For the fifth time in a row, the UK Quantum Hackathon 2026 will be held from 18th to 20th August, with participants working in teams to develop solutions, showcase their results, and demonstrate how they would tackle challenges in areas as diverse as healthcare, energy, and engineering.
Use case submissions for this year’s hackathon will open following the webinar on 20th April 2026. Successful organisations will have the opportunity to work with a team at the event on their use case to develop and test solutions on quantum computers. We welcome submissions from businesses, the public sector, the third sector, governmental, and higher education organisations. Register to join the webinar to find out more about the use case submission.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2026: End User Webinar registrationThe UK Quantum Hackathon is the NQCC’s flagship annual event, delivered as part of our user engagement programme, SparQ. The event brings together teams of aspiring coders with industry mentors, to tackle practical challenges and develop solutions using quantum computing.
Aimed at students and early career researchers, participants gained hands-on experience using quantum algorithms and coding with quantum computers.
Connect the UK quantum ecosystem through networking and collaboration throughout the event
Develop use cases that can be further developed through the SparQ program
Develop quantum computing programming and application development skills in masters students, doctoral students, and other early career researchers
Demonstrate the current state of quantum computing technology for real-world applications. In particular, understanding the opportunities and limitations of quantum computing
Showcase the breadth of technology available currently and enable a broad range of users to access these tools
The NQCC held its fourth UK quantum hackathon in July 2025 at the University of Edinburgh. The event ran over three days, with participants working in teams to develop solutions, showcase their results and demonstrate how they would tackle challenges in areas as diverse as healthcare, energy, and engineering.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2025
The UK Quantum Hackathon 2024 took place at the University of Warwick from 22nd July to 24th July 2024. The event concluded with teams presenting outstanding solutions to both their peers and a distinguished panel of judges.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2024
The NQCC held its second UK quantum hackathon in July 2023 at the University of Birmingham. It aimed at exploration and awareness-raising for the current capabilities and limitations of quantum computing technology, as well as at nurturing the talent pipeline and convening stakeholders.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2023
The hackathon was the first hands-on event organized by the NQCC in June 2022, following the launch of its SparQ applications discovery programme. The goal was to bring together quantum developers, end users, and technology providers to collaborate on solving real-world problems.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2022
Known collectively as the Quantum Fringe, in a clear nod to Edinburgh’s famous cultural festival, 16 separate events have been held throughout June and July – UK Quantum Hackathon 2025 being the concluding one.
Find out more
The NQCC hosted its third UK Quantum Hackathon at the University of Warwick in 2024, bringing together some of the brightest early-career quantum computing researchers.
Read the report
Now in its third year, the 2024 hackathon attracted 50% more participants from across the quantum ecosystem, who tackled 13 use cases set by industry mentors from the private and public sectors.
Find out more
The UK Quantum Hackathon 2024, held for the third consecutive year, continues to provide the resources to elevate the standards of innovation and collaboration in the quantum computing landscape.
Find out more
In July 2023, we held our second UK Quantum Hackathon at the University of Birmingham as part of SparQ, our user engagement programme. Over the course of two days, ten teams of early career researchers used quantum computing to tackle practical problems based on use cases provided by industrial end-users.
Read the report
The UK’s second quantum hackathon challenged ten teams of early-career researchers, industry mentors and hardware specialists to create quantum solutions to real-world problems in just two days.
Find out more
The UK’s first quantum computing hackathon challenged teams of students and early-career scientists to devise novel quantum solutions to real-life problems.
Find out more