate separate schemes with different rules and hours, which is worth noting if you are comparing settings across borders or moving between nations.
Two practical points affect nursery choice. First, not every setting delivers funded hours in the same way; some spread them across the year, others restrict them to term time or to particular sessions. Second, providers can charge for meals, nappies and consumables alongside funded hours, so two nurseries with identical funded entitlements can produce very different monthly bills. Ask for the numbers in writing before you commit.
What the award recipients have in common
Looking across the 20 profiles, a few patterns stand out in the information the settings themselves publish.
Most are relatively small. Total places range from 26 at Brambles Wilton to 110 at Woodville Nursery School, with the majority under 60. Several highlight outdoor provision heavily, including Craigard Nursery’s gardens around a listed building in a conservation village, Lowen Harts’ sensory room and on-site animals in Redruth, and Pop Up Irchester’s mud kitchen and construction area.
Continuity is another recurring theme. Settings such as Lowen Harts and Children’s House Nursery emphasise keeping children with one familiar team from baby room through to school age, which is a genuine differentiator for families who do not want repeated changes of setting.
These are claims made by the nurseries on their own profiles rather than independently verified findings. They are useful as a starting point for questions on a visit, not as a substitute for seeing the setting yourself.
Key takeaways
- Twenty UK nurseries were named in the NurseryCompare Excellence Awards 2025-2026, across England, Wales and Scotland.
- The Top 20 is unranked. No recipient is designated the best nursery in the UK.
- Selection is based on parent review scores recorded up to 30 May, with a minimum of five reviews in the qualifying year and a verified profile.
- A NurseryCompare award is not an Ofsted rating, government approval or statutory accreditation.
- Award recipients differ widely in size, hours and age range, so the list is a prompt for research rather than a ready-made shortlist.
- The most useful comparison is always between settings you can realistically reach every day.
Final thoughts
Award lists are helpful because they surface settings that families have consistently rated well and that might otherwise be invisible outside their own postcode. They are less helpful when they are read as a league table. The 2025-2026 recipients include a village hall nursery in Northamptonshire and a 110-place setting in Derbyshire, and the fact that both appear says something about the range of provision parents value rather than about which one is better.
The nursery that suits your child depends on your child’s age and temperament, your working pattern, your budget, your travel and what is actually available on the days you need. That is a decision only you can make, and it usually gets easier once you have three or four real options in front of you rather than a national list.
Start with your own area, shortlist two or three settings, and visit them. Search nurseries by location or compare settings side by side to build that shortlist.
