CLimbUK 26

On 1–2 July 2026, Leeds Dock will once again host Climb, the two-day festival of business growth and innovation organised by ClimbUK. Now in its fourth edition since launching in May 2023, the event occupies the cluster of venues around the Royal Armouries Museum on the south bank of the River Aire.

Climb brings together entrepreneurs, investors and SMEs to share insights, network and drive growth, and is positioned explicitly against the conventional conference format. Rather than a single auditorium and printed agenda, it spreads across multiple interconnected spaces — indoor stages, dockside marquees, exhibition halls and informal meeting areas — so that talks, workshops, roundtables and chance conversations run in parallel. Climb25 drew over 2,000 delegates, and the 2026 programme is built on a similar scale.

Programming centres on the practical mechanics of growing a business: raising capital, scaling operations, adopting new technology and forming partnerships. Recent editions have given particular weight to the North of England's role in this picture, with sessions examining why so much UK innovation activity now sits outside the traditional Golden Triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge. AI, sustainability, diversity and mental health have all featured prominently across the most recent editions.

Within the wider programme, several themed zones address specific sectors. Climb Health, run in partnership with Medilink and BioNow, covers medtech, biotech and life sciences — including precision medicine, digital therapeutics and telemedicine. Other strands explore scaling, investment and emerging technology, in formats ranging from main-stage panels to investor-only sessions and activity on the exhibition floor.

The audience reflects the event's structure. Founders at the earliest stages share the floor with established scale-ups seeking investment, alongside venture and angel investors, corporate innovation teams, policymakers and the professional services firms that work with all of them. The premise is that proximity produces conversations that scheduled meetings do not.

Climb's two-day, single-site format also concentrates founders, investors and corporates in a walkable area, which can yield a higher volume of meetings than a comparable trade mission. Leeds is around two and a half hours by train from London, and Leeds Bradford Airport has direct services to several European hubs.

Institutional partners include the universities of Newcastle and Huddersfield alongside a number of regional development bodies.

Tickets are available through climb-uk.com, with the full speaker line-up and session schedule published closer to the date.