Search Competitor Training Providers in the SkillsFuture Course Directory

Purpose

Search the SkillsFuture for Business Course Directory (skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/search) for training providers and the SSG-supported courses they run, returning a structured, per-provider research list: course themes/titles, funding schemes (SFEC / Industry-Supported / Absentee Payroll), indicative pre- and post-subsidy pricing, ratings, course format/duration, and the course-detail URL. Read-only — never registers, logs in, or submits anything. Every course in this directory is SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG)-supported and eligible for SFEC + Absentee Payroll funding, which makes it the authoritative source for mapping grant-funded training competitors targeting Singapore SMEs.

When to Use

Building a competitor / market-mapping list of training providers in a capability area (e.g. digital marketing, digital transformation, data analytics, sustainability/ESG) for Singapore SMEs.
Pulling every SSG-funded course a named provider runs, with funding tags and subsidised pricing.
Filtering the directory to grant-relevant cohorts (e.g. keywords=Digital Economy, or the SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC) facet) and aggregating by provider.
Anywhere you'd otherwise hand-scrape the directory — the search results are server-rendered into the page HTML, so a plain HTTP fetch returns the full structured dataset without driving a browser.

Workflow

The page is a Next.js (App Router) app, but the search results are server-side-rendered into the initial HTML as a React Server Component (RSC) "Flight" payload (self.__next_f.push([...]) script chunks). That payload carries every field the cards display — provider, title, rating, funding tags, fees at each subsidy tier, course runs, and the course-detail link. Lead with a plain HTTP GET of a deep-link URL and parse that payload. No login, cookies, JS execution, residential proxy, or stealth required (confirmed: a bare browse cloud fetch of the deep-link returns HTTP 200 with all 10/25/50/100 cards plus the total result count). The browser path (below) is a fallback, mainly useful for discovering exact filter-facet values.

Build the deep-link URL. Search and paging are entirely URL-driven — you do not need to type into the search box:

https://skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/search
    ?search_query=digital+marketing      # spaces as '+' (or %20)
    &page_size=100                        # 10 | 25 | 50 | 100  (100 = fewest round-trips)
    &page=0                               # ZERO-indexed
    &sort_by=relevance                    # see Gotchas for other values
    &keywords=Digital+Economy             # optional facet; exact display string, '+'-encoded

Fetch it. browse cloud fetch "<url>" (add --proxies only if you ever see a regional block — not needed today). Read content (the HTML, ~580 KB for page_size=10).
Read the total result count. It is rendered as the "children":["87"," ",{...,"children":"results"}] node near the top of the payload — match \"children\":\["(\d+)\"," " to get the integer (87 for digital marketing + Digital Economy). Use it to decide how many pages to fetch: ceil(total / page_size), incrementing page from 0.
Extract each course object. Each card is an RSC component ($L63) whose fields appear in order in the payload. The values are JSON-escaped (\"). Per course you get:
- subtitle → training provider name (e.g. @ASK TRAINING PTE. LTD.)
- title → course title
- isIndustrySupported → boolean (sector-body endorsement)
- rating (number or $undefined) + ratingDetail (review count, e.g. "2,256")
- tags → array, e.g. ["Digital Economy","SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC)"] (funding/economy facets)
- courseDuration, modeOfTraining, language, courseHours, courseRuns[] (each with start/end dates, intake size, learning style, registration window)
- label/labelDataValue → "Full course fee" / "S$300.00" (full pre-subsidy fee, exclusive of GST)
- secondLabel/secondLabelDataValue → "After subsidy" / "From S$90.00" (after baseline SSG subsidy)
- supportingDataLabel/supportingDataValue → "After SFEC" / "From S$9.00" (after SFEC tops up 90% of nett)
- linkUrl → /course-directory/courses/{TGS-id} (canonical course-detail URL)
A robust regex anchor is \"isIndustrySupported\":(true|false),\"subtitle\":\"...\",\"title\":\"...\", then scan the next ~3.5 KB of the payload for the fee/linkUrl/tags fields belonging to that card.
Aggregate by provider. Group courses by subtitle. Per provider record: course count, sample course titles (themes), the union of funding tags, the full-fee and after-subsidy price range, and whether any course is isIndustrySupported. This is the competitor row a commercial/product team consumes.
(Optional) enrich from the course-detail page. GET https://skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/courses/{TGS-id} (also SSR; browse cloud fetch or browse get markdown body). Adds: provider website URL, the recognising industry body (e.g. "recognized and supported by Singapore Computer Society (SCS)"), EIS supporting period, contact person (name / phone / email), full course overview, learning outcomes, and entry requirements.
(Optional) enumerate the full provider universe. The left-panel Training Provider facet lists every provider in the directory alphabetically (~440 entities, also in the SSR payload). Read it to build a complete provider roster, then drill in per provider with search_query empty + the provider checkbox.

