UK Tech Days is a week-long series of free events run by Microsoft and technical communities to celebrate and inspire developers, IT professionals and IT Managers to get more from Microsoft technology.  Over 5 days (12th to 16th April 2010), Microsoft is running 10 all-day events covering the latest technology releases with topics including Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010, virtualisation, Silverlight, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows deployment and an IT Manager day.  In addition to the main events, held in West London Cinema locations, various user groups will be organising fringe events (Mark Parris is working hard on something for the Windows Server User Group… more details to follow).

Full event details (and registration links) are available on the UK TechDays site but here’s a brief rundown of the main attractions.

Developer Days at Fulham Vue Cinema:

• Monday, 12 April 2010: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 launch - a path to big ideas. This launch event is aimed at development managers, heads of development and software architects who want to hear how Visual Studio 2010 can help build better applications whilst taking advantage of great integration with other key technologies.  (Day 2 will cover the technical in-depth sessions aimed at developers.)
• Tuesday, 13 April 2010: Getting started with Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Microsoft and industry experts will share their perspectives on the top new and useful features with core programming languages and in the framework and tooling, such as — ASP.NET MVC, parallel programming, Entity Framework 4, and the offerings around rich client and web development experiences.
• Wednesday, 14 April 2010: The essential MIX – exploring the art and science of creating great user experiences. Learn about the next generation ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms.
• Thursday, 15 April 2010: Best of breed client applications on Microsoft Windows 7. Windows 7 adoption is moving at a startling pace. In this demo-driven day, Microsoft will look at the developer landscape around Windows 7 – the operating system for applications running on through the new decade.
• Friday, 16 April 2010: Windows Phone day. A practical day of detailed Windows Phone 7 Series development sessions covering the new Windows Phone specification, application standards and services.

IT Professional and IT Manager Days at Shepherds Bush Vue Cinema:

• Monday, 12 April 2010: Virtualisation summit – From the desktop to the datacentre. Designed to provide an understanding of the key products and technologies enabling seamless physical and virtual management, interoperable tools, cost-savings and value.
• Tuesday, 13 April 2010: Office 2010 – Experience the next wave in business productivity. The event will cover how the improvements to Office, SharePoint, Exchange, Project and Visio will provide a practical platform that will allow IT professionals to not only solve problems and deliver business value, but also demonstrate this value to IT stakeholders.
• Wednesday, 14 April 2010: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 – deployment made easy. This event will provide an understanding of key tools including the new Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, Windows Deployment services and the Application Compatibility Toolkit along with considerations for deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 and migrating server roles.
• Thursday, 15 April 2010: SQL Server 2008 R2 – The information platform. Highlighting the new capabilities of the latest SQL Server release, as well as diving into specific topics, such as consolidating SQL Server databases, tips and techniques for performance monitoring and tuning as well, and a look at the newly released cloud platform (SQL Azure).
• Friday, 16 April 2010 (IT Managers): Looking ahead, keeping the boss happy and raising the profile of IT.  IT Managers have more and more responsibilities to drive and support the direction of the business. Explore the various trends and technologies that can bring IT to the top table, from score-carding to data governance and cloud computing.

I’ve been waiting for this announcement for a few weeks now, and places are (very) limited, so,  if these topics are of interest to you, I suggest registering quickly!