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Where the people who build technology meet, learn and lead.

Practitioner-led communities and conferences across AI & Data, Cloud & Platform, and Finance Technology, and the open infrastructure that powers them.

Find your community See the conference programme

Next upIn-Person

Nov

AI Leaders & Operators Summit

Tuesday · Manchester

Get your ticket

19 NovClaude Operators SummitLondon 24 NovAWS Cloud & AI Summit EdinburghEdinburgh

Community members: 25,000+; Community members
Events every year: 100+; Events every year
Communities: 18; Communities
Conferences: 13; Conferences
Ecosystems: 3; Ecosystems

Find your people.

Eighteen communities in three ecosystems. Every one is free to join and run by practitioners, and meets in person across the UK or online worldwide.

Browse all communities Want to speak? Read the speaking guide

Panel on reimagining software development with AI at AWS Gen AI Loft

For practitioners, leaders and teams building, adopting and operating AI and data systems inside real organisations.

Applied AI · Claude · AI leadership · AWS, Azure & GCP AI · governance · agents · enterprise adoption

NextAI Leaders & Operators Summit · 3 Nov Explore AI & Data

On the road

100+ events a year, in rooms across the UK and online.

See what's on

2026/27 Conference Programme

Thirteen conferences. One programme.

Each conference grows out of a community, so the room is full of people doing the work, not just talking about it. They run in person across the UK and online worldwide.

Full programme

Full audience at the Northern DevOps & Platform Conference, CGI Leeds

Next up

November 2026

AI Leaders & Operators Summit

AI & Data · In-Person · Manchester

View event

Inside the room

You have to be there. Or watch it back.

Packed rooms, practitioner speakers and conversations that carry on long after the talks. Every talk is recorded and free to watch.

Jeff Barr presenting Engineering in the AI Era at AWS Gen AI Loft London — AWS Gen AI Loft · London

Meetup presentation at the incident.io office — incident.io · London

Community event in a venue with a spiral staircase — Community meetup

Andy Burgin presenting From DevOps to Platform Engineering — Andy Burgin · Northern DevOps

Recent event

Northern DevOps & Platform Conference

CGI Leeds · 19 May 2026

attendees: 156; attendees
speakers: 18; speakers
sponsors: 17; sponsors

Speakers: Matthew Skelton (Conflux), Holly Jukes (Lloyds Banking Group), Alexandra Moore (CGI), Adam Wilbraham (Flutter UK & Ireland), Brian Walker (HSBC), Andy Burgin

A packed room at Data & AI Leaders, hosted with Lloyds Banking Group in London

Recent event

Data & AI Leaders: Agentic AI

Lloyds Banking Group · London

in person: 120+; in person
speakers: 6; speakers
talks online: 2; talks online

Speakers: Joanna Crown (Moonpig), Dylan Ratcliffe (Overmind), Sultan AI Awar (Databricks), Joseph Reeve (ElevenLabs), Astitva Karunesh & Lara Vomfell (Lloyds Banking Group)

Watch the talks

20 talks from AWS, Microsoft, Lloyds Banking Group, LaunchDarkly, Motorway and more.

All videos

Watch on YouTube

For sponsors & partners

Put your brand in the room with the people who build.

Reach engineers, architects and technology leaders across a whole ecosystem or at a single event, with speaking slots, a real place in the community, and reporting on what you got back.

Sponsorship opportunities Talk to partnerships

community members: 25,000+; community members; across 18 practitioner-led communities
events every year: 100+; events every year; meetups, leadership forums and conferences
attendees: 156; attendees; at Northern DevOps & Platform, CGI Leeds
LinkedIn reactions: 2,000+; LinkedIn reactions; from 61 posts about that one conference

“Sponsoring Community Stack lets us support practitioner-led communities focused on real delivery, reducing operational risk, cutting review toil, and improving reliability at scale.”

Dylan Ratcliffe, Founder & CEO, Overmind

Who backs the room

The companies that fund the ecosystem and keep our events free to attend.

Headline Data & AI SponsorColibri DigitalVisit

Platinum

Gold

T5 Digital
Valarian

AI Native Sponsor

Nearform

Past sponsors

Aiven
Arrows
Barnsley College
Bimp
BrainStation
Burendo
Conflux
Dash0
Doubleword
Doza Consulting
Engaging Data
Harvey Nash
Hippo
Incident.io
KonfHub
NetMind.AI
Nimble Approach
Opus Recruitment Solutions
Perforce
Postman
RLS Search
WeBuild-AI

For community organisers

Communities are infrastructure. We build what holds them up.