Browser fallback

Use only when you need to discover exact filter-facet values, or if the RSC payload format changes. Drive a real session (a bare session is fine — no stealth needed):

browse open "<deep-link url>" --remote then browse wait timeout 4000 (results render client-side after hydration).
browse get markdown body — each result renders as a markdown link containing provider, title, rating, funding tag, duration, full fee, and "After subsidy" price; the /course-directory/courses/TGS-… href is the course id.
To learn a filter's exact URL value: browse snapshot, click the facet's checkbox by ref, browse wait timeout 1500, then read browse eval "window.location.href" — the applied value is appended to the query string (e.g. clicking Digital Economy appends &keywords=Digital+Economy).

Site-Specific Gotchas

No public JSON API. The upstream SSG data API is called server-side only; the client never sees clean JSON. The closest thing to an API is the RSC Flight payload embedded in the SSR HTML — parse that. Don't hunt for an /api/... XHR; there isn't one (the only client fetches are Next.js RSC navigations with an opaque RSC: 1 body, GA/analytics, and the VICA chatbot).
page is zero-indexed. page=0 is the first page. Off-by-one here silently skips the first cohort of results.
search_query uses + (or %20) for spaces; the param name matters. search_query=digital+marketing works (550 results); guessing q= / searchValue= is ignored and returns the full unfiltered directory (20,936 results) — a silent failure that looks like success. Always sanity-check the total count against the keyword.
The /course-directory/search/{keyword} PATH 404s. Search is a query-string, not a path segment. …/search/digital%20marketing returns "Page not found".
keywords facet takes the exact display string. Valid values (each +-encoded): Care Economy, Digital Economy, Green Economy, SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC), Critical Core Skills. These are the SSG "economy/credit" facets — Digital Economy is the right cut for MarTech / digital-transformation competitor mapping.
areas_of_training is a real param but is NOT free-text. The param name is confirmed (areas_of_training= returns 0 results when the value doesn't match the site's internal taxonomy, vs. unknown params which are ignored and return everything). The Area-of-Training options render via a virtualised list that does not reliably appear in the a11y snapshot, so don't guess the value — apply the checkbox in the browser fallback and copy the exact value the URL receives. Area labels include "Advertising, Sales & Marketing", "Information and Communications", "Marine & Port Services", "Transportation and Storage", "Wholesale and Retail Trade" (relevant ICP sectors).
sort_by=relevance is confirmed. Other UI sort options (Price low→high / high→low, Most Viewed, Ratings high→low / low→high, Alphabetical A–Z / Z–A) map to other sort_by values — capture the exact token via the browser fallback (read the URL after picking the dropdown) rather than guessing.
Fees are exclusive of GST and the "After subsidy" / "After SFEC" figures are "From" floors (best-case, depends on employee profile — SME vs non-SME, SC/PR/LTVP+, age). Treat post-subsidy prices as indicative minimums, not quotes. SMEs get up to 90% baseline subsidy; SFEC defrays a further 90% of the nett.
isIndustrySupported ≠ a funding scheme. It means a sector body (e.g. Singapore Computer Society) endorses the course; funding eligibility is conveyed by the tags (SFEC) and the universal SSG-support of every directory course. A card can be isIndustrySupported:false yet still SFEC-funded.
rating can be $undefined in the payload (rendered as "No rating") — handle the non-numeric sentinel when parsing.
Result count is capped per search, not per provider. A keyword search returns courses; one provider can own many cards. Aggregate client-side. To get the complete provider list independent of any keyword, read the Training Provider facet (≈440 entities) rather than paginating a search.
No anti-bot wall observed. Pre-run probe reported no anti-bots; both the bare HTTP fetch and a non-stealth browser session returned full content. CloudFront fronts the site but did not challenge. --verified/--proxies are unnecessary.
Scheduled maintenance banner. The site shows a maintenance notice; certain SkillsFuture-for-Business services can be briefly unavailable per the published schedule — retry rather than treating a transient failure as a block.

