manchester

GM Business Growth Hub's Stockport Digital Network session, aimed at digital, creative and tech SMEs across Greater Manchester. Workshop-led focus on growth strategy — marketing, sales, operations — with facilitated networking. Useful for founders and senior operators at <20-person tech companies.

A Friday-evening mixer for Manchester's broad tech community — founders, engineers, designers, product people, investors — hosted in the CUPRA City Garage showroom space. Relaxed format, drinks, introductions, and the kind of casual conversations that tend to turn into something the week after.

The Manchester Statistical Society — one of the oldest statistical societies in the world — hosts a talk separating AI-augmentation hype from the patterns that are actually moving numbers inside UK businesses. Grounded, evidence-led, and deliberately short on vendor pitch.

The Architecting Manchester meetup returns to Bonded Warehouse with a session on what it actually takes to build and run AI-powered systems at scale — architecture patterns, trade-offs, the unglamorous parts. Follow-up to March's sold-out session.

Third monthly gathering of Manchester's Laravel developer community at Street Group HQ. Food and drinks sponsored by Tact. 26 RSVPs.

The Northern Tech Awards — produced by GP Bullhound — is the annual gala recognising the fastest-growing tech companies across the North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Dinner, ceremony and the best-attended room of founders, CEOs and investors north of Birmingham all in one night at IWM North.

Techcelerate's flagship monthly networking coffee for tech founders, investors and senior managers. Two hours, no presentations — just meaningful conversations between people building and backing tech companies. Session 72 of Manchester's most established founder-investor breakfast meetup.

A full day programme from Stribe on building and measuring DEI inside tech organisations — practical frameworks, case studies from Manchester employers, and facilitated working sessions for People leads, founders and HRBPs in the tech sector.

An afternoon R&D clinic hosted by Alexander & Co for Manchester founders and growing tech businesses — 1:1 sessions on qualifying activity, claim preparation and what HMRC's tightened stance means in practice. Booking required; free to attend.

Exchange hosts a fireside chat with Harry Panter, CEO of Housr, covering the founder journey from product-market fit through fundraising to scale. Part of Campfield's growing founder programme — small-room, high-signal, and deliberately unvarnished.

Monthly gathering from Women in Technology North, hosted at Kraken Technologies' Circle Square HQ. Focuses on career development, community, and redefining what a tech career path can look like.

Venture Café Manchester's weekly Thursday Gathering spotlights the cutting edge of neurotechnology — from brain-computer interfaces to cognitive wellness applications. Highlights emerging research, practical developments and collaboration opportunities across the neurotech and health innovation ecosystem.

Casual pub-format meetup for data engineers and AI builders. Bring your terminal — show your agent setup, automation pipeline, or janky prototype that works in production. For people who've been building the data stack for years and are now figuring out what happens when AI agents enter the picture.

Manchester Digital's flagship Demo Nights returns to PwC Spinningfields, showcasing the most exciting emerging technologies coming out of the Manchester tech ecosystem. Founders and innovators deliver 5-minute pitches on their products, followed by live demos and hands-on play. Always a sellout — book early.

Found Up North kicks off Manchester Tech Week with a full day programme for founders, recovering founders and soon-to-be founders. Workshops, unconference sessions, introductions, and the honest conversations founders usually only have in private. Relaxed format at Campfield.

techUK's Scaling in... Retail session, hosted at Gateley in Manchester, brings retail-tech founders, scale-ups and investors together for a working afternoon on the growth questions that matter at Series A-B: margin, unit economics, and cross-border expansion. Part of Manchester Tech Week.

True Worth Tech Talks hosts a Chatham House-style roundtable on Shadow AI — the unsanctioned tools already running inside most organisations — and how CTOs, CISOs and people leaders are handling it. Senior-only, limited seats, Bloc at Bruntwood SciTech.

WomenWise brings together senior women from across the Northern tech ecosystem for a Real Talk evening on leadership. Panel, Q&A and structured networking at Colony King Street. Part of Manchester Tech Week.

Alliance Manchester Business School hosts the latest instalment of its Scale Up Series, focused on how scaling companies are actually embedding AI across their org — not the vendor story, the operator story. Part of Manchester Tech Week's fringe programme.

A DTX Fringe evening for GM tech leaders on the intersection of AI, cybersecurity and the human layer — the behaviours, training gaps and policy choices that actually determine risk in an AI-augmented workplace. Hosted by GM Business Growth Hub at Glaisyers ETL.

DTX Manchester is the anchor event of Manchester Tech Week — two days of expert talks, live demos and interactive sessions across digital transformation, cloud, data, AI and cybersecurity. Manchester's largest tech gathering, co-located with UCX, Creator Economy Live and IR B2B at Manchester Central.

UCX Manchester runs alongside DTX at Manchester Central, covering unified communications, cloud telephony, contact centres, CX, AV and the AI layer that's now reshaping all of them. Co-located with DTX Manchester — one badge, four events.

Creator Economy Live lands in Manchester for two days at Victoria Warehouse — the UK's #1 influencer-marketing conference, bringing together brands, creators, agencies and platforms. Strategy, measurement, partnerships and the hard commercial questions behind creator-led growth.

