I am currently running
MikroTik Cloud Router Switch 317-1G-16S+ (16x 10Gb SFP+ ports)

I have it running swos, as I didn't need all the fancy stuff from router. I would like to however be able to scrape data and would like to create a read only user.

It sounds like I can only do that in router os, is this correct?

To switch to router os, will it keep my values from swos and apply them in to the router os, or do I need to do the setup again in router os?

I am guessing that there would be a brief downtime while this reboots?

Thanks

You are correct. SwOS only supports one user - admin. ROS supports users with different access to include read only which is what you want. You will have to reconfigure the switch if you haven't already done so in ROS. This will, of course, result in an outage while you configure things.

What about the current settings, IP address and admin user. Will that be removed as well. I am remote and have no access to the switch to console in.

Can't you use SNMP to read data ?

What about the current settings, IP address and admin user. Will that be removed as well. I am remote and have no access to the switch to console in.

When I have configured my switches from SWoS to ROS, there have been no settings that have transferred. You will start with a completely blank slate with ROS until you configure it. Doing this kind of work on a device I assume you care about from a distance is never a good idea. That said, if I was desperate, I would verify that I had a VPN to the edge router device and that the switch gets its DHCP address from said router. If VPN and DHCP is a yes, then you could probably VPN into the router, find the local IP of the switch, and then use winbox to configure the switch over the VPN connection. I think this would work though I have never done such a thing myself.