Steel established himself as a director of photography in British television, photographing the first series of Peaky Blinders (2013), directed by Tom Harper. His cinematography helped establish the visual approach of the period crime drama, and he received a BAFTA Television Craft Award for Photography and Lighting for his work on the series.
He continued his collaboration with Harper on a range of film and television projects, including The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2014), the television miniseries War & Peace (2016), the musical drama Wild Rose (2018) and The Aeronauts (2019). His other feature credits include Robin Hood (2018), directed by Otto Bathurst; The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021), directed by Augustine Frizzell; The Survivor (2021), directed by Barry Levinson; and Heart of Stone (2023), directed by Harper.
His television work also includes the Black Mirror special White Christmas (2014), the spy thriller The Honourable Woman (2014), the historical miniseries Sons of Liberty (2015) and Netflix’s fantasy series The Sandman (2022). Steel’s cinematography spans contemporary and historical drama, combining location-based storytelling with large-scale studio productions.
In 2026, Steel returned to the world of Peaky Blinders as cinematographer for the feature film Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, directed by Tom Harper.