Manchester — Week of 20 Jul 2026

The monthly gathering of the Northern Azure User Group, connecting the Microsoft Azure and cloud community across Manchester, Leeds and the North West. Expect practitioner talks on Azure services, cloud architecture and DevOps, followed by networking with fellow engineers and IT professionals. A dependable fixture for anyone building on Microsoft's cloud in the North.

A Manchester Statistical Society evening talk asking not just what AI can do, but what it should do — and how, and for whom — in an age where AI permeates every system. Speaker Stuart Coulson, Principal Cyber Security Service Manager at a global telecoms firm and founder of HiddenText, strips away the jargon and challenges lazy thinking with 20+ years of turning complexity into clarity. Recognised as Cyber Mentor of the Year (2023) and a Top 50 Tech Leader (2025). A thought-provoking session for anyone weighing the practical and ethical realities of AI adoption.

A Manchester tech community meetup at the intersection of software testing, AI and critical thinking — practical talks and discussion for testers, QA engineers and developers navigating what AI actually means for quality and how to think clearly about applying it in real engineering work. Networking with the local testing and engineering community included.

OWASP Manchester returns with an evening on application security, from disclosure to defence. AJ Bell CISO Dan Harris opens with a look at security and innovation in a regulated fintech, before Rory Sheldon shows how Firecracker microVMs and foundation models can accelerate analysis of malicious npm packages. Alasdair Gorniak, who has responsibly disclosed issues to major organisations, closes with a practical guide to landing your first 0-day. Food, drinks and networking throughout; photo ID required at the door for the venue sponsor.

An intimate business breakfast on agentic customer experience, hosted by Relative Insight CRO James Cuthbertson. Aimed at product, CX, data and marketing leaders, the session cuts through the hype on chatbots and autonomous AI workflows: what's actually working, where escalation strategies break down, and how leading organisations are re-thinking customer experience for 2026. Expect real benchmarks, honest discussion of where bots fall short, and a practical framework for reducing escalations. Limited to 15 places; free; at The Ivy Manchester, Spinningfields.

Venture Café Manchester's weekly Thursday Gathering turns to the future of food, spotlighting Greater Manchester's growing wave of agricultural biotech and agtech pioneers. Four ventures — Bright Biotech, Gennate, Mushroom+ and SporeSense — showcase how they harness biology, data and engineering to tackle food security, sustainability and productivity, followed by discussion on how cutting-edge science becomes scalable ventures and how regional partnerships accelerate progress. Free, open and inclusive, welcoming researchers, entrepreneurs, growers, agronomists, investors and policymakers to a relaxed evening of showcases and connection at SISTER.

A relaxed evening of networking for anyone building, researching, investing in or simply curious about AI and machine learning in Manchester. Network One brings together founders, engineers, data scientists, marketers, product people and investors for easy conversations over drinks (non-alcoholic welcome drink included), with no pitches and no panels. A good entry point to the city's growing AI community whether you are deep in it or just getting started.

PyData Manchester's informal Code Night is a relaxed evening to bring along whatever you're working on, whether a data project, a bit of Python, or a machine-learning experiment, and share it, get input, or just hang out and code alongside fellow data enthusiasts. Everyone welcome, from seasoned practitioners to those just getting started. Held at Social Refuge at Queer Lit in Ancoats.

One of Practically AI's most popular formats returns: an evening of short, practical talks from engineers building with AI. Esly Lescano shares the journey of taking Refurb AI from an LLM call to a trusted, production-ready multimodal product; Charles Oduk demonstrates a WhatsApp fact-checking bot built to fight misinformation; Abdullah Ola Mudathir makes the case for measuring, not trusting, AI code reviewers; and Robin Roy asks who's really doing the thinking as AI embeds into our workflows. Doors, pizza and networking from 18:30. Aimed at software engineers, engineering managers and anyone applying AI in real software development.