The West Midlands' annual tech gathering returns for five days and 35+ events across the city — founders, investors, enterprise leaders and engineers, with a programme spanning AI adoption, advanced manufacturing, mobility, clean energy and regional investment. The anchor week in Birmingham's tech calendar; fringe events run all week alongside the main programme. This year's theme is FAST FORWARD. The ICC hosts the flagship days, with satellite and fringe events at venues across the city, and a dedicated networking platform opens to registered delegates a week beforehand. Why go: the one week a year when the region's investors, council, universities and engineering teams are all in the same few buildings, and the fringe is usually where the useful conversations happen. Best for anyone building or hiring in the West Midlands — pick the days that match your role rather than trying to do all five.
Birmingham Tech Week opens with its strategic session for senior leaders at The REP, 08:30 to 12:00. This one is invite-only. TechWM says so on its own event page and there is no public registration link, so you need an invitation from the Birmingham Tech Week events team to get in. Arrival and networking from 08:30. Lucy Hedges hosts the official kick-off at 09:30, followed by Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands, and Andy Hague, CEO of TechWM, with a State of the Nation address on the region's position. At 10:25 a panel called Mind the Gap takes on what the West Midlands has to get right over the next decade, with Steve Rigby, CEO of Rigby Group, Julie Nugent, CEO of Coventry City Council, and Kit Windows-Yule, Alan Welby and Jacqueline De Rojas. Edwina Dunn gives the keynote at 11:20. The programme sticks to AI adoption, industrial transformation, investment, talent and infrastructure, with a West Midlands lens on advanced manufacturing, mobility and clean energy. There is no ticket price. Why go: this is where the region's tech policy and investment agenda gets set for the year. Best for founders, investors and executives who need to be in that conversation rather than reading about it, and who can get an invitation.
An hour at the NatWest Accelerator on St Philip's Place on why technically sound technology programmes still stall, hosted by John Heseltine as a Birmingham Tech Week fringe session. The argument is that the architecture is usually fine and the rollout is not: organisations spend heavily on the build and almost nothing on adoption, then wonder why the return never arrives. The session works through what has to be funded on the people side to get the value out, and what the warning signs look like before a programme goes quiet. Coffee from 11:00, session at 11:30, networking until 13:00. Free. Why go: the adoption gap is the most common and least discussed reason transformation budgets disappear, and this is a short, concrete take on it. Best for CTOs, programme leads and anyone selling change into a large organisation.
A behind-the-scenes tour of SCC's Recyclea facility in Tyseley, showing Refurbishment-as-a-Service in action: hardware repair, certified data sanitisation and cosmetic restoration of enterprise devices for redeployment rather than landfill. A Birmingham Tech Week fringe event run by SCC with HP.
CyberQ Group and Microsoft on turning Zero Trust from a framework diagram into something that actually runs, at Alpha Works on the 22nd floor of Suffolk Street Queensway. The session is about execution: the operational alignment it demands, the identity groundwork that has to come first, and the order in which organisations sequence the work so that it does not stall halfway. Two hours, 13:00 to 15:00, free, during Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: most Zero Trust content stops at the principles, and the hard part is everything after. Best for security architects, IT leads and CTOs who have the mandate and are working out where to start.
A Birmingham Tech Week afternoon at The REP built around what young people want from the organisations shaping technology, 13:00 to 16:00. It is deliberately not a conference or a careers fair. Young people and emerging talent are the ones on stage: sharing experiences, showing ideas, putting questions to industry and giving their view on skills, inclusion, wellbeing and access. Leaders from across the region's tech economy are in the room to listen and respond rather than present. Free. Why go: if you are hiring, designing apprenticeships or building early-career pipelines in the West Midlands, this is unmediated feedback from the people you are trying to reach. Best for employers, educators and anyone running talent programmes in the region.
STEM Women's Birmingham careers fair at Edgbaston Stadium, connecting women graduating into engineering, software, data and related fields with employers hiring across the Midlands. Free for candidates.
A Birmingham Tech Week session at The Exchange on building inclusive routes into AI and automation at work, 13:45 to 16:30. It builds on last year's Disability and Diversity in a Future of AI session. An expert panel makes the case for why investing in inclusion and diverse teams changes organisational resilience and what the technology actually delivers. Attendees then take part in an interactive exercise on AI adoption in their own workplaces, and the session shares early findings from the AI-empowered research project on how organisational approaches to AI are shaping the working lives of disabled people. Free, registration via the organiser's form. Why go: it moves past intent to the research and the practical decisions, and the session feeds back into live work. Best for people leaders, accessibility leads and anyone rolling AI tooling across a workforce.
