About the Festival of Technical Education

Greater Manchester’s Festival of Technical Education is a series of virtual and in-person events celebrating student achievements in technical education, as well as the education providers and employers offering these opportunities.

Held in June and July across Greater Manchester, the Festival helps young people to explore careers, workplaces and technical education training pathways into great jobs in our growing economy.

It supports the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc), a mission of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, to create a genuine and equal alternative to the university route.

The Festival line up includes:

Festival Week: main events taking place during the week of 30 June
Festival Fringe: events with Greater Manchester's colleges and technical education training providers taking place across June and July.
Virtual Festival: events taking place virtually across the city region

Download the Festival Week calendar (PNG, 1.3KB)

List of Festival Week events

Monday, 30 June

Northern T Level Conference: The Education and Training Foundation and Association of Colleges are providing professional development opportunities to support practitioners delivering T Levels and T Level Foundation Year programmes.
Greater Manchester Mainstream Inclusive Education Conference: Hosted by the Greater Manchester SEND Board, this conference will look at a Greater Manchester understanding and approach for inclusive mainstream education.

Tuesday, 1 July

Lesson with the Mayor: Andy Burnham will be teaching a technical lesson at Wigan and Leigh college.
Festival of Apprentices: An exhibition promoting and celebrating all things apprenticeships.
Leader celebration event: Professor Brian Cox will be sharing his expertise at a science teacher and leader celebration event attended by staff across Oldham's schools.

Wednesday, 2 July

MBacc Summit — Gateways to the Future: Hosted by GMCA, this event is an annual celebration of Greater Manchester Baccalaureate successes, bringing together industry and education to shape the future of technical education in our city-region.
Morning assembly: Professor Brian Cox will encourage Oldham primary schools to take part in a Great Science Share for Schools.
Careers in STEM Q&A: Professor Brian Cox will address secondary and college students in a Q&A at Oldham Sixth Form College.

Thursday, 3 July

Technical Education Skills Awards: Hosted by Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network, this event will celebrate outstanding achievements and contributions to the Further Education and Skills Sector.

Friday, 4 July

Festival Roundup: GMCA celebrates all of the wonderful events and activities of the Festival online.

Meet Your Future Webinars

Registrations are now open to all educators for the 2025 Meet Your Future Sessions!

These FREE online webinars aim to support connecting young people to careers, employers and technical education training pathways - giving you a front row set to the world of work and a chance to explore exciting futures across key sectors.

Don't miss out! Register your school or college now via the Eventbrite links below to secure your place and get your students inspired, informed and career ready.

#GatewaysToTheFuture

Book Now:

Monday 30th June: Meet Your Future with Newbridge Trust - Inspire the Start. Shape What's Next

Tuesday 1st July: Shape Tomorrow - Discover Your Future in Construction.

Thursday 3rd July: Blue Light Careers: Be the Calm in the Chaos

Friday 4th July: Meet Your Future with Nexperia - Engineer the Future You Dream Of.

Monday 7th July: Meet Your Future with Bee Network - Bee the Change. Move Manchester.

Tuesday 8th July: Meet Your Future with IBM - Building Tomorrow's Tech, Today.

Wednesday 9th July: Meet Your Future with TLT LLP - From Courtrooms to Boardrooms, Discover the Law That Moves the World

Thursday 10th July: Meet Your Future with NHS - From Heartbeats to Hope, Discover Your Future In Care

Friday 11th July: Meet Your Future with The Power of Events - Your Future's Got Front Row Seats

Important Information

Meet Your Future sessions are going to be held virtually via MS Teams Live. Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will be sent a link which you can use to join the session on the given day - You will need to register for each session individually across the week if you wish to attend more than one session.

Please note on each day of the festival we will be hosting two virtual sessions, the second session at the later time will be a repeat of the first so you only need to register for one session on any given day.

If you have any difficulties receiving the link(s) please get in touch with gmcacareershub@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk who will be able to support, you.