Membership criteria

Based in the Leeds City Region

You need a physical base - or a remote-first team headquartered - within the West Yorkshire / Leeds City Region: Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield and the surrounding West Yorkshire Combined Authority area.

Agencies & studios need 3+ people

An agency or studio listing means three or more full-time people. Solo operators and duos aren't shut out - they belong on the Freelancers side of the directory instead.

Whatever your business does

This started as a creative directory and it is now the whole city. A few of the categories people list under:

• Food & Drink
• Retail & Shops
• Trades & Construction
• Health & Wellbeing
• Brand & Design
• Digital Marketing
• Web Design & Development
• PR & Communications
• Photography & Film
• Events & Venues
• Professional Services
• Everything else

Eligible

• ✓Cafes, restaurants, bars and takeaways
• ✓Independent shops and retailers
• ✓Trades, builders and installers
• ✓Salons, clinics, gyms and studios
• ✓Agencies and consultancies (3+ staff)
• ✓Independent freelancers and makers
• ✓Venues, galleries and event spaces, open to the public
• ✓Professional and support services

Not eligible

• ×Businesses with no Leeds City Region base
• ×Listings for a business that is no longer trading
• ×Duplicate listings for one business
• ×Anything requiring a licence the business does not hold
• ×Adult services, gambling and payday lending

Where do I need to be based?

Inside the Leeds City Region. That means a physical base - or a remote-first team headquartered - somewhere across the West Yorkshire Combined Authority area: Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield and the patch around them. If your work happens here, you belong here. If your nearest office is a long way south, this isn't your directory.

What's the three-staff rule about?

Anything we list as an agency or studio needs three or more full-time people behind it. It keeps the agency side of the directory honest - a roster of teams that can actually take on a brief, not a one-person shop wearing a bigger name.

Museums and bars are listed. Doesn't that break the rules?

Venues are a different kind of listing and are held to a different test. A venue isn't somebody you brief, it's somewhere you walk into, so the three-staff rule and the creative-disciplines rule don't apply. What a venue needs instead is a public door in Leeds and a public record of people having been through it. They're listed so Trails have somewhere to send you, and they sit on their own page at /directory/venues.

I'm a solo freelancer - can I still join?

Absolutely. Solo operators and duos are exactly who the freelancer side of Look in Leeds is for. You don't need a team of three; you just need to be based in the region and actually trading. Submit your listing and pick the freelancer route.

Which sectors actually qualify?

All of them. Look in Leeds started as a creative directory and has widened to the whole city: cafes, shops, trades, salons, venues, agencies, freelancers and everything in between. If you are a real business trading in the Leeds City Region, there is a place for you here.

How and when are applications reviewed?

Every listing is read by a real person on the team before it goes live - nothing is auto-approved. We check the basics: a genuine Leeds City Region base, a business that is actually trading, and the headcount rule for agency listings. Most submissions are turned around within a few working days.

What stops a listing getting approved?

The usual reasons are no real base in the region, a business that has stopped trading, a duplicate of a listing that already exists, or an agency listing that doesn't meet the three-person threshold. If we think you're a better fit elsewhere on the directory, we'll point you that way rather than just saying no.