All of the group’s 44 nurseries are graded Outstanding or Good.
The London Early Years Foundation is in second place, and ranking third is Duke’s Education’s Little Dukes.
Our analysis of the Ofsted reports of the biggest groups includes all those from our league table, our roundup of the UK's 25 largest nursery groups by size.
These groups offer a combined total of 162,129 places, 8,050 more nursery places than last year. They operate 2,010 settings, up from 1,926 in 2024.
This may well be the last time we publish this quality table in its current form, with Ofsted consulting on plans to move away from an overall one-word judgement towards a more ‘nuanced’ approach, including a five-point scale to grade areas of a setting’s work, and new report cards to set out the grades a provider achieves in each area, alongside a short description.
We will need to wait and see what emerges from this before deciding on the best way to represent quality in nurseries operated by the biggest nursery groups. I
In 2025, the big three nursery groups remain unchanged at the top of our table of the UK’s largest groups, but for how long?
This year’s top 25 table, which ranks groups by size, sees Kids Planet as the third largest group with just 17 fewer settings than their closes rival by size.
The group has added 69 more nurseries in the last 12 months.
Busy Bees remains the largest nursery group in the UK with 357 nurseries offering more than 33,393 places.
Bright Horizons remains the second largest with 241 settings providing 20,247 places, but Kids Planet is close behind in third place with 224 settings offering 19,258 places.
There are two new entrants to this year’s table.
In 24th place Dukes Education now runs 28 nurseries under the Little Dukes Brand, while Kido Nurseries and Pre-Schools runs 18 nurseries and is now the 25th largest nursery group.
Nursery Chains 2025 is free with the March issue of Nursery World, out now, and available online.
- Find out how the top 25 largest groups rank by size and quality here
- Do you have an opinion on this article? Email news.nw@markallengroup.com
