Yorkshire & Humber is the regional market where independent and mid-sized chains actually out-hire Boots. PharmSee is tracking 86 live pharmacy vacancies within 25 miles of Leeds, but only 23% of them are Boots — the lowest Boots share of any English region we have measured in 2026. Cohens alone accounts for 21%.
This pillar walks through the numbers: live vacancy volume, chain mix, GP-to-pharmacy density, and NHS trust pay bands — all drawn from PharmSee's own data as of April 2026. If you want to skip the analysis and go straight to the tool, the full dataset is live at /app/jobs and /app/pharmacies.
1. Live vacancies in Yorkshire & Humber
Measured from a 25-mile radius around Leeds (LS1):
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Active pharmacy vacancies | 86 |
| Boots listings | 20 (23%) |
| Other chains on the board | Cohens (18), Weldricks (6), Well Pharmacy (5), Rowlands (3) |
| National total (all regions) | 1,354 |
Boots' share in Yorkshire & Humber is 23%, against a national average of 37%. That tells you immediately whether the local market is Boots-led or independent-led — and that has real consequences for salary negotiation leverage.
Browse every live role in the region on PharmSee's job search.
2. Pharmacy density — the denominator nobody talks about
Vacancy counts only mean something next to the store and prescriber base they sit in. Within 10 miles of Leeds (LS1):
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Pharmacies | 403 |
| GP practices | 318 |
| GP-to-pharmacy ratio | 0.79 |
| Jobs per 100 pharmacies | 21.3 |
A ratio below 1.0 means there are more pharmacies than GP surgeries in the area — which sounds healthy, but also means the dispensing pie is split more ways, squeezing per-store revenue. Use PharmSee's pharmacy finder to see every store in the area with its NHS contract category and estimated monthly dispensing revenue.
3. Pay bands on the board right now
Leeds Teaching Hospitals is currently advertising a Pharmacy Quality Control Team Manager (Band 8a) at £57,528–£64,750, with rotational Band 6 roles at £39,959–£48,117. Community pay is set largely by Cohens and Weldricks, whose Yorkshire footprint means they compete hard on base salary; our last pass put newly-qualified pharmacist pay in the region at approximately £44k–£48k, roughly £3k below the London figure before weighting.
For a structured view of pharmacist salary bands across the UK, see the main salary intelligence hub.
4. What this means for candidates
- If you're newly qualified: Yorkshire & Humber offers a meaningful step up from the £40,000 rotational floor, but the jump happens at Band 7+ on the NHS trust side, not in community. Start filtering NHS-only on the job board.
- If you're looking at locum rates: chain concentration is your single best predictor of ceiling. Yorkshire & Humber has 23% Boots share — higher share means tighter rate control, lower share means more negotiation room.
- If you're considering ownership: the GP-to-pharmacy ratio (0.79) tells you whether the area is over- or under-supplied with dispensing capacity. Ratios below 0.85 generally indicate heavy competition per prescriber.
5. What this means for operators
The regulatory backdrop matters too. The MHRA's new MHRA–NICE aligned pathway is expected to pull new medicines into the NHS 3–6 months sooner, which raises clinical pharmacist demand at the hospital trust layer first. In high-density areas like this one, expect Band 7 and Band 8a vacancy volumes to rise before community pay moves.
For live dispensing revenue estimates per store in the region, see every pharmacy in PharmSee's directory.
Sources
All figures in this article come from PharmSee's own dataset (13,147 pharmacies, 12,858 GP practices, 1,354 active pharmacy vacancies as of 2026-04-09), cross-referenced with NHS and gov.uk publications cited below.