As we come to the end of a wonderful celebration of the tech industry and digital skills, we reflect back on last week’s events. This year’s Digital Skills Festival has been a hugely collaborative event, with sponsors, education partners and stakeholders, all bringing something to this collaborative festival.
The 2025 festival, with AtkinsRéalis as the headline festival sponsor, saw new eye-catching branding from the offset, as well as five major events throughout the week in numerous new locations in the city centre.
Katie Gallagher OBE, Managing Director at Manchester Digital, said: “This week has shown once again the strength of Greater Manchester’s digital and tech ecosystem and the commitment to developing the next generation of tech talent.
“Even in a challenging economic climate, the connections made, opportunities created and the sheer energy from everyone involved has been incredible.
“I’d like to say a huge thanks to everyone who attended, contributed, and supported the festival, especially to our partners and sponsors who made it all happen, as well as the whole Manchester Digital team.”
Roxy Stafford, Programmes and Events Manager, added, “This has been such an amazing week for the Manchester Digital team, I've been blown away by the buzz and feedback on each and every event.
“We have brought so many new elements into the Digital Skills Festival this year; a fabulous rebrand with GOTO Creative, working with AtkinsRéalis and Amazon on both their unique events to make meaningful change in early talent and big picture thinking, to cohosting a fabulous leaders evening with Slalom to finish off the festival.
“This year’s Digital Her Day was a really special moment for me, with empowering speakers and amazing interactions with our delegates. Talent Day was phenomenal, in terms of turnout, engagement, and a fantastic array of businesses exhibiting with us. I am so proud of the Manchester Digital team and our wonderful sponsors for making such a memorable, meaningful week.”
A roundup of our festival week
Here are our highlights from a hugely busy and hugely impactful week celebrating everything that our tech ecosystem has to offer in terms of skills, people and career pathways.
Hackafuture Weekend with AtkinsRéalis
This was a truly inspiring start to our Digital Skills Festival. AtkinsRéalis hosted a hackathon which invited students, anyone already working in tech and career changers to take part in the weekend-long event. More than 100 people took part in this event and we were astounded at the levels of innovation and creativity in the room. The hackathon resulted in 10 full-time permanent positions at AtkinsRéalis being offered to the two joint winning teams of five.
Future Innovators Challenge - GM Schools Challenge
This event saw 105 students from nine schools across Greater Manchester come together to take part in activities and pitch their ideas for future tech in a competition, with Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham handing out awards. We are hugely grateful to Amazon for hosting the event and providing technical mentors and platform access as part of the challenge.
Digital Her Day
Our second Digital Her Day after launching this special day last year saw 150 women and allies come together at HOME Manchester. We saw three key themes, 17 speakers, three workshops and three panels on a wide range of topics. This was such a hugely uplifting day for everyone involved. We’d like to thank all of our wonderful sponsors for the day: Tracsis plus Nexer Digital; ICO; Lloyds Banking Group; Auto Trader as well as our brilliantly inspiring speakers.
Talent Day
Our ever-popular Talent Day was held at New Century Hall this year, with Talent Day sponsor Jaguar Land Rover showcasing their latest model outside the building. This incredibly busy event saw 2,200 people come along to find out what a tech career can offer them and talk with more than 30 leading tech businesses from across the North West. We also held 165 CV clinic appointments and four insightful seminars throughout the day.
Digital Skills Feast
Sponsored by Slalom, our Digital Skills Feast saw more than 100 senior leaders come together at the Science and Industry Museum to discuss shaping the future of our industry over a three course meal and drinks. The evening saw a speech from Katie Gallagher OBE, Managing Director of Manchester Digital; Councillor Nick Peel, leader of Bolton Council and portfolio holder for digital and tech for GMCA and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, Parliamentary Undersecretary for the Future Digital Economy and Online Safety, as well as a panel talk covering the challenges of growing a tech business this year.
You can read the full write up of this event here: https://www.manchesterdigital.com/post/manchester-digital/digital-skills-feast-talking-tech-and-digital-for-2025
We’d like to thank every single one of our sponsors and partners and every person who joined us across the week’s events for what was a truly inspirational festival this year.
This year, our strategic partners were: Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and ECOM, and our education partner was Manchester Metropolitan University.
Bringing the tech community together in this way is just one part of our role as an industry body and membership organisation. If any businesses would like to speak to us about supporting or sponsoring any aspect of next year’s festival, please get in touch.
