She began her acting career by joining Oldham Rep straight after leaving Childwall Valley High School for Girls.

[2] At the age of 17 she made her stage debut in a dramatised version of Jane Eyre, playing Grace Poole.

In the 1960s she made guest appearances on Armchair Theatre, Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Gideon's Way, Nightingale's Boys, The Human Jungle and The Ronnie Barker Playhouse, "Maigret", among others.

[4] She appeared onstage in an Oxford Playhouse Company production of the Joe Orton play, What the Butler Saw at the Teatr y Werin in Aberystwyth, Wales, with William Russell and Michael Barrington in the cast.

Yates acted in David Pownall's Leicester Haymarket stage adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, directed by Bill Pryde in 1985.