[6] He made it to the main draw of a ranking event for the first time in 2012, by beating Mike Dunn 5–3 in the wildcard round for the German Masters.

[8] Steadman took advantage of a new flatter structure used in the qualifiers for the 2013 Welsh Open, whereby he would only need to win two matches to reach the venue by defeating Yu Delu and Jamie Burnett with the loss of only one frame.

[12][13] In his opening match, Steadman defeated Marcus Campbell 5–3 to qualify for the 2013 Wuxi Classic in China where he faced Lü Haotian in the first round and lost 5–3.

[14] At the China Open, Steadman beat Michael Holt and Martin O'Donnell to advance to the last 16 of a ranking event for the first time, where he was defeated 5–2 by Mike Dunn.

[20] He also qualified for the International Championship by defeating Cao Yupeng 6–4 and he saw off Graeme Dott 6–1 in the first round, before losing 6–3 to Ian Burns.

[21] Despite Anthony Hamilton being docked a frame for arriving late to their first round UK Championship meeting, Steadman was edged out 6–5 in a scrappy six-and-a-half-hour match.

[24] In April, Steadman qualified for the televised stages of the World Championship for the first time, courtesy of wins over Rhys Clark, Michael White and Jamie Burnett.

[25][26] A 6–2 triumph over Li Hang saw Steadman qualify for the International Championship for the third successive year, but he lost 6–2 to Ding Junhui in the opening round.

[29] His best form of the year came at the Welsh Open, where he reached the last 16 of an event for the second time in his career after eliminating Jak Jones 4–2, Sam Baird 4–1 and Anthony Hamilton 4–2.