A Birmingham Tech Week fringe session at the NatWest Accelerator on why websites that are technically sound still fail as business tools, hosted by Web Pulse Marketing. The argument is about handoffs. Developers own functionality, designers own presentation and usability, marketers own audience, messaging and lead generation, and the three are usually planned and delivered separately. The result is a site that works in one dimension and underperforms as a whole, or a marketing plan that cannot be built because the technical constraints arrived too late. The session puts developers, designers, marketers, agency people and founders in the same room to work through where the joins break. Free, 14:00 to 16:00. Why go: a specific, unglamorous problem that costs small companies real money, discussed by the three disciplines at once. Best for founders commissioning a site and the agencies building them.
Target Integration hosts a session at Alpha Works on what happens to the attack surface when industrial systems and OT environments get connected to cloud platforms, 15:00 to 17:00. The premise is that the efficiency gains of the digital factory arrive with new attack vectors attached, and that most manufacturers are further ahead on connectivity than on the security strategy to go with it. The session works through where those risks actually sit in a connected production environment and what a credible cyber strategy looks like alongside a transformation programme. Free, in person, on the 22nd floor of Alpha Tower during Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: OT security is badly under-covered in a region built on advanced manufacturing. Best for manufacturing IT and operations leads, and security people whose remit has just grown to include the factory floor.
A founders, investors and operators evening at The Alchemist on Colmore Row, hosted by The Sweat Equity Club with Superteam UK Birmingham and FrontierTechX, 17:30 to 21:30. The only programmed part is a set of founders from the first Sweat Equity Club cohort talking through what they are building: what is working, where they are winning and what they have not solved yet. Around that it is a deliberately mixed room of founders, investors, operators and specialist firms from Birmingham and beyond. The organisers ask people to come with what they are building and what they are looking for. Free. Why go: an unusually high ratio of people who can actually be useful to each other, and the founder updates give the conversation somewhere to start. Best for early-stage founders, angels and anyone selling into startups.
The opening night of Birmingham Tech Week, at BOX on Brindleyplace: the whole West Midlands tech community in one bar before the week's programme starts. No talks and no agenda. Live bandeoke, music, drinks and food, with founders, engineers, investors, public sector people and students all in the same room. Open to every Birmingham Tech Week attendee. The organisers run a badge stamp station that marks which of those groups you belong to, which makes opening a conversation less awkward than it usually is. Free, 18:00 to 23:30. Entry is by the delegate QR code issued when you register for Birmingham Tech Week; the same code covers the rest of the week. Why go: the cheapest way to meet half the people you would otherwise chase across five days of sessions. Best for anyone attending the week who would rather arrive already knowing a few faces.
A summit at Millennium Point on reimagining maintenance and reliability in industrial operations, covering condition monitoring, predictive approaches and asset strategy. High ticket price; specialist audience.
A full Birmingham Tech Week day at The Eastside Rooms on whether emerging technology narrows inequality or widens it, 08:30 to 16:00. Isaac Harvey MBE and Suzie Branch-Haddow open with a fireside keynote at 10:00 on breaking barriers and building a more inclusive tech sector. A panel at 10:30 gets into what inclusive leadership looks like in practice: developing diverse talent, psychological safety, and the cultures that make either possible. A Women in Tech lightning talk follows at 11:35. The rest of the programme covers inclusive AI, accessibility, digital exclusion and ethical innovation, with community organisations, educators, accessibility advocates and policymakers in the room alongside technology leaders. Free. Why go: the agenda stays on design, deployment and governance decisions rather than sentiment. Best for employers, product teams and public sector technologists in the region.
Birmingham Tech Week's cyber security day at The Eastside Rooms, billed by the organiser as CyberVerse Unmasked, and pitched at security practitioners, CISOs and public sector teams rather than a general tech audience. Andy Hague of TechWM opens. Dave Palmer, partner at Ten Eleven Ventures and co-founder and chief product officer of Darktrace through its London listing, gives the morning keynote. Rod Latham, Director for Cyber Security and Digital Identity at DCMS, sets out government priorities, and Neil Howells of the West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit walks through what actually happens on day zero of a major incident. Sessions cover AI-enabled threats, post-quantum security, critical infrastructure and digital sovereignty. Free. The organiser's page gives registration from 09:00 and the programme 09:30 to 16:00. Entry is by the delegate QR code issued when you register for Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: hearing the Darktrace operator view and the DCMS policy view in one morning is rare. Best for security leads and incident response teams.
