The Data City Summit 2026 - The Future of Economic & Business Intelligence

The Data City Summit is back in Leeds for its third year. Join us for an afternoon of talks, lunch, drinks and networking with the people who use our data and the people who build it.

This year’s theme is the Future of Economic & Business Intelligence. Frontier industries like AI, quantum, space and net zero are moving faster than the codes used to track them. Our speakers are using real-time data to find these companies and back them. We’ll also share what’s next for The Data City, now that our data covers the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and the US.

Agenda

12:00 Arrival & check-in
12:15 Welcome from Ed Whiting, Chief Executive, Leeds City Council
12:20 Five things our data showed us this year: Paul Swinney, Chief Economist, The Data City
13:00 Lunch (on us!)
13:45 Finding the hidden value of the creative economy: Iain Bennett & Jon Baines, the Fifth Sector
14:05 You’re Better at Data Storytelling Than You Think: Thierry Ngutegure, Six Chillies
14:25 Making the Invisible Visible: Mapping Britain's Convergent Screen Industries with The Data City from Professor Emily Caston, Professor of Screen Industries and Founding Director of PRISM (Public Research Institute of Screen Media) at the University of West London
14:45 The Businesses Behind the Numbers: Gareth Healey, Head of Economic Development, Life Sciences Hub Wales
15:05 Tea & coffee
15:30 Forecasting the UK’s frontier sectors: Liam Sides, Director, Oxford Economics
15:50 Company Innovation across Countries: Tom Forth, The Data City
16:15 Closing remarks & global update: Alex Craven
16:45 Networking & drinks until 18:00

The last two years sold out, so reserve your spot now. Watch last year’s highlights to see what to expect.

When? Thursday 12th November, 12pm to 6pm
Where? Horizon Leeds, 2 Kendall Street, Leeds LS10 1JR

Info: Grab yourself a drink & settle in.

Info: Over the past year, Paul has worked on bringing The Data City’s data to life, turning it into insights that started conversations with policymakers and investors. In this session, Paul walks through five of them, looking at what each one revealed and why it resonated. You’ll see fast-growing sectors that SIC codes miss and regional patterns that surprised even us.

Info: Lunch is on us!

Info: The creative economy extends far beyond the businesses and employees captured by conventional sector statistics. Creative skills sit inside unexpected industries, while freelancers and project-based teams underpin work that company accounts only partly reveal. The Fifth Sector explores how company intelligence from The Data City, combined with its Places platform and research methods, can uncover hidden activity, identify clusters and lookalike businesses, and reveal connections between creative and technical capabilities. Through visual examples, the session shows how richer interpretation of data can help places recognise overlooked strengths and make better-informed decisions about support and investment.

Info: Most of us think we’re bad at data storytelling. Usually we’ve just never seen it done, or never had the confidence to have a go. In this talk, Thierry shows what a story looks like when it starts with data, how to spot the angle when you’re faced with endless filters and figures, and how to give numbers some emotion so people actually remember them. Expect zero jargon and no analyst skills required. You’ll leave with the confidence to find what’s interesting and turn it into something people want to read.

Info: How do you measure an industry that official statistics struggle to recognise? Drawing on her landmark West London Screens report, Professor Emily Caston explains how she used The Data City's industrial classification engine to challenge conventional SIC-based definitions of the UK's screen industries.
By developing a bespoke classification of convergent screen production — encompassing film, television, advertising, games, virtual production, digital content and their shared supply chains — the research identified 6,842 companies across nine West London boroughs, with a combined annual turnover of £74.5 billion.
Caston explores how combining new data technologies with historical research and industry knowledge revealed a previously under-recognised, 125-year-old industrial cluster, and how the findings are informing regional economic development and national creative industries policy.

Info: Gareth Healey, Head of Economic Development at Life Sciences Hub Wales, shares how collaboration with The Data City helped reveal the individual businesses and capabilities behind Wales’s headline life sciences statistics. Combining sector knowledge with data expertise, the partners shaped a tool that LSHW now uses daily to understand companies, explore supply-chain capabilities and identify regional strengths. The talk explores how this deeper understanding supports targeted business assistance and cluster development, while helping connect innovation with academic expertise and clinical needs to support economic growth and better health and well-being across Wales. 

Event venue & nearby stays

Horizon Leeds, 2 Kendall Street, Leeds, United Kingdom

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