In 2010, one of his friends informed him that Bollywood film production house Yash Raj Films (YRF) was auditioning for new faces. Saleem was interested and he gave his audition. However, it was 8–9 months before he got confirmation from the production house that he had been selected. The film for which he was selected for was Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge, a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of social networking site Facebook; it was directed by debutante Nupur Asthana. Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge is a love story which develops on Facebook where the protagonists change identities to make their partners fall in love with them. Starring newcomers Nishant Dahiya and Saba Azad, along with Saleem and Tara D’Souza, the film was released under Y-Films, a subsidiary of YRF. The role that Saleem had to play was that of a college prankster called Vishal Bhatt, who with his friend Hacky, go on playing pranks on their friends. Saleem explained that he "liked the script and I did it. I feel the youth will relate and connect with it. I think the movie will put me in a different light and open lot of doors for me." The youngsters had to undergo a month of workshops under Aditya Chopra, where they rehearsed each other's lines from the script.
In addition to acting in films and modeling, Saleem is a member of the "Mumbai Heroes" along with several actors at the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL), a non-professional men's cricket league in India consisting of film actors from eight regional film industries of the Indian cinema. The league was commenced in 2011, and since its establishment, it has been widely reported in the Indian media.
The following year, Saleem appeared in Y-Films's Mere Dad Ki Maruti directed by Ashima Chibber. The film revolves around a Punjabi wedding, where a boy (played by Saleem) steals his father's car to impress a girl and portrays how his plans go astray. The year 2013 saw the release of the experimental anthology film Bombay Talkies consisting of four short films. Saleem was part of the Karan Johar's segment titled "Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh", opposite Rani Mukerji and Randeep Hooda. He played the role of Avi Nash, a young homosexual man, who is infatuated by his co-worker's husband.
Saleem followed this success with a lead role of Aniket Bhargava, a skating coach in the 2014 passionate drama Hawaa Hawaai. Directed by Amol Gupte, the film was proved to be a critical and commercial success, and Saleem received positive reviews for his performance; film critic Subhash K. Jha concluded, "Saqib is very cinematic, we witness the full force of Saqib's virtuosity." Noyon Jyoti Parasara wrote that "Saqib justifies his place".
As of 2016, Saleem has several projects from different stages of productions. He has completed filming for Relativity Media and Balaji Telefilms joint-production Dobaara: See your evil, directed by Prawaal Raman. The film will be an official remake of the 2014 Hollywood film , in which he will star along with his sister Huma Qureshi. He has also finished Vasan Bala's Side Hero, a film made on a boy (will be played by him) who dreams to become an actor in the Hindi films industry. His latest movie is Sajid Nadiadwala's action adventure Dishoom, which is directed by Rohit Dhawan and co-starring John Abraham, Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandez.Dobaara: See your evil will be released in June 2017.