A two-hour breakfast seminar from IP and technology law firm Marks & Clerk on what a business actually has to do before, during and after a cyber incident: data protection duties, contractual liability, regulatory reporting and crisis management. It pairs that with the side most incident plans skip, protecting trade secrets, keeping technical know-how confidential, and monitoring online threats to brand exclusivity and counterfeiting. Arrival and pastries from 09:00, presentation and Q&A 09:30 to 10:30, networking until 11:00, at the firm's Birmingham office on Church Street. Marks & Clerk's specialists in cyber security, IP, data protection and compliance lead the session; no individual speakers are named on the page. Part of Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: it is a rare cyber session aimed at the people who carry the legal consequences, general counsel, CISOs, DPOs, compliance and risk, rather than at the SOC. Best if you own incident response or IP strategy and want the obligations spelled out.
The DCA's annual data centre conference at IET Birmingham: Austin Court on Cambridge Street, 10:00 to 17:00. The agenda is the physical infrastructure behind the AI buildout: power availability and constraints, cooling, and what it takes to transform and operate facilities under the current load growth. It is aimed squarely at people who own or operate data centres rather than at a general tech audience, and the DCA pulls operators, suppliers and engineers from across the UK industry. Free to attend, and currently showing as sold out. Why go: power and cooling are now the binding constraint on UK AI capacity, and this is the room where the operators discuss it. Best for infrastructure engineers, facilities leads and anyone whose compute plans depend on somewhere to put it.
Trowers and Hamlins hosts a formal debate on whether AI agents should hold legal personhood, run as a Birmingham Tech Week fringe event and convened by Amardeep Gill and Matt Whelan. The framing is a 2032 scenario in which an AI model has replaced a chief executive: it owns assets, signs contracts, employs staff and donates to political campaigns, and cannot be imprisoned. Two panels argue the motion, one for and one against, followed by audience questions, rebuttals and closing arguments. Attendees vote on the motion before and after to see whether the debate shifts anyone. Free, from 12:00. Why go: a genuinely adversarial format on a question most AI events treat as a footnote, with the lawyers who will have to answer it. Best for anyone deploying agentic systems and the people advising them.
An afternoon on where UK and African tech ecosystems connect, hosted at Lloyds on Colmore Row as part of Birmingham Tech Week, 15:00 to 18:00. Arrival and informal networking from 15:00. Khalia Ismain, Social Sustainability Director at Lloyds, welcomes, with Richard Lowe of Tech West England Advocates and Ama Williams of Tech Ghana Advocates. Richard Lowe then opens on international tech communities, followed by Kenechi Okeleke of GSMA Intelligence on the growth and shape of African markets. The discussion covers how African founders are building globally, routes for UK-Africa commercial collaboration, and the finance available to businesses growing internationally. Tickets 10 pounds. Why go: concrete market intelligence and named contacts rather than a general diaspora panel. Best for founders eyeing African markets, investors and anyone building cross-border partnerships.
A live founder experience from Female Techpreneur that skips panels and pitches: five selected female founders each bring a real challenge to a room assembled to solve it, turning ecosystem connections into decisions. Venue confirmed to registrants — central Birmingham.
Ihsan Ventures hosts a Birmingham Tech Week session at the NatWest Accelerator combining pitch practice, networking with founders, investors and mentors, and food. Founders can apply to pitch separately at application.ihsan.ventures/BTW26. 17:00 to 20:00, tickets GBP 15, registration subject to host approval, 33 signed up at the time of listing. No speakers are named.
Looking for Growth West Midlands opens up its civic-AI work for Birmingham Tech Week. The group demos Ask Ozzy, its open-source civic intelligence platform, alongside other products and prototypes members have built, then runs a hackathon-lite vibe-coding workshop where attendees build something with AI-assisted tools on the night. Six hours at The Victoria on John Bright Street, from 17:00. Free, open registration, 46 signed up at the time of listing. Aimed at founders, developers, students and public-sector staff who want to point AI at regional problems rather than talk about it. Why go: it is a building room, not a panel. You leave with a prototype and with the names of the people in the West Midlands actually shipping civic AI. Best for developers, and for anyone in local government or public services who wants to see what a working civic AI tool looks like up close.
A four-hour cyber-community social at The Eastside Rooms during Birmingham Tech Week, 17:00 to 21:00. The official fringe programme states that no sign-up is required, and lists no separate event page, programme or speakers, so the fringe listing is the only public source.
