Leeds is the last major English city core to get a PharmSee branch-level audit. We've now measured it — and the Yorkshire answer lands almost exactly between Birmingham's 85% independent ceiling and Liverpool's 68% floor.
Headline numbers — Leeds LS1 4DY, 3-mile ring
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| GP practices | 76 |
| Pharmacies | 90 |
| Raw GP:pharmacy ratio | 0.84:1 |
| Independent share | 67.8% (61 of 90) |
| Total ghost branches | 16 (17.8%) |
| Effective operating pharmacies | 74 |
| Post-ghost ratio | 1.03:1 |
Leeds is an over-supplied core on the raw number — 0.84:1 puts it behind Birmingham (1.1:1) and Liverpool (1.42:1) as a Pharmacy First runway. But 18% of the footprint doesn't actually operate, and once you strip the ghost branches the effective ratio lifts to roughly parity.
Chain composition
| Chain | Branches | Operating | Ghost % | Per-branch avg (operating) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Independent | 61 | 52 | 15% | £104,920 |
| Boots | 12 | 6 | 50% | £63,048 |
| Well | 7 | 6 | 14% | £103,461 |
| Cohens | 3 | 2 | 33% | £79,722 |
| Lloyds | 3 | 0 | 100% | — |
| Superdrug | 2 | 1 | 50% | £35,438 |
| Tesco | 1 | 1 | 0% | £66,318 |
| Asda | 1 | 1 | 0% | £93,806 |
Two findings jump out. First, Leeds Boots has the same 50% ghost rate we found in Liverpool L1 and Newcastle NE1 — half the contractor codes on the NHS Digital register are not dispensing. The cycle-15 pattern of Northern Boots ghost concentration now has four city data points (Liverpool, Newcastle, Plymouth, Leeds) and two contrasts (Birmingham 25%, Sheffield 11%, Manchester 12.5%).
Second, Leeds Boots operating branches average £63,048 — the second-lowest Boots per-branch figure in our seven-city atlas, just ahead of Birmingham's £55,435. The Yorkshire Boots estate is undersized at the store level.
How Leeds compares to the rest of the English city atlas
| City | Indie share | Boots op | Boots per-branch | Total ghost % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham B1 | 83.8% | 6 | £55,435 | ~14% |
| Nottingham NG1 | 77.4% | — | — | — |
| Leeds LS1 | 67.8% | 6 | £63,048 | 17.8% |
| Manchester M1 | 65.0% | 7 | £76,241 | ~12% |
| Liverpool L1 | 67.0% | 6 | £102,970 | 17.9% |
| Sheffield S1 | 63.9% | 8 | £103,372 | ~14% |
| Newcastle NE1 | 55.6% | 8 | £122,588 | ~18% |
Leeds sits squarely in the middle of the pack. It does not match Birmingham's West Midlands indie anomaly. It does not match Newcastle's chain dominance either. The independent majority holds — 61 of 90 LS1 pharmacies are neither Boots, Well, Cohens, Lloyds, Superdrug, Tesco nor Asda — but the margin is thinner than in the Midlands cluster.
The Leeds Cohens footprint puzzle
Cohens has 3 LS1 branches of which only 2 operate. In Manchester M1 Cohens has 13 branches (11 operating, £127,582 per branch — the highest non-supermarket chain figure in our atlas). The Yorkshire Cohens footprint is an order of magnitude smaller than the Greater Manchester one, despite Leeds and Manchester being comparable-sized cores. Cohens is a northern chain by centre of gravity, but its Yorkshire coverage is unusually thin.
Why operators should care
A pharmacy owner scoping Leeds has three competing signals:
- The raw ratio (0.84:1) says over-supplied — don't enter.
- The ghost-corrected ratio (1.03:1) says balanced — marginal opportunity.
- The chain-economics (Boots at £63k, 50% ghost rate) says Boots is a weakening competitor.
The honest reading is that Leeds is a balanced market where the biggest national chain is structurally retreating. That is a buy signal for a local independent or a mid-size regional chain, not a no-go. Browse Leeds pharmacies on PharmSee to see the per-branch data yourself.
Methodology caveats
This is a 3-mile ring from LS1 4DY (Leeds Kirkgate Market). A 5-mile ring would capture more outer-Leeds chain density and pull the independent share down. The ghost-branch filter is our internal "zero dispensing revenue over 12 months" flag — the NHS Digital contractor register has not pruned these codes yet, so a naive count over-states total pharmacy presence. We've applied the same filter consistently across the seven-city atlas.
Readers scoping a pharmacist job in Yorkshire should pair this branch-level picture with the live vacancy feed — see Leeds pharmacist jobs and the PharmSee salary tracker for a complete Yorkshire recruitment view.
Sources
- PharmSee location analyser:
/api/location/analyze?postcode=LS1+4DY&radiusMiles=3(April 2026 pull) - PharmSee city atlas: see related articles on Liverpool L1 and Birmingham B1
- NHS Digital pharmacy contractor register (primary source, via PharmSee ingestion)