TechNExt 2026 lands Sage, Accenture & Leighton backing

JOSEPH GABRIEL LAGONSIN

News Editor

Sage, Accenture and Leighton have signed up as headline sponsors of TechNExt 2026, bringing three of the North East’s largest technology employers behind the regional festival.

The five-day event will take place across Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, Northumberland, Durham, North Tyneside and South Tyneside. Organisers are returning for a fourth year with a programme spread across venues throughout the region.

The sponsorship comes as the North East technology sector reports annual turnover of £11.6 billion and supports more than 61,000 jobs. Support from all three companies reflects a shared aim of bringing the region’s technology community together in one place for a week.

Last year’s edition sold out its Main Stage and drew more than 3,000 attendees, according to organisers. Visitors came from across the UK and overseas, and keynote speakers included Cherrypick chief executive and former Monzo chief operating officer Tom Foster-Carter.

Regional focus

TechNExt is being organised by Sunderland Software City, BeaconHouse Events and Dynamo North East. This year’s programme is built around four themed hubs covering data and AI, tech for good, start-ups and creative technology.

The data and AI hub will be based at The Catalyst in Newcastle. Tech for Good will be hosted at The Village in North Tyneside, while the start-up programme will run through Durham University Business School and the creative technology strand will be based at Culture House in Sunderland.

Alongside the hubs, the week will feature six flagship events and more than 20 community-led fringe events. Planned fixtures include a festival launch in Gateshead, an industry dinner, a technology careers fair in Newcastle and a closing party.

The sponsorship is significant given the companies’ large workforces and established regional operations. Their backing also highlights the rising profile of the North East’s technology sector as local institutions and employers work to retain talent and strengthen links between businesses, start-ups and universities.

Jonathan Cowan, EVP HCM and Platform at Sage, said: “TechNExt brings together people, ideas and ambition from across the North-East. It’s a chance to see first-hand how the magic of innovation happens when businesses and the wider tech community come together to solve real-world problems – and I’m proud to see Sage playing a role in supporting that.”

Alec Berry, managing director of Accenture Newcastle, added: “The North East is a really unique part of the UK in that we’re quite small but there’s a lot of exciting things going on here. It’s really important that we all work together and collaborate.”

Steve Morland, chief technology officer at Leighton, said the company’s support reflects its regional roots and the importance it places on skills and networks. “As a North East founded business, it’s in our DNA to support events like TechNExt that bring together and foster the huge talent in our region. It’s a great opportunity to network with peers, to learn, develop and to nurture the ambition of the future workforce.”

The festival’s footprint across several towns and cities reflects an effort to present the North East as a single technology cluster rather than a set of separate local markets. By staging events across the region, organisers aim to draw in employers, investors, founders, students and public sector participants from multiple centres of activity.

That approach mirrors a wider trend in UK regional technology policy, with local networks increasingly framed around collaboration between established companies and newer ventures. In the North East, that has taken on added weight as employers try to build a deeper pipeline of workers in software, digital services, artificial intelligence and related fields.

For TechNExt, support from Sage, Accenture and Leighton provides a strong endorsement ahead of this year’s programme, following the sold-out Main Stage and 3,000-strong turnout at the previous edition. It also signals that some of the region’s biggest employers see value in using a shared platform to bring together the North East technology community for a concentrated week of activity.