Expected Output

A structured, per-provider research list aggregated from the parsed course cards.

{
  "source": "skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/search",
  "query": {
    "search_query": "digital marketing",
    "keywords": "Digital Economy",
    "sort_by": "relevance",
    "page_size": 100,
    "page": 0
  },
  "total_results": 87,
  "providers": [
    {
      "provider": "@ASK TRAINING PTE. LTD.",
      "course_count_on_page": 2,
      "industry_supported": false,
      "course_themes": [
        "WSQ Digital Marketing Essentials - (Classroom and Async e-learning)",
        "WSQ Digital Marketing Analytics (Google Analytics)"
      ],
      "funding_schemes": ["SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC)", "SSG baseline subsidy", "Absentee Payroll"],
      "facets": ["Digital Economy"],
      "full_fee_sgd_range": ["S$300.00", "S$900.00"],
      "after_subsidy_from_sgd_range": ["From S$90.00", "From S$270.00"],
      "rating": 4.5,
      "sample_course_url": "https://skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/courses/TGS-2023020687"
    },
    {
      "provider": "NTUC LEARNINGHUB PTE. LTD.",
      "course_count_on_page": 1,
      "industry_supported": false,
      "course_themes": ["Empowering Digital Marketers with Essential AI Tools (SF)"],
      "funding_schemes": ["SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC)", "SSG baseline subsidy", "Absentee Payroll"],
      "facets": ["Digital Economy"],
      "full_fee_sgd_range": ["S$1,800.00"],
      "after_subsidy_from_sgd_range": ["From S$540.00"],
      "rating": 5.0,
      "sample_course_url": "https://skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/courses/TGS-2024046411"
    }
  ]
}

Per-course shape (before aggregation), exactly as extracted from the RSC payload:

{
  "provider": "SKILLS DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY PTE. LTD.",
  "title": "Introduction to Digital Marketing",
  "course_id": "TGS-2021010044",
  "url": "https://skillsfuture.gobusiness.gov.sg/course-directory/courses/TGS-2021010044",
  "is_industry_supported": false,
  "rating": 5.0,
  "rating_count": "3,686",
  "tags": ["Digital Economy", "SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC)"],
  "duration": "2 - 3 Days",
  "course_hours": 16,
  "mode_of_training": ["Part Time"],
  "language": ["English"],
  "full_course_fee": "S$800.00",
  "after_subsidy_from": "From S$240.00",
  "after_sfec_from": "From S$24.00"
}

Notes:

funding_schemes is inferred: every directory course is SSG-supported (baseline subsidy + Absentee Payroll + SFEC-eligible); the SFEC tag confirms SFEC, and any explicit economy/credit facet is surfaced under facets.
rating may be absent ($undefined → "No rating"); after_* figures are best-case "From" floors, GST-exclusive.

search-competitor-training-providers