Birmingham — Week of 2 Nov 2026

A paid Amazon FBA training course for professional sellers.

A short practical workshop at Birmingham Rep on using AI to work more efficiently and open up new ways to earn, run by AND Capital Projects.

A structured breakfast debate on whether AI is a genuine improvement for the built environment or whether the risks outrun the rewards, hosted by Constructing Excellence Midlands at PwC on Chamberlain Square and supported by the University of Wolverhampton. Registration with coffee at 08:00, Slido questions to the room at 08:30, then alternating five-minute cases: advocates on benefits and efficiency against speakers on governance, sustainability, ethics and risk. Barrie Diffin argues the risk side with The Next Excavator: Leadership in the Age of AI, with Alistair Wilson and Jessica Southworth also speaking. Open debate at 09:25, closing arguments, then an audience vote and networking. Ends 10:30. Tickets are 10 pounds for members, 20 for non-members. Why go: a format that forces both cases to be made properly, in a sector where AI claims usually go unchallenged. Best for construction, engineering and property technologists.

A two-day entrepreneurship exhibition at the NEC with a free visitor pass. 9am to 6pm on the 3rd, 9am to 5pm on the 4th.

An open morning at the Birmingham NatWest Accelerator hub on St Philip's Place: tours of the space, a chance to meet the accelerator team and talk to founders already on the programme, and an explanation of what the support covers. Free, 09:30 to 11:00. The second edition of this series in the window, after 27 October. A programme open day and recruitment session for the accelerator rather than an event in its own right, so it is listed on its venue and organiser pages only.

The Birmingham NatWest Accelerator's monthly hour of founder and partner networking over coffee at 2 St Philip's Place. Free.

A Business Buzz networking session running inside the Festival of Entrepreneurs at the NEC. Open-format business networking, free.

A monthly business-development meeting for Sutton Coldfield businesses at Bassetts Pole.

with Stephen Phipson (CEO, Make UK) · Katherine Bennett CBE (Speaker, High Value Manufacturing Catapult) · Simon Rose (Speaker, Airbus Defence & Space) + 3 more

The UK's biggest advanced manufacturing and engineering show — two days in Halls 3 and 3a at the NEC, with 400-plus exhibitors across aerospace, automotive, space, rail, maritime, energy and electronics. Free for qualified professionals, 18 and over. Six CPD forums run alongside the floor, including a dedicated AI, Digitalisation and Automation track plus R&D and design engineering, clean energy and net zero, and people and skills. Speakers include Stephen Phipson (CEO, Make UK), Katherine Bennett CBE (High Value Manufacturing Catapult), Simon Rose (Airbus Defence & Space), Fatin Emre Gunes (Jaguar Land Rover), Ed Bower (Aston Martin Lagonda) and James Passemard (McLaren Accelerator). UK Metals Expo and Lab Innovations are co-located. 9:00 to 17:00 on the 4th, 9:00 to 16:00 on the 5th. Why go: the digitalisation track is where Midlands manufacturers talk about what they have actually deployed rather than what they are evaluating. Best for anyone selling software or automation into industry, or running it inside one.

Easyfairs' laboratory industry exhibition, in Hall 2 at the NEC and co-located with Advanced Engineering. Free entry. 9am to 5pm on the 4th, 9am to 4pm on the 5th.

Exhibitor stand booking for CloudLIMS, a laboratory information management system, on stand E91 at Lab Innovations 2026 at the NEC. Visitors book a slot with the vendor's team for a product demonstration. Lab Innovations itself is the host exhibition.

Two-day metals industry exhibition and conference at the NEC, co-located with Advanced Engineering. Conference streams cover innovation and technology, sustainability and the circular economy, and supply chain, trade and policy. Open 09:00-17:00 on 4 November and 09:00-16:00 on 5 November.

Monthly morning business networking run by The Business Growth Network at Runway East's Temple Row workspace. Coffee, introductions round the room and open networking. Tickets from GBP 10. General small-business audience rather than a tech programme.

A half-day workshop from the Birmingham NatWest Accelerator on building a predictable sales funnel: identifying which channels actually convert, running conversion experiments, and strengthening the pipeline behind them. 09:30 to 13:00 at TEP in Hay Mills, Tyseley. Free, open to founders and small business owners whether or not they are on the accelerator programme. The second Birmingham NatWest Accelerator edition in the week of 2 November, so under the one-edition-per-series rule it is listed on its venue and organiser pages rather than the city page.

A one-hour speed-networking session on the second day of the Festival of Entrepreneurs at the NEC, run by Birmingham NatWest Accelerator with Buy Women Built, Enterprise Nation and Warwick Innovation. Founders rotate through short structured conversations with the partner organisations. Free, 14:00 to 15:00, booked separately from the Festival itself. A session inside an event we already list, so it is kept to its venue and organiser pages rather than the city page.

with Mal Stuthridge (Associate Director, )

A technical session on the unglamorous layer that AI building tools actually run on: the Building Energy Management System, and whether the data it collects is good enough to feed them. The argument is that AI platforms need more and better data than traditional mechanical, electrical and public health systems were ever commissioned to produce, and that the BEMS is what stands between an AI tool and a building it can usefully model. Comprehensive commissioning is the fix being proposed. Mal Stuthridge, an Associate Director, is speaking. It runs 16:30 to 18:00 at the AtkinsRéalis office on Chamberlain Square, and it is free. Note that the listing gives two different postcodes for the venue; the one in the venue field is B3 3AX. Why go: a rare Birmingham room where the AI conversation is about data quality and commissioning rather than models. Best for building services engineers, and for facilities and proptech people who have to make these integrations work.

