New businesses in West Yorkshire — October 2026

Auspector · Published: October 27, 2026

Between September 27 and October 27, 2026, 1,130 business records in West Yorkshire entered our newly opened businesses section — fourth among the UK’s 150 counties and the most in Yorkshire and the Humber. Leeds received 281, more than Bradford (116) and Huddersfield (80) combined.

Bar chart of new business records between September 27 and October 27, 2026 in the ten towns of West Yorkshire with the most: Leeds 281, Bradford 116, Huddersfield 80, Halifax 48, Wakefield 35, Dewsbury 30, Pontefract 27, Keighley 26, Castleford 26, Batley 19.

How many new businesses open in West Yorkshire?

Between September 27 and October 27, 2026, 1,130 West Yorkshire records entered our newly opened businesses section — about 38 a day, from 131,356 records in our database. West Yorkshire is fourth among UK counties by new records.

The county is five metropolitan districts: Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield. Our records carry the town on the address rather than the district, so the town table comes first and the district view is built from it.

Towns in West Yorkshire: new business records, September 27 – October 27, 2026
Town	New records	All records	New per 1,000 records	Phone	Website information
Leeds	281	32,911	8.5	75.4%	64.0%
Bradford	116	15,360	7.6	79.4%	54.0%
Huddersfield	80	8,896	9.0	79.2%	59.6%
Halifax	48	5,557	8.6	81.2%	57.5%
Wakefield	35	5,545	6.3	78.2%	62.0%
Dewsbury	30	3,032	9.9	82.0%	52.7%
Pontefract	27	1,641	16.5	79.6%	56.7%
Keighley	26	2,656	9.8	80.8%	55.4%
Castleford	26	2,401	10.8	80.1%	57.4%
Batley	19	1,845	10.3	81.1%	55.2%
Morley	17	1,830	9.3	80.9%	60.8%
Pudsey	16	1,811	8.8	83.4%	62.4%
Brighouse	15	1,833	8.2	82.8%	63.8%
Shipley	14	1,794	7.8	79.4%	61.9%
Ilkley	11	1,313	8.4	79.6%	69.2%

September 27 – October 27, 2026. The 15 towns with the most records in our database, sorted by new records. A town is the locality on the record’s address. Phone and website information are shares of all the town’s records, not only the new ones. Compare the towns with each other, not with the county total.

Leeds leads with 281. Bradford has about half as many records as Leeds (15,360 to 32,911) and received 116, a little fewer relative to size (7.6 per 1,000 against 8.5). Wakefield (35) has the lowest rate of the five largest towns (6.3), while Pontefract and Castleford, smaller towns in the same district, received 27 and 26.

Which districts get the most?

New business records in West Yorkshire towns, grouped by district, September 27 – October 27, 2026
District	Towns in the table	New records in those towns
Leeds	Leeds, Morley and Pudsey	314
Bradford	Bradford, Keighley, Shipley and Ilkley	167
Kirklees	Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Batley	129
Wakefield	Wakefield, Pontefract and Castleford	88
Calderdale	Halifax and Brighouse	63

Only the towns in the town table are counted, so each figure is a floor for its district, not a district total. Districts have no figures of their own in our data.

Added up this way, the Leeds district’s towns lead with 314, ahead of Bradford (167), Kirklees (129), Wakefield (88) and Calderdale (63). Kirklees has no town in the top two, but Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Batley together come to 129 — a territory close in size to the town of Bradford (116).

Which sectors are opening?

New business records in West Yorkshire by sector, September 27 – October 27, 2026
Sector	New records	All records	New per 1,000 records
Hair and beauty salons	50	5,980	8.4
Restaurants	34	3,239	10.5
Auto repair shops	21	2,126	9.9
Cafés	21	1,635	12.8
Construction companies	17	2,208	7.7
Car dealers	13	916	14.2
Supermarkets and grocery stores	10	2,282	4.4
Bars and pubs	10	1,603	6.2
Gyms and fitness studios	9	767	11.7
Real estate agencies	6	707	8.5
Bakeries and pastry shops	5	602	8.3
Clothing stores	<5	951	—
Dentists and dental clinics	<5	701	—
Pharmacies	<5	568	—

West Yorkshire records only; each sector links to its UK-wide data page. Counts are records, and one business can have more than one. “<5”: fewer than five new records. Construction and auto repair include businesses that serve customers across an area; new records in these sectors carry a location less often, so their county counts are the least complete.