The West Midlands Growth Company's evening reception for the international delegations, trade intermediaries and overseas partners attending Birmingham Tech Week, at x+why on Colmore Row from 17:30 to 21:00. It is the one point in the week set aside specifically for connecting visiting delegates with regional stakeholders: investment intermediaries, trade bodies and West Midlands companies looking for overseas partners. Free to attend, hosted by the region's inward investment agency, and registration is currently showing as closed. Why go: the international visitors are only in the city for the week and this is where they are put in one room. Best for companies with export plans, and for anyone whose growth depends on partners outside the UK.
Aston's Centre for Entrepreneurship, Coaching and Innovation hosts a fishbowl session on what changes when AI agents start doing real work inside teams, at Aston Business School on Aston Express Way, 18:00 to 20:00. The framing goes past AI as a faster tool: agentic teams, where people work alongside systems that plan, execute and support decisions, change how organisations are structured. The discussion covers where human judgement, creativity and leadership still carry the work, where coordination breaks down, and what that means for innovation and entrepreneurship in both business and academic settings. The fishbowl format means the audience rotates into the conversation rather than listening to a panel. Free, during Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: an academic read on agentic working that still lets practitioners argue with it. Best for founders, engineering managers and researchers.
Barclays Eagle Labs and FundingHero on why fundraising goes wrong before the pitch deck does, at x+why Foundry on Brindley Place, 18:00 to 20:00. The premise is that founders burn months on the wrong investors, get no useful feedback and cannot tell whether the problem is the business or the pitch. Bradley Jones leads the session: an exited founder turned angel, a member of the Aligned Syndicate, and co-founder of ThatRound, a platform built to match founders with investors who actually back their stage and sector. He has run the process from both sides, and the session is pitched as an open conversation about what raising is really like rather than a framework. Free. Why go: targeting is the cheapest fix in fundraising and almost nobody teaches it. Best for first-time founders at or approaching a raise.
An invitation-only Birmingham Tech Week dinner hosted by Shakespeare Martineau and CSS Assure, chaired by Yiannis Maos MBE, on the decisions, technologies and leadership approaches driving business success in an increasingly complex environment.
Birmingham Tech Week's international day at The Exchange Assembly Rooms, 09:00 to 17:00, built around how regions and companies stay globally competitive as technology, geopolitics and investment all shift at once. The format is fast showcases and lightning talks rather than long keynotes, with international ecosystem takeovers, investor engagement sessions and strategic roundtables. Sector coverage runs across advanced manufacturing, mobility, health innovation, creative technology, AI, deep tech including robotics and synthetic biology, and quantum. There are focused discussions on defence, sovereign capability and international collaboration. Investors, universities, founders, trade organisations and policymakers are all in the room. Free. Why go: the densest concentration of overseas investors and trade partners the city gets all year. Best for founders with export or international fundraising plans, and for anyone working on inward investment.
Birmingham Tech Week's flagship AI day at the ICC, on what practical AI implementation actually looks like once an organisation moves past experimentation. Keynote from Tom Loosemore, founder of Public Digital and one of the architects of GOV.UK, with a welcome from TechWM board chair Jo Birch. The programme runs across keynotes, case studies, interactive demonstrations and adoption labs, covering AI workflows and automation, organisational readiness, data quality, human-AI collaboration, governance and trust, and the future of work. Speakers are asked to be honest about what failed as well as what worked. Free. Registration and coffee from 08:30, programme 09:15 to 16:00. Why go: the regional calendar's biggest AI gathering, and it is pitched at the people doing the adopting rather than at the infrastructure vendors. Best for operators and decision-makers who already have pilots running and need them to land.
A deep tech and culture day at The ICC, 09:00 to 16:00, responding to Birmingham Tech Week's Fast Forward theme through provocations, demos and critical discussion rather than vendor talks. Lara Jeetley, a young researcher at the Alan Turing Institute and a TEDx speaker, opens with a keynote on what AI does to education and future careers. Four panels follow, each on a theme: Faster Brains on EdTech, Faster Defence on the overlap between gaming and defence, Faster Horse on innovation and place, and Faster Focus on designing for the attention economy. Creators, researchers, gamers and entrepreneurs make up the room. Free. Why go: the programme takes creative technology and defence seriously as the same conversation, which almost no regional conference does. Best for researchers, games and creative technologists, and founders working at the edges.
A morning at the NatWest Accelerator on non-dilutive funding - what grants are actually available to Midlands founders and social enterprises, and how to write a credible application - paired with the launch of hibretOne's Seghu social-impact platform. Free, 09:30 to 13:00. Sold out. The organiser confirmed on 16 October that every seat is taken and that the waitlist is growing by the hour. The only route in now is the Eventbrite waitlist and a drop-out.