CloudGuard and BCN team up for a Manchester Tech Week happy hour — short tactical talks on cloud, security and AI, then drinks. Deliberately informal, deliberately early-evening, and deliberately focused on the people doing the work, not the people selling it.

An evening on the design, safety and accessibility challenges of social VR — what works, what doesn't, and where the research is heading. For anyone building in XR, games, social platforms, or working on online-safety policy. Part of Manchester Tech Week.

CONEXEN's monthly Manchester mixer brings together biopharma, life-sciences and health-tech founders, investors and researchers. Hosted at Squire Patton Boggs in Spinningfields as part of Manchester Tech Week.

Manchester Metropolitan University's Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMMIC) runs its next innovation pathway cohort, starting during Manchester Tech Week. A fully funded programme for manufacturing and materials businesses working with MMU experts on test, validate and deliver stages. Launch/kickoff session on 30 April.

Manchester Digital's Digital Her programme runs its annual Curiosity Camp for career changers and returners looking to move into tech — this year with Deloitte. A day of practical sessions, employer introductions and honest career-path conversations for anyone rebuilding a tech career.

A Manchester Tech Week afternoon session on AI in the cultural heritage sector — galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM). Practical case studies on collections intelligence, interpretation, access and rights. Strong hidden-gem pick for anyone at the AI × arts × public-institution intersection.

Launch event for the Women in Tech and Cyber Hub (WiTCH) Manchester chapter — a new community focused on women building careers in cyber and technology across Greater Manchester. Hosted at N Brown on Lever Street as part of Manchester Tech Week.

Power BI Manchester (PBIMCR) runs a recap session from Microsoft's FabCon 26 conference on Microsoft Fabric — what actually matters for Manchester-based data teams, which of the new features are production-ready, and what's still a wait-and-see. Hosted at Slalom's Marble Street office.

Venture Café Manchester's Thursday Gathering lands squarely on Manchester Tech Week evening with a themed programme on regional innovation — what the North's model actually looks like, who's investing, and what the next three years need to look like. Weekly format, free, open to anyone.

with Steve Wade (Kubernetes Ambassador, DevOps Society)

DevOps Society's Manchester Tech Week evening with Steve Wade (Kubernetes Ambassador) on how high-performing engineering teams actually communicate. Pattern-level, practical, and directly applicable on Monday morning. Colony King Street.

The launch event of Manchester Responsible AI Network (MRAIN) — a new city-wide initiative bringing together researchers, policy people, founders and operators working on the practical side of responsible AI. Keynote, panel and networking at NatWest's Spinningfields event space. A founding-moment event for anyone in Manchester's AI community.

Manchester-based AIoT Hub explores federated edge intelligence and its applications for decentralised smart grid management — a frontier topic at the intersection of IoT, distributed AI, and energy infrastructure.

Manchester QA and testing community at Matillion New Bailey for two talks: Adam Davis on testing integrations and Nicola Furniss on accessibility testing.

A rare chance to get clarity on the legal essentials for AI-enabled startups — covering data protection, IP, contracts, and what investors actually expect. David Gardner, TLT Partner and Head of Fintech, and Morvo founder Rob Stein lead a morning workshop combining structured AI governance guidance with a founder-to-founder fireside. Free with breakfast provided.

Manchester's flagship design and digital conference returns for its 14th year at RNCM, with Rachel Coldicutt (Careful Industries), Rochelle Gold (NHS England), Laura Yarrow (GOV.UK Design), Dan Hett, and nine further speakers. A full day of talks and workshops on ethical technology, accessibility, AI in public services, and the craft of digital work — spanning agencies, public sector, health, and beyond. One of the North's most enduring conferences, now in its second decade.

Manchester’s data science and analytics community meets at DiSH. Rioch Brewer, Head of Data Insight at AJ Bell, shares lessons from delivering their first production data science models — covering portfolio risk measurement, churn prediction, and price anomaly detection. Open networking and pub social to follow.

Hyperact brings together product professionals to share candid lessons from integrating AI into real product development lifecycles — covering what actually works, what doesn't, and how teams are building genuine advantages rather than just experimenting. Lunch provided.

Monthly gathering for data platform professionals in Manchester covering Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, SQL Server, and related technologies. Evening of technical talks, discussions, and networking at XYZ Works, Spinningfields.

Venture Café Manchester's Thursday session explores the North's growing life sciences and health tech ecosystem, featuring early-stage biotech founder pitches in diagnostics, therapeutics, medical devices, and genomics. Researchers, founders, and investors gather to explore what it takes to build Northern health innovation at scale.

Google Developer Group Manchester and Android & Kotlin Manchester co-host their Spring session at Autotrader’s Circle Square space. An evening of technical talks for Android, Kotlin, and Google platform developers, with networking to follow.

Tech Leads NW gathers at Bonded Warehouse to explore how technical leaders navigate organisational complexity, difficult conversations, and high-stakes decisions. A candid peer-to-peer format for CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and senior technical leads.