Nursery World - Nursery Chains 2023: Groups by size

Giving the lowdown on the UK’s biggest nursery groups, Catherine Gaunt presents this year’s table, looks at their Ofsted performance and assesses the state of the market

Firmly ensconced as the top three groups by size in the UK nursery market are Busy Bees, Bright Horizons, and Kids Planet.

While the two biggest players have remained dominant for many years, Kids Planet is now firmly established as the third largest group in the country, adding 48 more nurseries in the last year and 3,673 places.

However, the group that can lay claim to the largest growth in the last 12 months is Family First, which has more than doubled in size to just shy of 100 settings.

Now the fourth largest, it has exceeded its stated ambition to grow to 80 sites by the end of 2022, backed by investment from August Equity.

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