At the National Brownfield Institute on smart energy systems and the commercial opportunities opening up around grid technology.
CyberQ Group and Rocketgx on technical debt — locating where yours actually sits, what it is costing, and the practical order in which to pay it down before it compounds. Free, at Alpha Works, during Birmingham Tech Week.
An invite-only SuperTech WM roundtable on fraud, consumer protection, innovation and regulatory collaboration, run during Birmingham Tech Week. 10:30 to 12:00. The venue is given only as TBC, Birmingham city centre, on the official fringe programme, so no address is recorded here.
NestEgg's annual gathering for the mutual and community-finance sector, on how credit unions and CDFIs are using data, decisioning and automation to lend better. Relevant to fintech operators and anyone building in responsible credit. Currently sold out — join the waitlist.
A monthly networking lunch at The Jam House for members of Birmingham's Unique Network.
A student-focused cyber challenge run by UK Telecoms Lab with CyberWomen Group C.I.C. as part of Birmingham Tech Week: a student-led challenge, a networking lunch, a fireside chat with senior UKTL representatives, and information on UKTL graduate opportunities. 12:00 to 16:00. The Eventbrite page gives the location only as TBC, Birmingham B37, with no street address, and ticket sales had already closed at the time of listing.
An invite-only lunch for West Midlands tech businesses hosted by HSBC UK's West Midlands Business Banking SME team during Birmingham Tech Week, at Asha's on Newhall Street. 12:00 to 14:30, registration by Microsoft Form. Attendance is by invitation.
A working session on investment readiness for technology businesses, at The Ivy on Temple Row, 13:00 to 15:00, hosted by the Birmingham NatWest Accelerator as a Birmingham Tech Week fringe event. Corporate finance specialists Darren Hodson and Tom Joy from PKF Smith Cooper are joined by the team from Beech Tree Private Equity. The argument is that a good product is not the thing investors buy: they want a clear growth strategy, financial foundations that stand up to diligence, and a story about future value. The session covers what investors are looking for in the current market, how to position a business, and the practical steps that improve valuation before a process starts. Free. Why go: advisers and an actual PE house in the same room, talking about the diligence you will face. Best for tech founders twelve months out from a raise or a sale.
with Husayn Kassai (Co-founder & CEO, Onfido)
A Birmingham Tech Week fringe session in two halves: a 30-minute panel on building an AI-capable workforce, then a live build in which the room assembles an AI agent around a real workplace problem. Husayn Kassai, co-founder and CEO of Onfido - the British identity-verification company acquired in a reported $650 million deal - sits on the panel. ollo then runs the build, and attendees leave with access to the agent to test in a secure environment. Hosted by the AI Work & Skills Forum with ollo, 15:00 to 17:30. Free, at Mills & Reeve, One Centenary Way, B3 3AY. Bring a laptop - the build needs one. Tell the organisers if you can no longer come; the guest list controls building access. Mills & Reeve hosts a drinks reception immediately afterwards, which takes a separate registration. Why go: one of the few Tech Week rooms where you hear from a founder who went all the way to an exit and then build something yourself instead of watching slides. Best for operators and team leads who have run AI pilots and now need results.
Digital Glue runs a live debate at 10X by Spacemade on Brindley Place about what AI is actually doing to search visibility, 16:00 to 18:00. It opens with a ten-minute reality check on what AI can and cannot do for a marketing function, then sets an AI optimist against a strategic traditionalist in a structured format, with a show of hands on what is working in the room. It closes with three practical actions to stay visible across Google, AI search and whatever comes next, and direct access to the panel. The organisers are explicit about leaving out the jargon and the game-changing promises. Free. Why go: organic search is being rewritten right now and most of the commentary is vendor noise. Best for in-house marketers, agency strategists and founders who depend on inbound.
Three hours of short, rotating mentoring conversations run by Birmingham Muslims in Tech, part of the official Birmingham Tech Week fringe programme. The format is deliberately informal: sit down with someone a few steps ahead of you for career or technical guidance, or take the other chair and mentor. Introductions and open networking run throughout. At School of Coding & AI on Livery Street, 17:00 to 20:00. Completely free, with food and drinks provided. No speakers are listed, because the value is the conversations rather than a stage. Why go: mentoring events that are both free and properly staffed are scarce in Birmingham, and this one deliberately mixes people entering the industry with people already in it. Best for career-changers, students and junior developers, and for mid-career technologists who want to give a couple of hours back.
A Birmingham Tech Week drinks reception co-hosted by Mills & Reeve and HSBC at the firm's One Centenary Way office, 17:00 to 19:00. Registration is through the firm's invitation page. No programme or speakers are published.
