Manchester’s Digital Skills Festival will take place from 8th-14th February 2025.
The event brings together tech leaders, universities and colleges with job seekers to connect, learn and develop the tech sector.
The 2025 festival is set to host a number of new events, including a Digital Skills Feast for tech leaders; Future Innovators Day, which is an exciting tech competition for school children; a weekend hackathon called Hackafuture; and a re-imagined Digital Her Day.
The flagship event is Talent Day, which sees around 2,000 job seekers, from students and graduates through to career changers, attending the event with more than 40 of the leading tech businesses from across the region showcasing careers, job opportunities and apprenticeships. This year’s Talent Day will be taking place in the iconic New Century Hall.
The weekend hackathon has been organised by festival headline sponsor AtkinsRéalis. This is a first-of-a-kind recruitment event, inviting the brightest tech stars to come along to the event, with five permanent positions on offer.
The Digital Her: Driving Diversity day offers an inclusive, interactive alternative to the traditional conference, featuring action-learning workshops, topic-focused panels and guest speakers, taking place at HOME Manchester.
The Future Innovators Day will host the finals of the Future Innovators Challenge for high school students and is supported by Amazon.
Katie Gallagher OBE, Manchester Digital’s managing director, said: “Manchester, one of Europe’s fastest-growing tech hubs, is home to over 86,000 tech professionals and the Digital Skills Festival is the perfect platform to reflect and focus on the workforce that we need to build and skill for the future.
“It’s an opportunity for tech businesses to showcase their commitment to innovation, diversity and community impact while strengthening the link between industry and education.”
Alison Ross, chair of the Manchester Digital Board and chief people and operations officer at Auto Trader, added, “The Digital Skills Festival brings together the tech sector and looks at how we can collectively work together to encourage more tech talent, increase diversity within the sector and grow innovation.
“Developing a talent pathway and bringing in new entrants to the tech industry with the right key skills is paramount to the growth of the whole sector across our region.”
The 2025 Digital Skills Festival is supported by AtkinsRéalis as Festival Headline Sponsor, Manchester Metropolitan University is the education partner and Amazon is supporting the Future Innovators Challenge.