Last week saw our 2026 Digital Skills Festival deliver a full week of dynamic and impactful events, all dedicated to shaping the region’s tech ecosystem and developing the digital future of tomorrow.
The festival, now in its second decade, brings together senior leaders and tech professionals as well as those wanting to break into the industry with an inspiring lineup of events at locations across the city centre.
New for 2026 was the AI Futures Day which sold out almost immediately, while the flagship event Talent Day saw more than 2000 people turn up to speak to the region’s leading tech employers.
Below is our round up of the week’s event…
Future Innovators Day
Sponsored by Autotrader, Future Innovators Day kicked off Digital Skills Festival 26 with a hands-on innovation challenge for college students. Held at No.1 Circle Square, the day brought together teams of college students from right across Greater Manchester to create a digital solution that helps reduce barriers to access, opportunity or participation using technology.
Inspired by the Greater Manchester Digital Inclusion Agenda and the UK Government Digital Inclusion Strategy, students were encouraged to think about how digital can help create a fairer, more inclusive society, which is aligned with Autotrader’s strong community-minded values.
After a truly impressive set of pitches, the Autotrader judging panel had the tough task of choosing a winner from a huge range of genuinely brilliant and thoughtful ideas. Huge congratulations to the winning team GM Access from The Manchester College. 
Digital Her Day
Our Digital Her Day welcomed more than 160 women, non-binary people and allies to HOME Manchester on Tuesday, with the theme of driving diversity and spotlighting inclusion.
This was yet another truly uplifting day for women who are considering a career in tech, or any tech professionals to listen to a full agenda of empowering panel talks and keynote speeches.
With huge thanks to our Digital Her Day sponsors: AJ Bell, BAE Systems, ICO and Lloyds Banking Group. 
Talent Day
Talent Day 2026 was based at the iconic New Century Hall, and was sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The event brought together 2,000 students, graduates and career changers together with 28 of the leading tech employers and training providers to focus on opportunity, connection and digital careers.
On top of exhibition stands, Manchester Digital also ran 150+ CV clinic appointments to give out advice and guidance and HPE ran a seminar on career journeys, featuring some of their interns sharing their experiences. A big thank you to Tracsis Plc for sponsoring the CV Clinic, and to all the brilliant volunteers who gave their time and shared advice throughout the day.
Digital Skills Feast
Our Digital Skills Feast at Bridgewater Hall brought together tech leaders to hear about the findings from this year’s Sector Insight’s Report. We also held a Round Table at No.1 Circle Square before the feast to preview the findings with 22 tech and digital leaders in order to hear their own experiences and predictions for the economy this year.
Manchester Digital’s MD Katie Gallagher OBE discussed the key findings from this year’s Sector Insights Report, which is sponsored by Morson Edge. The Round Table discussion touched on the importance of developing early talent, especially in the age of AI, the difficulties of balancing hybrid working and overall feelings of positivity and renewed confidence for the sector in 2026. In the report, 80% of tech leaders reported feelings of confidence about business growth prospects this year and 84% feel confident about business growth over the next three years.
After the Round Table, 100 business leaders attended the Digital Skills Feast evening at the stunning Bridgewater Hall. MD Katie Gallagher introduced the evening and shared highlights from the Sector Insights Report, which was followed by a fireside conversation with Michael Taylor, editor of the Businessdesk North West, Rob Sugden, Director at Morson Edge, who also sponsored Digital Skills Feast and Alison Ross MBE, Chief People and Operations Officer. 
AI Futures Day
Sponsored by Zopa Bank, with Lloyds Banking Group and Bruntwood SciTech, AI Futures Day explored how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work, learn and innovate, bringing together practical insight, real-world applications and space for open conversation.
The new event for 2026 was sold out almost immediately, and saw a really popular Vibe Coding Masterclass led by NoCodeLab in the morning. Both Lloyds Banking Group and HPE also ran sessions on how they are putting AI into action within their businesses.
The day wrapped up with the entertaining AI Café, a relaxed space for discussion, networking and exploring the ethical, societal and workforce implications of AI, an event which was co-founded by MMU’s David Edmundson-Bird and Phil Birchenall.
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Overall, our week-long festival has yet again been wonderfully inspiring and a shining example of how our Greater Manchester tech ecosystem can come together to innovate, inspire and look to the future.
News about next year’s festival will be announced soon, so watch this space…