Too many communities run on scattered tools, volunteer goodwill and knowledge that leaves when people do. We build the tools, test them in our own communities, and then share what works.

1
Build it
Events, ticketing, CFP, sponsorship, memberships, directories and payments on one foundation.
2
Prove it
We run it ourselves across 18 communities and 13 conferences, every week.
3
Share it
Open source at the core, available to technical communities and the third sector alike.

One platform, two deployments

Junction

Technical communities

Meetups, user groups & conferences, networked

Switchboard

Third sector

Charities, grassroots & community groups

Engine

The open source core

Apache 2.0

Events
Ticketing
CFP
Sponsorship
Memberships
Microsites
Check-in
Payments
Analytics
Directories

Speaker presenting to a meetup audience in a modern office

Proven in production

Run every week across our 18 communities and 13 conferences

Engine

The open source platform for community operations

An Apache 2.0 core with an enterprise edition on top, so you don't have to stitch together a dozen tools.

WCAG 2.2 AA across all surfaces
Offline-first QR check-in
Stripe Connect, no platform take rate
Full data export, no fee
REST API, webhooks & SDKs
Migrate from Meetup, Eventbrite, Bevy & Luma

Explore Engine

Junction

The network for technical communities

Engine for meetups, user groups and conferences, plus a network layer: every community in one place, with one practitioner identity across them.

Cross-community discovery & event feed
One profile and talk history
Team memberships, transferable seats
Talk archive linked to speaker
Self-select Community rate tier
Free to 500 members, then £39 a month

Explore Junction Bring your community

Beyond tech

The same foundation, built for charities and grassroots groups.

What we prove in technical communities, we adapt for organisations that have too often been expected to make do with less.

Switchboard

Live

Discovery infrastructure for the third sector

Accessible microsite live in under ten minutes
Charity Commission & OSCR verification badge
Donations, Gift Aid and HMRC claim files
National participation index with accessibility filters

Join Switchboard free Learn more

Community Stack Labs · National campaigns

New from LabsRugged Speech, a free offline AAC app for children who find speaking hard.

View all campaigns Explore Labs

Our story

From eight people in a room to 25,000 members.

Community Stack was built by organisers, one community at a time. Every tool we make and every conference we run comes from doing the work first.

Read the full story

An organiser welcoming the room with the Yorkshire DevOps slide on screen

Yorkshire DevOps meetup

2021
Young DevOps
Ethan Sumner founds Young DevOps and runs more than 20 events.
20+events
2022
Yorkshire Azure User Group
Ethan launches the Yorkshire Azure User Group with Ethan Jones. Eight people came to the first event.
8people at the first event
2022
Yorkshire DevOps
Sheffield DevOps and Leeds DevOps launch, then come together as Yorkshire DevOps.
2024
GenAI UK
GenAI UK launches for practitioners building with generative AI. It's now AI Operators Global.
May 2025
Community Stack
Community Stack launches as the umbrella for more communities, with the infrastructure to run them properly.
Today
18 communities, 13 conferences
Three ecosystems across the UK and online, more than 25,000 members, and conferences from Leeds to Edinburgh.
25,000+members

Swipe to follow the story →

The team

Built from the North, run by people who organise communities.

We don't just build tools for communities. We run them every week, from booking the venue to hosting the night and following up afterwards.

Founded May 2025
Made in South Yorkshire
18 communities run in-house

Founder & CEO

Ethan Sumner

Community organiser and technologist from Barnsley. Previously at Microsoft, Mastercard and global consultancies, Ethan built Yorkshire's largest practitioner community network from the ground up.

Read our story

Jack Herbert

Senior Partnerships Manager

Leads partnerships and sponsor relationships across the community and conference portfolio, connecting organisations with the ecosystems that matter to them.

Eva Tisch

Community Manager – Scotland Lead

Leads Community Stack's meetups and conferences in Scotland, across Edinburgh and Glasgow. Joined from Edinburgh's cloud community, where Eva ran AWS communities including the AWS Student Builder Group at the University of Edinburgh.

