GovDev North 2026: bringing government software engineers together in Newcastle
On Wednesday 30 September 2026, the Cross Government Software Engineering Community brought its conference to Newcastle for the first time. GovDev North was a great day for colleagues working in government software engineering to meet, share experience and discuss the work happening across their teams.
The conference ran from 10:30 to 16:30, followed by a social reception, and was supported by Opencast.
Our chair, Nayyab Naqvi, summed it up in her LinkedIn post: “As Chair of the community, one of the most rewarding things today was simply looking around the room and seeing engineers from across government coming together, not just to talk about technology, but to openly share the real engineering challenges, lessons, failures, patterns and practices behind the public services we build.”
A conference in the North East
After listening to feedback from our 2025 conference, we worked to take our conference beyond London. It gave colleagues in and around the North East an opportunity to meet in person and connect with the wider cross-government engineering community. Newcastle and Opencast, you did us proud.
Talks and conversations
The day brought together talks, discussions and time to connect. More detail will follow on the sessions and ideas attendees took away but this is a snippet. If you can see our community space you can get slides there.
There was an amazing keynote by Michael Brunton-Spall sharing some of the most serious cyber incidents he was made aware of (that he could talk about) and cautioning us to ensure we safeguard our toolchains and supply chains.
Chris and Adam from HMRC showed us the Multi-channel Digital Tax Platform and how it powers teams throughout the department. Inspiring stuff for developer experience nerds.
Fahad shared some work ONS is doing with AI coding assistants, embedding them through hackathons and events across the department, with Spec Kit and GitHub Copilot powering fast iterative development.
Our very own David Heath - inspired us with a vision for an Engineering Academy, passionate about using tools and techniques to keep the software craft alive … including sharing details of the upcoming CodeRetreat in London … see our blog about that soon.
Lightning talks were equally as inspiring covering AI and collaboration and GitHub from MHCLG, UK Hydrographic Office, UK Health Security Agency, DVSA, HMRC and the Office of the Chief Technology Office.
Overall a great day and lots of networking driving collaboration across government.
Thank you
113 of you came and we are so happy you showed up.
Thank you to everyone who spoke, attended and helped organise GovDev North, and to Opencast for supporting the event. Events like this depend on people across the community giving their time and sharing what they have learned.
A special thank you to all our volunteers, whose time, energy and hard work helped make the day possible.
Stay connected
You can stay involved with the community in the following ways.
- Sign up to attend our Nottingham conference in October
- Sign up to our mailing list
- Chat with us in
#software-developmentin cross-gov slack. - Members can access our private community space where you’ll find notes from our past meetings/conferences
Shaun Hare, Cross Government Software Engineering Community