How we curate data
Understand what criteria influence curation of data collections on the National Data Library and how to suggest data for curation.
Data collections
In March 2026, we introduced collections to the National Data Library. Collections help users who are browsing. A user might not know exactly what they’re looking for, so can explore a set of pages to see what data is available for a particular topic. We started by selecting 6 collections based on common topics:
- business and economy
- environment
- government
- land and property
- people
- transport
Each collection contains 10 to 20 pages. Some pages link to more than one dataset or service, but the links are always grouped logically. The number of collections will grow over time. Collections are curated – selected by people with experience and expertise in public sector data. We have criteria that influence curation but no precise rules.
Curation criteria
Scope (required)
data.gov.uk is only concerned with public sector data. This means data that’s owned or produced by:
Examples include organisations such as the NHS, Met Office, Office for National Statistics and the Ordnance Survey. Most of this is open data – publicly available under the Open Government Licence – but we are not restricted to open data. For example, some Ordnance Survey address data is not open, and the Met Office also offer paid data services.
Relevance
The collections should be relevant to a relatively wide, non-expert audience. This means that the data should cover the basics of the topic and should not be too niche. We want to produce data pages that are interesting and inspiring for those browsing. For now, collections have a national focus, though we’re looking into how to support more local data.
Demand
We curate the collections by asking what our users need and what they’re looking for. We use various sources to answer these questions, including:
- activity and search on the National Data Library
- activity on other government services and data catalogues, such as the DEFRA Data Services Platform
- user research, surveys and feedback
- information about relevant and current social topics, such as unemployment
- Google Search Console
Quality
The data should be of a high quality, meaning it should be:
- up to date
- accurate and complete
- from an authoritative source, with a clear owner
- updated regularly (where relevant)
Adding new data pages
Anyone can propose a new data page by completing our feedback form.
First, you should consider:
- who will benefit from this data and why?
- have you found the best source for this data?
- does the data seem a good fit based on our curation criteria?
We’ll review all requests for new data pages and contact you if you have left us contact details, but we cannot guarantee that we’ll add a page you request.