Birmingham — Week of 12 Oct 2026

A beginner-friendly AI training workshop run by the Edgbaston Neighbourhood Network Scheme at Edgbaston Golf Club.

A full-day summit at Millennium Point for agency owners and leaders — pricing, positioning, retention and the operational problems that come with scaling a services business. Paid, with a speaker programme aimed squarely at agency principals.

An afternoon bringing Birmingham's tech communities together with the cyber security profession: presentations, insight-sharing and community organising across the two worlds, run by Women in Tech Birmingham. Note the venue: it has moved to the 22nd floor of Alpha Tower, Suffolk Street Queensway, B1 1TT, not Millennium Point. Volunteers sign guests in at reception from 13:15 for lift access, so arrive a little early. Refreshments before the 13:30 start, pizza at the end, and the room needs to be clear shortly after 16:00. Free, but oversubscribed. Seating is first come, first served, with a small overflow area in the kitchen, so come early if you want a seat, and tell the organiser beforehand if you need one for accessibility reasons. There is a waiting list, so release your place if you can no longer go. Why go: a practical bridge between the city's community organisers and its security practitioners, in a room already over capacity. Best for anyone running a tech community or curious about a move into cyber.

A practical session on how AI-generated search results are reshaping organic visibility — what LLM answers mean for keyword strategy, how to structure content so it gets cited, and which measurement habits still hold up. Useful for marketers at SaaS and digital businesses and for founders doing their own growth work.

A breakfast for Ada Lovelace Day, the annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and maths, hosted by AND Digital with Women in Tech Birmingham. It starts at 08:30 at AND Digital's offices at 6 Brindleyplace, early enough to fit before the working day. It opens a busy week for Women in Tech Birmingham, which also runs a breakfast at Boston Tea Party on Wednesday morning and a female founders evening with Barclays Eagle Labs on Wednesday night. Free; register on Eventbrite. Why go: a low-key, early way into Birmingham's women-in-tech network on the day the sector marks Ada Lovelace. Best for women working in or around technology in the city who would rather meet the community over coffee than at an evening event.

A paid lunchtime business-networking event at 24 Stories, with seated introductions for Birmingham professionals.

A general West Midlands recruitment fair at Teamworks Birmingham City, open to job seekers across sectors.

An evening of peer-to-peer networking for people who work in data centres and digital infrastructure: operators, engineers, suppliers and those moving into the sector. Run by DCME (Data Centre Meetings & Events), a women-owned and women-led organiser that holds open regional events in London, Dublin and Birmingham. The format is conversation rather than a stage programme, from 17:00 to 21:30 at Cosy Club, 33 Bennetts Hill. Free; register on Eventbrite. Why go: the physical infrastructure behind cloud and AI rarely gets a room of its own on Birmingham's tech calendar. Best for infrastructure engineers, facilities and energy specialists, and suppliers who want to meet peers rather than prospects.

Evening networking at Cosy Club on Bennetts Hill for Birmingham founders, freelancers and professionals. First edition of a new city-centre series from Web Pulse Business Network.

A West Midlands evening networking event for SMEs and startups, hosted at Metro Bank in Birmingham.

A monthly drop-in for people running a business or working on an idea, at 1000 Trades in the Jewellery Quarter. The group has met since 2009 and has close to 6,000 members on Meetup. There is no set format: arrive, get a coffee or a drink, and introduce yourself. Dave Evans, who has hosted since 2016, will point you towards someone who can help if you say what you need. Sales pitches are not welcome, and crypto, NFT and MLM promotion is excluded. From 18:30 at 1000 Trades, 16 Frederick Street, B1 3HE. Free; RSVP on Meetup. Why go: one of the longest-running founder meetups in the city, with a no-pitching rule that keeps the conversation useful. Best for early-stage founders and side-project builders who want to talk to people a few steps ahead.

Monthly evening drinks for people who work in tech in Birmingham: developers, product managers, designers and UX people. Run by the Birmingham Tech Network, the evening is purely social. There are no talks or slides, just conversation over a drink from 19:00 at Slug & Lettuce, Brindleyplace. The group runs the same format every month, so it is an easy one to come back to. Free; register on Eventbrite. Why go: the simplest way to meet Birmingham's working developers and designers without sitting through a programme first. Best for people new to the city or new to the industry who want a relaxed first room.

A rooftop evening for Birmingham founders, operators and early-stage investors. Nodo Events runs this as a recurring city-centre mixer, with an informal format built around introductions rather than talks.

An early breakfast meet-up for women working in technology in Birmingham, run by Women in Tech Birmingham at Boston Tea Party on Corporation Street. It starts at 08:30, so it fits before the working day, and the format is conversation over breakfast rather than a programme. It falls in a busy week for the group, which also runs an Ada Lovelace Day breakfast with AND Digital on Tuesday and a female founders evening with Barclays Eagle Labs on Wednesday evening. Free; register on Eventbrite. Boston Tea Party, 190 Corporation Street, B4 6QD. Why go: a low-pressure first step into the city's women-in-tech community. Best for women new to Birmingham's tech scene, or early in their careers, who would rather meet people over coffee than at an evening event.

