CyberGrowth
East Midlands Cyber Summit
The inaugural East Midlands Cyber Security Summit was delivered by East Midlands Cyber Security Cluster in February 2026. Aligning closely with Government programmes – and a part of our own CyberLocal project – it was a sell-out success.
CyberGrowth and Government Policy
The Summit marked the culmination of our CyberGrowth programme and brought small businesses, larger corporates, universities, charities, and Government bodies into the same room.
The aim was for a working session focused on what leaders ‘would do differently on Monday’ as a result of attending.
As such, the Summit sat squarely within the UK Government’s push to grow regional tech and cyber capacity. Speakers set out how Cyber Local funding has backed local, expert‑led interventions and how the East Midlands. They also underlined how national policy such as the Cyber Resilience Bill, NCSC’s Cyber Assessment Framework and Cyber Essentials only deliver value when translated into realistic pathways for SMEs and local public services.
A platform for tech experts
The Summit featured regional and UK-level experts from a host of organisations.
These included TechUK, Cyber Path, the East Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre and ISACA. Sessions covered themes including:
- An industry keynote on the reality of a ransomware attack that ultimately closed the speaker’s local logistics business.
- Practical steps for moving small businesses leaders from awareness and tick‑box training to behaviour and culture change.
- Analysis of the Cyber Growth Action Plan and why the Midlands could lead on fundamentals and supply‑chain resilience.
Outcomes and impact
The Summit was oversubscribed by 58% and all 100 available places were reserved well ahead of the day.
There were 1,800+ visits to the Eventbrite page. Post-Summit feedback was hugely positive, with delegate surveys scoring the event 4.8 out of 5 and offering comments including ‘truly valuable’, ‘really insightful and interesting’, ‘strong and timely’ and ‘a brilliant example of an academic mind understanding the needs of business and acting to do something practical about it.’
Several themes consistently emerged over the course of the Summit:
- Reframing cyber as mainstream economics. Speakers repeatedly linked resilience to growth, supply‑chain competitiveness, insurance, talent attraction and access to contracts.
- Leadership ownership. A core takeaway was that cyber resilience must sit at board or senior leader level, even in micro‑businesses, because it is about risk, priorities and accountability, not just tools and delegation.
- Clarity on fundamentals. The Summit kept returning to basics – asset visibility, access control and MFA, patching and updates, backup and recovery, supplier assurance and tested incident plans.
What Happens Next
Panelists challenged the East Midlands region to return in 12 months and be able to show: a bigger and more diverse audience engaging with cyber, more SMEs having taken at least one concrete step to improve their posture, and evidence that basics are being done more consistently across the ecosystem.
They also advocated focus on Midlands strengths – aligning with the Cyber Growth Action Plan and Industrial Strategy to build a place-specific offer.
This would demonstrate both the urgency and the opportunity of cyber resilience as both defence against harm and a platform for sustainable growth and competitive advantage.
