AI Insights

Godel’s exclusive networking event for Manchester’s IT leaders

Godel Technologies recently hosted an unforgettable networking soirée at Chotto Matte, where Manchester’s IT leaders gathered for an exclusive evening of meaningful connections, conversation, and insightful panel discussions.

The evening began as attendees from across the Manchester IT ecosystem came together, swapping stories and making new connections. Soon after, attendees took to their seats to participate in an engaging panel discussion with the speakers delving into important topics and the latest trends shaping technology today.

Representing Godel Technologies was Jack Snelling, Chief Sales Officer at Godel, who opened the evening’s discussion, followed by the newly appointed Chief Technology Officer at Godel, Joe Wolski. With over a decade in technology leadership, Joe combines deep technical expertise with a strong focus on aligning technology strategy to customer priorities. He champions innovation driven by client needs, ensuring solutions help businesses thrive in an ever-changing tech landscape.

The panel discussion showcased real-world examples, practical insights, challenges and successes from the panellists, with a focus on the exciting opportunities that integrating AI brings to software engineering in practice.

The event was fantastic; I really got a lot out of it. The panel were very informative and gave great insight into the question asked, especially from an experience-based perspective.

The three panellists were:

David Hilton, Chief Technology & Product Officer at UniHomes. With over two decades of experience spanning the UK and Europe, David has led IT and digital teams across startups, SMEs, large enterprises, and public companies. His extensive background gives him a broad, pragmatic perspective on how technology and innovation can drive real business value.

Beccy Weeks, Group Chief Technology Officer at The Citation Group. Beccy drives enterprise AI transformation, achieving 100% productivity gains through agentic engineering. Recognised as one of Europe’s Top 30 Software CTOs in 2024, Beccy specialises in embedding AI across the software development lifecycle, pioneering approaches that boost engineering capability while safeguarding quality and security.

Andy MacGilvery, Group Director of Engineering at Awaze. With over 20 years’ experience leading technology teams across industries, Andy drives the modernisation of digital platforms for Europe’s leading travel brands, focusing on cloud transformation, resilience, and data-driven product development. Starting as a developer, Andy combines hands-on technical expertise with strategic leadership, with a keen interest in how AI, automation, and platform engineering will reshape value delivery by 2026.

The audience, comprised of Manchester’s elite IT leaders, actively contributed to the discussion by asking insightful questions and sharing valuable perspectives from their own organisations and experiences.

It was such an engaged room, we could have carried on all night!

The key takeaways from the panel talk were:

• Concerns about the future roles of junior developers and the shift in required skills, with an emphasis on adaptability, systems thinking, and prompt engineering.
• The structure and makeup of engineering teams are expected to change significantly by 2026-2027, with smaller teams, more automation, and evolving roles such as validation engineers replacing traditional QAs.
• The conversation highlighted the societal and economic implications of AI adoption, including job displacement, the concentration of AI development in the US, and the need for better governance and education in the UK.
• The importance of clear policies, continuous feedback, and human checks in AI-driven workflows was stressed, as well as the need for organisations to adapt their team structures and processes to leverage AI capabilities fully.
• Unresolved issues include how to best prepare future talent, address the societal impact of AI, and ensure that the UK remains competitive and self-sufficient in AI development.

Such a great evening. Thanks for the hospitality. The format worked really well, and I’m still thinking now about local/little LLMs vs General LLMs

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If you would like to find out about future events at Godel, please get in touch.

Posted 16 Dec 2025

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