A practitioner day on incident response and security operations from CREST: technical talks on the tools, techniques and trends shaping IR and SOC work. Hosted by the chairs of CREST's focus groups, Benn Morris (incident response) and Martin Riley (SOC). The programme was still being confirmed at the time of writing, with 20 to 30 minute presentations and five-minute lightning talks invited from the community. Talks run from 09:00 to 16:00, followed by networking until 19:00, at IET Birmingham: Austin Court, 80 Cambridge Street. Tickets are £17 on Eventbrite; CREST members and CREST-qualified individuals can request a free code by email. Entry is for booked attendees only. Why go: a low-cost technical day for the people who actually answer the alerts, open to everyone from career-starters to senior responders. Best for SOC analysts, incident responders and security engineers in the Midlands.

A day at thestudio on how GIS and place-based intelligence are changing social housing, with case studies and peer networking. Run by Oxford Data Consultancy.

A later module of the Venture Centre's AI course series for small businesses.

Business Buzz's drop-in daytime networking session at Chaophraya, open to Birmingham business owners and freelancers.

A paid one-day beginners Python course run at Regus, Victoria Square.

An evening for women building technology companies in the West Midlands, co-hosted by Barclays Eagle Labs and Women in Tech Birmingham at 6 Brindleyplace. The evening mixes founder pitching, mentoring conversations and networking, from 17:30. It closes a busy week for Women in Tech Birmingham, which also runs an Ada Lovelace Day breakfast on Tuesday and a breakfast meet-up on Wednesday morning. Free; register on Eventbrite. 6 Brindleyplace, B1 2JB. Why go: Eagle Labs brings the start-up support network and Women in Tech Birmingham brings the community, which makes this one of the few rooms in the city aimed squarely at female tech founders. Best for women running or about to start a tech business, and the mentors and investors who back them.

A paid leadership and sustainability training programme for managers, delivered in Birmingham.

Webb Yates Engineers host an evening talk on structural and architectural thinking at their Jewellery Quarter office.

fizzPOP's monthly software and electronics evening: bring a project, a bug or a board and work on it alongside other developers and hardware people. Runs alongside the makerspace's public open night. Free.

fizzPOP's weekly open night at the makerspace — a free, public drop-in to see the workshop, use the equipment and meet the members.

A talk on building your own web analytics from server logs, rather than handing visitor data to a third-party tracker. Dave Manton walks through the technical problems of an in-house analytics system: handling high volumes of log data, processing user interactions at scale, and turning raw lines into numbers people can use. Hosted by the Birmingham .NET & MAUI user group, which meets monthly at Bluetel Solutions, 4 Temple Row, next to Snow Hill station, from 18:30. Free; RSVP on Meetup. Why go: a practical, build-it-yourself talk in a small user-group room where questions are easy to ask. Best for .NET and back-end developers, and anyone weighing privacy-friendly alternatives to off-the-shelf analytics.

A monthly evening for people who build with software and electronics, held on the second Wednesday of the month at fizzPOP, Birmingham's member-run makerspace in Digbeth. Bring a project, a bug or a board and work on it alongside other developers and hardware tinkerers. It is a social rather than a class, and members won't build your project for you, but help and opinions are easy to find. It runs alongside the makerspace's free public open night, so newcomers can also tour the workshop and its electronics, woodwork and prototyping kit. From 18:30 at fizzPOP Makerspace, 35 Coventry Street. Free; RSVP on Meetup. Why go: one of the few places in the city where software and hardware people share a bench. Best for makers, embedded and hobbyist developers, and anyone with a half-finished project.

fizzPOP, Birmingham's makerspace, opens to the public: look round the workshop, see the laser cutters, 3D printers and electronics benches, and talk to members about getting started. Free, weekly.

A free evening networking meet-up for Birmingham professionals, SME owners and entrepreneurs at The Good Intent.

CRESTCon UK's penetration testing community day at IET Birmingham: Austin Court, with practitioner talks and networking for offensive security professionals.

FabFest 2026 brings a free full day of Microsoft Fabric and AI sessions to Millennium Point, with speakers drawn from across the data platform community. One of the larger free data days in the Midlands calendar.

The region's annual gathering at Millennium Point, covering the West Midlands innovation and growth agenda.

An evening at STEAMhouse for the Birmingham innovation community — makers, founders and researchers in one room.

CGI and Women in Tech Birmingham host an evening at 2 Chamberlain Square on breaking into technology leadership — what the step up actually requires and how women in the region have made it.

The Birmingham Small Business Meetup's recurring evening networking session, sponsored by Holland & Co Chartered Accountants.

The UK's main independent Amazon-seller conference, back in Birmingham for a full day of talks on advertising, logistics, international expansion and the tooling around marketplace selling. Paid ticket, strong speaker list, ecommerce operators throughout.

A practical session at Medicine Bakery on the everyday technology working artists actually need — tools, platforms and workflows — run by PURE Arts Group.