An Accenture-hosted Birmingham Tech Week fringe session on the move from machine learning to enterprise AI agents, at Accenture's Cornerblock office. 17:30 to 20:00, registration via a Microsoft Form. Listed on the official Birmingham Tech Week fringe programme; Accenture has published no event page, so there is no agenda or speaker list available.
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.
An evening dinner at the Council House connecting the region's universities, spinout founders and the investors who back them. Part of Birmingham Tech Week's investment programme, focused on turning West Midlands research strength into commercial companies.
A ProductTank double bill at x+why Foundry on Brindley Place, 18:30 to 21:30, run as a Birmingham Tech Week fringe event. Martin Eriksson gives the first talk, Welcome to the Software Renaissance. Your Strategy Isn't Ready: when anyone can build anything, the advantage moves from building to knowing what to build and why, and asking how to do the same work faster is the wrong question. The second talk covers hard lessons from shipping AI features to twenty million active users. There is a giveaway of Eriksson's book The Decision Stack, then drinks and networking with the city's product community. Free. Why go: Eriksson founded ProductTank and Mind the Product, so this is a rare chance to hear him in Birmingham rather than at a paid conference. Best for product managers, founders and designers.
Network One's Birmingham small business owners and entrepreneurs edition at The Cocktail Club. Part of a weekly rotating vertical-themed networking series.
Network One's AI and machine learning edition of its Birmingham networking evening, at The Cocktail Club on Temple Street, 19:00 to 22:00. No speakers and no pitching: the organisers describe it as a deliberately laid-back room for anyone building, researching, investing in or just curious about AI. Expect a mix of AI founders, machine learning engineers, data scientists, students, marketers and product people from other industries. Numbers are capped to keep conversations workable, so booking ahead matters. Tickets are 30 pounds, despite some listings showing it as free. Why go: Birmingham's AI community is scattered across company and university lines, and this is one of the few rooms that mixes them without an agenda. Best for people who want conversations rather than a talk, and who do not mind paying for a curated guest list.
The West Midlands Ruby User Group's monthly session — talks and discussion for Ruby and Rails developers across the region. Run online by the Birmingham-based group; free.
The Birmingham Network's tech startups, professionals and investors connect event at The Cocktail Club. Part of a recurring weekly networking series.
Medilink Midlands brings its Innovation Day to STEAMhouse: funding routes, regulatory support and one-to-one clinics for companies developing medical technology and health innovations in the region. Free, full day, during Birmingham Tech Week.
Medilink Midlands brings its Innovation Day to STEAMhouse, 09:00 to 17:00, with this year's programme on the skills and workforce behind health and life sciences growth. Registration, networking and an exhibition open at 09:00, with the formal programme from 10:00. Fiona Aldridge gives the keynote at 10:20. At 10:45 an executive leadership panel on delivering the Life Sciences Jobs Plan is chaired by Gino Martini of PHTA, with Fiona Aldridge of the Skills Federation, Yvonne Ryan of Skills England and Faye Treloar of Cogent Skills. The room is life sciences companies, NHS, universities and colleges, training providers, government, investors and sector bodies. Free. Why go: the commissioners, regulators and skills bodies medtech founders usually chase separately are all here at once. Best for healthtech and life sciences founders, and clinical innovation leads.
A security session at Alpha Tower on identity as the real attack surface — credential abuse rather than exotic exploits.
Birmingham Tech Week's day for companies past the startup stage, at The Studio from 10:00. The programme stays on the mechanics of growth. A panel at 12:25 on local versus global fundraising puts investors and founders together on whether to raise close to home or abroad, covering networks, strategic support and how investor expectations differ by market. Pitch, please! at 13:05 is a practical session on presenting when the business depends on it. At 13:45 Lucy Colson, a fractional COO and startup fundraising consultant, covers what investors assess before they say yes, from the growth story to the strength of the leadership team. Free. Why go: scale-stage content is thin on the ground outside London, and this is built around founders who have been through it. Best for founders and leadership teams hiring, raising or entering new markets.
The West Midlands Employer & Education network meets at Millennium Point on digital transformation strategy — how organisations across the region are planning technology change and what that means for the skills pipeline feeding it.
