Real-Time Pipelines, Semantic Layers & AI-Ready Foundations

Welcome to the Manchester Databricks Meetup - May 2026

Join us for an evening packed with Databricks insights, real-world use cases, expert speakers, and plenty of time to network with the local data & AI community

Agenda:
17:30 – 17:45 | Arrival & Networking
Meet fellow data professionals, practitioners, and Databricks enthusiasts

17:45 – 18:00 | Opening Remarks & Introductions
Opening remarks from the organisers

18:00 – 20:00 | Sessions
Hear from industry leaders sharing practical Databricks and AI insights.
Pizza and refreshments will be served during the sessions.

20:00 onwards | Drinks & Networking
Continue the conversations over drinks and informal networkin

Session 1

Cassidy Louch – Lead Data Engineer, ASDA

From Day-Old Data to Real-Time Retail: Modernizing CDC With Spark Declarative Pipelines and Lakeflow
Cassidy will share how he transformed a legacy CDC solution into a modern, real-time data pipeline using Databricks.
In this session, you’ll learn:

• The successes and pitfalls of moving from batch to real-time architectures
• How the solution was iteratively designed and refined
• How new Databricks capabilities like AutoCDC and Lakeflow Connect were leveraged
• How a complex, cumbersome legacy setup was turned into a streamlined, scalable workflow

This is a highly practical session for anyone looking to modernise ingestion pipelines or unlock real-time use cases.

Session 2

Anna Gatty & Declan Watson - Senior Solutions Engineer & Senior Solutions Architect - Databricks

Scaling Trusted Decisions: The Semantic Foundation for Self-Service Analytics and Agentic Workflows

Today, company knowledge is often fragmented across dashboards and tools, leading to inconsistent metrics and slower decision-making.
In this session, Anna and Declan will explore how to build a trusted, governed semantic layer that enables both self-service analytics and future AI capabilities.

They’ll cover:

• Why fragmented KPIs and definitions create friction across teams
• How a semantic layer brings consistency and reduces rework
• Enabling self-service analytics with trusted data
• Laying the foundation for agentic AI workflows that can reason over data correctly
• How this vision is enabled using Unity Catalog, UC Metrics, and Genie on Databricks

The outcome: faster, more confident decision-making and a foundation for trusted AI at scale.

Session 3

Peter Murty - Director of Technology - Flutter Entertainment

Delta Sharing at Scale: Turning Governed Data Sharing into Business Value

As organisations scale, one of the biggest challenges isn’t just managing data, it’s sharing it effectively, securely, and in a way that actually drives business value.
In this session, Peter will walk through how Delta Sharing can be used to enable governed data access across multiple brands, while still maintaining control, consistency, and trust.
Drawing on real-world experience, he’ll explore how to move from fragmented, distributed datasets to centralised, business-ready views — and how platforms can be stood up quickly, then scaled for wider adoption across the organisation.
He’ll also cover how Unity Catalog underpins secure, controlled data sharing, helping teams strike the balance between accessibility and governance.

In this session, you’ll learn:

• How to share data across multiple brands using Delta Sharing
• Approaches to creating centralised views (e.g. finance) from distributed datasets
• What it takes to stand up a data sharing platform in ~3–4 months
• How to scale adoption beyond the initial use case
• How governance frameworks enable—not block—data access
• How to move from technical capability to measurable business outcomes

A practical session for data leaders and engineers looking to unlock more value from their data by making it accessible, trusted, and usable at scale.

Date and Location:

Date: Thursday 21st May
Venue: Slalom - Floor 15, Bloc, 17 Marble Street, Manchester, M2 3AW