Hair and beauty salons lead with 50, then restaurants (34); auto repair shops and cafés had 21 each. Among sectors with 15 or more new records, cafés have the highest rate (12.8 per 1,000), ahead of restaurants (10.5). Bars and pubs are the opposite case: 1,603 records in our database but only 10 new, one of the two lowest rates in the table (6.2).

How does West Yorkshire compare across Yorkshire and the Humber?

New business records in Yorkshire and the Humber, by county, September 27 – October 27, 2026
County	New records	All records	New per 1,000 records	Rank by new records (of 150)
West Yorkshire	1,130	131,356	8.6	4
South Yorkshire	630	68,446	9.2	11
North Yorkshire	341	60,664	5.6	27
East Riding of Yorkshire	138	23,948	5.8	55
Kingston upon Hull	125	13,555	9.2	63
York	103	15,610	6.6	74
North Lincolnshire	78	9,074	8.6	91
North East Lincolnshire	59	8,474	7.0	106

New records September 27 – October 27, 2026. Each county links to its page.

West Yorkshire received more new records than South and North Yorkshire combined (971). Relative to size, Kingston upon Hull (9.2) and South Yorkshire (9.2) are ahead of it (8.6 per 1,000); East Riding of Yorkshire (5.8) and North Yorkshire (5.6) have the fewest. Across the Pennines: new businesses in Greater Manchester.

What it means if you sell to new businesses in West Yorkshire

Leeds first, then the districts. Leeds averaged about 9 new records a day. The towns of the Bradford district (about 39 a week) and the Kirklees district (about 30 a week) make two more rounds.
Coffee, food and drink suppliers. 21 new cafés, 34 restaurants, 10 bars and pubs and 5 bakeries — 70 in all, about 16 a week. More on the sector: new coffee shops and cafés.
Salon suppliers and booking software. 50 new hair and beauty salons, the largest sector by new records — about 12 a week.

How to pull a list for West Yorkshire

Location: United Kingdom, the county West Yorkshire, then a town such as Bradford or Huddersfield — the same address locality as in the table.
Section and filters: newly opened businesses (the last 30 days, updated daily), then a sector or a narrower category. Categories are each record’s own, so “barber shop” or “tyre shop” can be a list of its own. Phone — has, for a call list; Website — none, for web design prospects.
Count, then open: searching and counting are free on every plan; a credit is spent only when you first open a record, and a CSV or XLSX export counts as an open (pricing). Save the search and new matches arrive by email every day.

How this was measured

A record is one business location in our database, not a company: a chain with 40 branches is 40 records, and one business can have more than one record — more often in sectors that serve customers across an area, such as construction and auto repair. All figures are record counts. A new record entered our newly opened businesses section between September 27 and October 27, 2026 (up to our database build of October 27, 2026); the date is the day it reached us, not the business’s opening date.

West Yorkshire means records whose address is in that county. The five districts have no figures of their own in our data; the district table only adds up towns. A town is the locality on the address, not a borough or district. Some new records do not carry a county or a town yet — new records lack one more often than older ones, and how often varies by sector. The county figure is therefore a floor and is compared only with other counties, not with a UK total; the towns do not add up to it, because some records name no town and smaller places are not listed.

Sectors are fixed groups of categories — “auto repair shops”, for example, covers auto repair shops, car service centres, body shops, tyre shops and auto electricians. Fewer than five new records are shown as “<5”. Phone, website information and “phone but no website information” are shares of all records, not only the new ones; website information means an own website or a booking, appointment or other platform page, and a social media profile on its own does not count. “The six counties in this series” are Greater London, Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Essex and Kent. County pages are refreshed daily, so their figures can differ slightly from these, measured on October 27, 2026.

The largest cities on their own — London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow — with the phone and website shares of their new records: new businesses in UK cities. Companies House counts company incorporations, which is a different measure from businesses opening premises: UK company incorporations vs. businesses that open.

← All posts RSS feed