An inward-investment briefing from the German state agency NRW.Global Business on setting up advanced engineering and smart manufacturing operations in North Rhine-Westphalia, held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole by the NEC. Free.

with Ashley Warren (Speaker, Birmingham Power BI Meetup Group #PBIBRUM) · Juliana Smith (Speaker, Birmingham Power BI Meetup Group #PBIBRUM)

Two full sessions from Birmingham's Power BI community, hosted at Robert Walters' offices on the 9th floor of 11 Brindley Place. Ashley Warren takes the this-report-is-slow problem apart: finding and fixing unoptimised semantic models using DAX Studio and Tabular Editor, Best Practice Analyser, VertiPAQ Analyser and DAX traces, working through badly performing examples and redesigning them. Juliana Smith then covers WCAG compliance in Power BI, applying the POUR principles, using keyboard navigation, screen-reader support and alt text, and structuring reports so they survive an accessibility audit. Doors 17:45, intros 18:00, first session 18:15, free pizza and drinks 18:50, second session 19:10, finish 20:00. Free. Why go: two intermediate-level, demo-heavy sessions with takeaways you can apply the next morning, which is rarer than it should be. Best for Power BI developers and analysts, and for anyone who owns reporting that has to be accessible.

One of six vertical-themed Strive Networking evenings running simultaneously at Bank, Brindley Place.

One of six vertical-themed Strive Networking evenings running simultaneously at Bank, Brindley Place.

One of six vertical-themed Strive Networking evenings running simultaneously at Bank, Brindley Place.

One of six vertical-themed Strive Networking evenings running simultaneously at Bank, Brindley Place.

One of six vertical-themed Strive Networking evenings running simultaneously at Bank, Brindley Place.

Multi-vertical business networking at Bank Restaurant Bar & Grill, part of Strive Networking's Elevating Your Potential series. Twelve further vertical-labelled editions run at the same venue and time on the same evening.

One of six vertical-themed Strive Networking evenings running simultaneously at Bank, Brindley Place.

A free evening business-networking event at the Bank Restaurant Bar & Grill, open across sectors.

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.

The follow-on session in The Soul Angels' training series, on converting visibility into clients.

UKCharityCamp returns to thestudio on Cannon Street for a full day, 09:30 onwards, run by the digital agency dxw. It is an unconference, so there is no fixed programme: participants pitch sessions on the morning and the grid gets built in the room. The subject is how the third sector uses digital, data and technology to do more for the communities it serves, and the attendees are the people doing that work inside charities, foundations and the agencies that support them. It is not-for-profit, free to attend and open to anyone. Why go: the unconference format means the agenda is whatever charity digital teams are actually stuck on this year, which is more useful than a programme set six months ago. Best for charity digital and data leads, service designers and developers working in the sector.

The fifth workshop in the Birmingham NatWest Accelerator's Sales Accelerator, at 2 St Philip's Place from 09:30, on organising and using sales data. It covers why a CRM matters, how to structure one so it tracks leads, customers and performance rather than becoming a graveyard, and which metrics are worth measuring for your business. There are exercises to identify your own key numbers, real founder examples of where better data changed the sales outcome, and an Action Lab session to set up or improve your own CRM before you leave. The Sales Accelerator is a twelve-week programme of six workshops; individual sessions are open without joining the whole thing. Free. Why go: you leave having actually configured something rather than with notes about configuring it. Best for founders and early sales hires whose pipeline currently lives in a spreadsheet.

A one-day summit at OMNOM Birmingham on workplace culture, wellbeing and retention practices for growing teams.

An online session from the Microsoft Data Platform Birmingham user group on Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric. Free, runs from 1pm.

A weekly evening business strategy and networking session for small-business owners, run through the Birmingham Business Meetup group at Manahatta on Temple Street.

Half-day paid training course on Amazon advertising (sponsored products, PPC bidding) and Amazon SEO for sellers, run by Online Seller UK at a city-centre hotel. GBP 300 per place.

with Matt Canon (Producer, Tenth Planet) · Anthony Waldron (Producer, Screen industry) · Barry Ryan (Producer, Free@Last TV)

The Birmingham Film Festival's industry day at Millennium Point. Networking from 10:00, then panels on funding, finance and infrastructure (FilmShake, Miller Insurance, Elevated Films) at 12:30, feature film strategy with Matt Canon of Tenth Planet at 14:00, and building TV careers with producers Anthony Waldron and Barry Ryan at 15:30. Aimed at filmmakers, students and screen-industry professionals.

A coworking and peer-support session for women founders at Arca on Temple Row.

with Ben Pinnock (Creative designer, illustrator and director, The21 Pirates) · Dr Pearl Agyakwa (Materials scientist, )

The 13th annual Black STEAM showcase and family learning day at Thinktank, themed Black STEAM Cities. Workshops, interactive activities and talks from mathematicians, scientists, engineers, artists and storytellers, including Get Creative with Ben (Ben Pinnock, The21 Pirates) and Meet a Materials Scientist (Dr Pearl Agyakwa). Doors 11:30, programme 12:00 to 18:00, free. Children under 14 must be accompanied.