CyberQ Group and Drop Table run a roundtable at Alpha Tower on Suffolk Street Queensway on identity as the real attack surface, 10:00 to 12:00. The premise is in the title: attackers overwhelmingly use legitimate login paths rather than breaking in. The session covers how authorised access gets exploited, where access control actually fails in practice, and how to build resilience in from the start rather than bolting it on. Stijn de Voogd, Chris Woods and Joel Hughes lead it, and the roundtable format keeps it candid rather than presentational. Free, in person, two hours. Why go: credential and session abuse is where most UK breaches now start, and a roundtable gets you other people's incident experience rather than a vendor's slide deck. Best for security engineers, IT leads and CTOs.
The British Plastics Federation's annual automotive conference at Edgbaston Stadium — lightweighting, recyclate, and the materials engineering behind electrified platforms. Narrow but genuinely technical; relevant to advanced-manufacturing engineers in the region.
An afternoon on climate and clean-technology innovation run by the University of Birmingham's Climate Innovation Platform team at the Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre, inside Tyseley Energy Park. The programme covers the University's innovation support, Energy Systems Catapult on clean energy, and Sustainable Ventures on building climate businesses, with founders from earlier CIP cohorts describing what the support actually did for them. It closes with a behind-the-scenes tour of Tyseley Energy Park, and sets out what Cohort 6 offers, with no obligation to apply. CIP is in its fifth consecutive year and is supported by HSBC UK. 13:00 to 16:00, free parking on site, part of Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: Birmingham's cleantech support is concentrated in this one programme, and this is the afternoon where you can hear from the delivery partners and the alumni in the same room before committing to anything. Best for climatetech and energy founders in the West Midlands.
A vendor session at x+why Foundry on why individual AI chat licences do not add up to an AI-enabled business, and what a coordinated rollout looks like. Light buffet from 12:30, presentation 13:00-14:00. Enter the Foundry building and go up to x+why reception on the first floor; you will be directed to the event space in rooms 104 and 105. About 15 minutes' walk from either New Street or Snow Hill station; trams towards Edgbaston Village stop at Brindleyplace. Tell the organisers about dietary requirements or allergies by Friday 9 October.
CyberQ Group on building an information security programme that satisfies auditors and actually reduces risk.
Mercia Ventures opens its Birmingham office for a panel with founders from its portfolio on the handful of pivotal decisions that define a scale-up journey — the ones that unlocked growth and the ones that became expensive lessons. A Birmingham Tech Week fringe event.
Mercia Ventures opens its own office at The Colmore Building on Colmore Circus Queensway for a panel with founders from its portfolio, 16:00 to 18:30, as a Birmingham Tech Week fringe event. The premise is that a scale-up is defined by a handful of pivotal decisions, some of which unlock growth and some of which become expensive lessons. Founders from high-growth businesses talk through theirs: hiring senior leaders, entering new markets, fundraising, product strategy and the founder-level problems nobody puts in a case study. The organisers are explicit that it is lived experience rather than theory, including the mistakes that nearly derailed things. Free, with the investment team around afterwards. Why go: portfolio founders speaking in their investor's office tend to be more specific than panellists on a conference stage. Best for founders and operators scaling past the first growth stage.
with David Hall (Chair, HCR Law) · Julie Scott (Head of M&A Advisory, Partners&) · Felix Key (R&D Tax Director, PKF Smith Cooper) + 3 more
A panel on how intellectual property shapes investment readiness: what investors, lenders and buyers look for when they judge value and resilience, where ownership, contract and compliance gaps surface in due diligence, and how IP-backed lending, R&D tax relief and Patent Box change a funding conversation. Chaired by David Hall of HCR Law, with Julie Scott (Head of M&A Advisory, Partners&), Felix Key (R&D Tax Director, PKF Smith Cooper), James Andrews (Head of Finance & Insurance Markets, Inngot), Maddi Brown (IP Practice Leader, CFC Underwriting) and Huw Sparkes (Investment Manager, Future Planet Capital). Co-hosted by Partners& and HCR Law. 16:30 to 18:00 at The Studio on Cannon Street, part of Birmingham Tech Week. Why go: six specialists who each see IP from a different side of a deal, in ninety minutes. It is the cheapest way to find out whether your IP would survive a data room. Best for founders and SME leaders heading into a raise or a sale.
with Rebecca Bekkenutte (Moderator, Gately Global) · Malcolm Joy (International Taxation, Frazier & Deeter) · Christi Jackson (Immigration Routes, Laura Devine Immigration) + 2 more
TABS Inc. brings a US expansion panel to the NatWest Accelerator for Birmingham Tech Week: market entry, raising from American VCs, immigration routes, setting up a US entity, and the tax, legal and compliance work that follows. Moderated by Rebecca Bekkenutte of Gately Global, with Malcolm Joy (Frazier & Deeter) on international taxation, Christi Jackson (Laura Devine Immigration) on visa routes for founders and employees, Jacob Willemsen (TABS Inc.) on entity setup, back-office operations and hiring a US sales team, and Jose M. Campos (Wilson Sonsini) on attracting VC funding and the legal side. Arrival and networking 17:00, panel and Q&A 17:30 to 18:30, drinks and light bites to 19:30. Registration is subject to host approval. Why go: four practitioners who do this work for UK companies, answering the questions that actually stall a US move. Best for founders with early US revenue deciding whether to set up properly.
