PHPUK 2026
February is a month I look forward to because it’s time to head down to London for PHPUK! I learnt my mistake from last year where I did the whole trip in one day and decided this year, to travel down the evening before and stay in the nearby Premier Inn so I was properly refreshed for the day!
This year saw the conference move from The Brewery to 1 America Square, super close to the Tower of London so I was able to get some photographs!
Whilst we travelled separately, I went with my colleague Simon and we decided to split up the talks and each go to a different set. Unlike last year, the conference was split into 3 tracks, one for each of the rooms we had access to. Last year it was just 2 tracks. This did mean we missed out on some of the talks however I believe we picked the ones most suited to where we are as a company and where we are heading.
The conference started off with a fantastic breakfast made up of fruit, pastries and smoothies. I was finally able to get an Eddie ElePHPant for collection as they had a big plastic box full of them!
The keynote was delivered by Gary Hockin who is a consultant for Roave. His talk explored how key engineering decisions are often answered with “it depends”.
After the Keynote, it was time to begin the talks, with breaks for networking peppered in between the talks. It was great to catch up with folks such as James Brooks from Laravel and Sam Carré from Plannr. I tried to pick a broad range of talks and ended up attending talks about AI, OSS, PHPStan, NativePHP and The PHP Foundation.
I can’t pick a favourite talk as they were all brilliant however I really did enjoy the talk Sara gave towards the end of the day about the PHP Foundation. I learnt a lot not only about the foundation but also some nice history about the language too!
After the talks, there was a closing ceremony, some prizes were given out and we then went into the breakout area for some drinks and networking!
On the train home, I began reflecting on the event and typed up some notes for me to give to the team. There are definitely some things we, as a company, need to action and look into off the back of this conference!
I look forward to attending next year!