Adam Billingham

Founding Researcher and Policy Lead

Leads research and policy for Community Stack Labs, building the evidence base behind our campaigns on digital exclusion, SEND and communication access.

Sam Barker

Head of Marketing and Design

Leads design and user experience across the product portfolio, from visual language to accessibility standards across Engine, Junction and Switchboard.

Melissa Dunmore

Data Engineering Associate

Helps build the pipelines and data infrastructure that power Engine, Junction and Switchboard.

Rebecca Perry

Legal Advisor

Advises on commercial operations, partnerships and governance, covering contracts, intellectual property and corporate structure.

Speakers and attendees gathered for a group photo at AWS Dublin Cloud Day

And behind every event: the speakers, hosts and volunteers who make it happen.

Organise, speak, host or volunteer. There's a place for you in the team behind the room.

Get involved Speak at an event

Where do you fit?

Whether you come for the talks, back the room or run a community of your own, there's a place for you here.

01 · Practitioners

Join a community

Free meetups and conferences for engineers and technology leaders.

Find your community

02 · Sponsors

Back the room

Reach the practitioners and leaders shaping how technology gets built.

Sponsorship

03 · Organisers

Run your community

Engine and Junction: the platform behind our own communities.

Explore Engine

04 · Third sector

Get found

Switchboard gives charities and community groups a free, accessible presence.

Explore Switchboard

Start a conversation

Questions

Tech communities, answered.

New to Community Stack? Start here. Anything else, email hello@communitystack.io.

What is Community Stack?

Community Stack runs tech communities and conferences across the UK and online, and builds the software communities rely on. That's 18 practitioner-led communities in three ecosystems (AI & Data; Cloud, Platform & Open Source; and Finance Technology & Startups), 13 conferences, Community Engine and Junction for organisers, and Community Switchboard for charities and community groups.

Which tech communities can I join?

Our communities include AI Operators, Claude Operators London, AWS AI UK, Azure AI UK, GCP AI UK, Databricks UK, Yorkshire DevOps, Yorkshire Azure User Group, Cloud Native & Open Source London, Cloud Platform Engineering London, Finance Technology Global and Startup Operators. Membership is free and every community is on Meetup.

Where do your tech meetups and conferences happen?

In person in London, Leeds, Manchester, Chester, Skipton and, from November 2026, Edinburgh, plus global virtual events. Meetups run every month and the conference programme covers AI, cloud, DevOps, platform engineering, developer experience and finance technology.

How do I get tickets for a Community Stack conference?

Every conference is ticketed through Tito. Open the conference page on communitystack.io and choose Get tickets. Community meetups are free and booked on Meetup.

Can I speak at a meetup or conference?

Yes. Each conference has an open call for speakers on its page, and our speaking guide explains what we look for. We prioritise practitioners sharing real experience over vendor pitches, and first-time speakers are welcome.

How can my company sponsor a tech community or conference?

We offer ecosystem-wide partnerships, conference packages and community sponsorships, all shown on our sponsorship page. Email sponsor@communitystack.io for availability.

Is there an alternative to Meetup for running a tech community?

Yes. Junction is the platform we built to run our own communities: events, tickets, speakers, sponsors, memberships and your own website in one place. It's free for communities up to 500 members and launches on 16 October 2026, with migration from Meetup, Eventbrite, Bevy and Luma.

Communities are infrastructure. We build what holds them up.

Too many communities run on scattered tools, volunteer goodwill and knowledge that leaves when people do. We build the tools, test them in our own communities, and then share what works.

Build it

Events, ticketing, CFP, sponsorship, memberships, directories and payments on one foundation.

Prove it

We run it ourselves across 18 communities and 13 conferences, every week.

Share it

Open source at the core, available to technical communities and the third sector alike.

The same foundation, built for charities and grassroots groups.

What we prove in technical communities, we adapt for organisations that have too often been expected to make do with less.

Switchboard

Live

Discovery infrastructure for the third sector

Accessible microsite live in under ten minutes
Charity Commission & OSCR verification badge
Donations, Gift Aid and HMRC claim files
National participation index with accessibility filters

Join Switchboard free Learn more

Where the people who build technology meet, learn and lead.

Find your people.

01AI & Data8 communities

02Cloud, Platform & Open Source7 communities

03Finance Technology & Startups3 communities

100+ events a year, in rooms across the UK and online.

Thirteen conferences. One programme.