Birmingham's digital and DevOps community meets at x+why Foundry on Brindley Place, 17:30 to 20:00, with two talks and pizza. Mark Sawle opens with Reimagining CI/CD, arguing that the field has barely moved in a decade and is still stuck with brittle plugins and complex builds, with no good answer to the question everyone asks mid-incident: what changed. His case is that the real product of CI/CD was never pipeline execution but the knowledge of how code becomes a running service, and no tool holds it. Bukola Jimoh follows on tracing agentic systems, and why observability, evidence and accountability matter once agents are doing the work. Free, pizza and drinks provided. Why go: two sharp, opinionated talks rather than tool demos, from a community that has kept going for years. Best for platform engineers, SREs and engineering managers.
A weekly evening business strategy and networking session for small-business owners, run through the Birmingham Business Meetup group at Manahatta on Temple Street.
with Monica Chumber (Employability station lead, Good Growth) · Luke Davies (Code Clinic lead, Good Growth)
A hands-on evening in the Jewellery Quarter built around drop-in stations rather than a lecture. Monica Chumber takes CVs, portfolios, interview prep and career direction; Luke Davies runs a code clinic for bugs, tricky problems, side projects and pair-debugging. Short talks sit in the middle, with speakers still to be confirmed at the time of listing. Good Growth engineers are in the room throughout. Doors and drop-in stations from 18:00, welcome at 18:30, talks from 18:35, wrap-up and final chats 19:30, close 20:00. At The Jointworks on Frederick Street. Free, with limited capacity, and the stations need no booking. The venue is accessible and the organisers ask attendees to flag specific needs when registering. Why go: you can turn up with a real problem, a broken build or a weak portfolio, and leave with it addressed, which almost no meetup offers. Best for developers, designers, students and career-changers in the West Midlands.
An after-hours evening inside Neko Health's Birmingham clinic on Livery Street. Neko, founded by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek, has scanned more than 100,000 members and builds all its own hardware and software in-house. For Birmingham Tech Week it opens the scan rooms to the local tech community. Drinks and canapes first, then the host doctor on why Neko exists and what it takes to build technology inside a working clinic, then small-group tours of the scan rooms with time for questions. Open networking closes the night. 18:30 to 20:30, free registration. Why go: seeing a vertically integrated healthtech product in its actual operating environment, with the clinicians who use it, is not something a conference stage gives you. Best for healthtech and hardware builders, designers, and investors curious about where preventative care is heading.
Birmingham Tech Week's technical day at the ICC, built for software engineers, developers, architects and technical teams rather than executives, with practitioner talks instead of high-level commentary. Keynotes from Steve Wade of Platform Fix on the communication habits engineers tend to skip, and from AI engineer Akash Joshi on why an API that works fine for a developer leaves an agent guessing. Nick Heap and Astrid Bowser of OneAdvanced ask who buys what you build when delivery is very fast. The programme covers infrastructure, AI tooling, DevOps, cybersecurity, developer experience and large-scale system design. Paid, not free: the organiser's registration page states tickets are £25 plus VAT, and programme partner DevOps Society circulated a £20 standard and £18 community rate on 13 October. Registration and refreshments from 08:00, welcome from TechWM chair Jason Sahota at 09:15, close at 16:00. Why go: the week's only room pitched at people who actually ship, and the agent-readiness and platform talks sit ahead of where most teams are. Best for engineers and technical leads.
Birmingham Tech Week closes with the West Midlands Tech Awards black tie dinner at The ICC from 19:00, followed by entertainment and dancing. Six categories are awarded: Startup of the Year, Scaleup of the Year, Tech Leader of the Year, Frontier Tech Champion, Diversity Champion and Tech for Good. Entrants must be registered in the West Midlands Combined Authority area, and judging runs through independent review, shortlisting and a final panel. Nominations closed on 31 July, so the shortlists are set. Tickets are on sale; the price is not published on the listing page. Why go: the closing night pulls in the companies and people who have had the year, and the room is more relaxed than anything earlier in the week. Best for anyone building visibility in the regional ecosystem, and for teams worth celebrating.