Leeds business news for March 2026 shows a city generating strong deal flow and a robust jobs market, with businesses securing more than £86m in transactions, though new company registrations dipped year-on-year as dissolution rates climbed across the city.
This is the inaugural Leeds Business Index — a monthly snapshot of business activity across Leeds, tracked and published by Leeds Today. Each month we pull data from Companies House, Leeds City Council’s planning portal, deal databases, and LinkedIn to give the Leeds business community a clear, consistent picture of how the city is moving.
New businesses
Leeds recorded 733 new business registrations in March 2026, compared with 755 in the same month last year — a modest 2.9% decline in gross registrations. More significant is the net new figure. With 660 dissolutions recorded in the same period, Leeds added 73 net new businesses in March, down from a net 214 in March 2025. The rise in dissolutions warrants watching — it may reflect the impact of higher employer costs introduced in the April 2025 Budget, or simply a natural correction after strong post-pandemic formation rates.
Planning and development
Leeds City Council received 669 planning applications in March, of which 412 were approved and 104 refused. One major application was approved during the month — the conversion of upper floors to 18 residential apartments, with an estimated development value of £2.2m. Separately, STACK Leeds submitted a planning application for a container-style leisure hub at Kirkgate Market during the month, one of several notable applications in the hospitality and retail pipeline.
Funding and deals
March was a strong month for Leeds deal activity based on publicly reported transactions. Eight deals were recorded with a combined disclosed value exceeding £86m, though the headline figure is heavily weighted by a single transaction — the £46m forward funding deal secured by Marrico and Helios Real Estate for the new room2 hotel on Lisbon Street, on the former Leeds International Swimming Pool site. Other notable deals included NG Bailey’s £30m acquisition of a water engineering specialist and Tracsis’s £5m European expansion through the acquisition of German digital ticketing firm Vesputi, alongside Braime Group’s £5m acquisition of Don Electronics. At the early stage end, University of Leeds alumnus Dragos Popa secured £260,000 from SFC Capital for AI study assistant platform Plato. Additional transactions including the Weightmans double merger and the 3OU Holdings and Decarbonised merger were completed during the month with undisclosed values and are included in the deal count but not the total value figure. The Private Office also completed its first acquisition since receiving Goldman Sachs investment, acquiring HEB Wealth in a further sign of consolidation in Leeds’s financial services sector.
Jobs market
LinkedIn listed more than 4,000 job postings in Leeds during March, with approximately 1,700 within identifiable sector categories. Financial and professional services dominated the categorised postings at 800 — 47% of the tracked total — reflecting Leeds’s position as the UK’s largest financial centre outside London. Tech and digital roles accounted for 400 postings, with property and construction at 300 and hospitality and retail at 200.
Why this matters for Leeds
March’s Leeds business news presents a mixed but broadly active picture. Deal volumes and values are strong, with £86m of transactions demonstrating continued investor confidence in the city. The jobs market remains robust, particularly in financial services. The net business formation figure — just 73 after dissolutions — is the one number worth monitoring closely over the coming months. A single month doesn’t make a trend, but it is a signal worth tracking. That’s exactly what the Leeds Business Index is here to do.
Editor’s note: This is the first edition of the Leeds Business Index. Because March 2026 is our opening month of data, there is no historical baseline to compare against yet — the composite index score will carry meaningful context from April onwards as we build a picture of month-on-month movement. We publish this index on the 15th of every month. If you find it useful, bookmark it, share it with a Leeds colleague, and sign up to the Leeds Today newsletter to receive it directly. We welcome feedback on what you’d like to see tracked — contact us at news@leeds.today.
