The 10 best nurseries in Scotland in 2024, based on care regulator gradings

More than 600 inspections have now been carried out this year on nurseries across the length and breadth of Scotland by the Care Inspectorate.

The regulator awards grades ranging from six points for excellent to one point for unsatisfactory. The grades are applied across the four categories of setting, staff, leadership and quality of care, play and learning.

And despite many childcare facilities across the country earning high rankings, no nursery in Scotland has now been given full marks by the care regulator in more than a year.

This comes despite the number of top performing nurseries north of the Border typically reaching double figures every year before the Covid pandemic, peaking at 36 in 2016.

Using official data published by the care regulator, The Times and Sunday Times has published a full Scottish childcare league table.

And the table shows Scotland’s two biggest cities were the local authorities with the highest number of nurseries that scored 20 and above, showing that at least one of their services was rated “excellent” by the regulator.

Glasgow boasts 101 nurseries with this distinction, while Edinburgh has 94 facilities that recorded the same achievement.

However, a number of the nurseries that grace the top ten of the league table hail from outside of the Central Belt, including in locations such as Aberdeen and Inverness.

Under the gradings system, the maximum combined points achievable is 24.

In explaining the league table, the Sunday Times said the data used was extracted from the Care Inspectorate Datastore, which is updated every month by the government regulator.

Nurseries are weighted so those graded most recently appear further up the table, to give parents an assurance the score is as current as possible. 

Based on the league table, here are the top highest ranked nurseries in Scotland.