Welcome to Ubiq X LIVE UK 2027

Your host Maddie Lingard, Director of Marketing at Ubiq opens the show and sets the stage for two days of bold ideas, fresh thinking, and meaningful connections.

The Big Picture

Join Ubiq’s CEO, Dan Clarke, as he shares the exciting future for school marketing and what’s next for Ubiq.

What Needs to Change?

The independent education sector has changed beyond imagination in the last decade; this panel cuts to the harsh reality of what needs to change in the way we run schools as businesses, revenue diversification, a new way of thinking, and supporting local communities. Hosted by ex-school-marketer Maddie Lingard, Ubiq’s Director of Marketing, school marketers from The Leys School, Stowe, and Frensham Heights will explore how we can align school marketers with the ambition and grit of huge commercial businesses.

The Luxury Mindset: Marketing the Ultimate Family Investment

Independent schools are operating with high emotional and financial stakes; now, one of luxury’s most creative agency leaders, Anant Sharma, Founder & CEO at Matter of Form, turns your perception of independent education on its head. This keynote will position independent schools next to some of the world’s most luxurious brands and share what school marketers can learn from them. Debriefed by special guest and education sales expert, Nicola Lutz, Founder of No Fluff, this session promises to deliver a new blueprint for your school’s market positioning.

The Next Generation of Parents

Edelman returns for the next iteration of the exclusive consumer buying report. In this session, you’ll learn the trends of the parents your school is actively looking to recruit, what makes them tick, how to show up in their lives, and how to turn them into loyal customers.

The Modern Parent Journey: Introducing the Research Playground

Hear Ubiq’s new enrolment concept which reimagines the sales funnel and pays homage to the intangibly messy modern parent journey. You’ll learn what modern parents’ lives look like, what they expect, and the contexts they are existing in.

The Experience Gap: What really happens after a family enquires

What makes a family want to keep talking to one school and walk away from another? Drawing on hundreds of real family enquiries across schools in 21 countries, this interactive workshop reveals the moments that had the biggest impact on families’ desire to continue the conversation. We’ll unpack the 2026 global EET findings, test some real-life examples, and explore what the data tells us about creating enquiry experiences that families actually want to continue.

Why Thinking Commercially is No Longer an Option

Moving past traditional “brochure” marketing to clearly articulate ROI to value-conscious parents. Breaking down the silos between admissions, marketing, finance, and academic staff to create a unified business strategy. Shifting from “we’ve always done it this way” to leveraging market behavior data to make fast, calculated admissions and retention decisions. This session provides the vital context of why a commercial mindset is survival-critical for independent schools right now.

Exclusive with the CEO: The Next Generation of School Website

Get a first-hand look into the innovative technology of Ubiq’s website offer. In this session, you’ll have the opportunity to understand and use the platform hands-on. Hosted by our product team, you’ll also get visibility over new innovations and advanced platform use cases.

How to use the Ubiq DXP

Curated for clients and upcoming launches, this workshop will allow delegates to get an understanding of Ubiq AMAIS’ most powerful tool, the DXP. Explore how to attribute persona groups, understand user behaviour, and tailor your marketing and admissions strategy accordingly.

Utterly Uncopyable

Stop competing on sameness. Become a category of one. Learn how to break out of the copy-and-paste era, build meaningful differentiation and create a brand customers actively choose. Drawing on the cult-brand strategies behind Gymshark and Lounge, Jo shows teams how to escape the race to the bottom, strengthen brand preference and create the kind of distinctiveness that protects growth and pricing power.

How Coca Cola Would Market your School

Ever imagined what one of the world’s most recognisable brands would do if they took a walk in your shoes? This session will bring that image to life. FMCG expert, Lee Willett, will share how schools can learn the values and tricks of the FMCG industry and apply these to the independent school sector.

Experience Sells: Building a Better School Open Day

Your open day is the moment your brand stops being a promise and becomes something families can feel. Yet too many schools still run the same tour, the same speeches and the same coffee in the same hall. Join Emilee Alexson, Ubiq's Head of Events, for a practical masterclass in designing open events that families remember and talk about long after they leave. Drawing on lessons from live events and experiential brands, Emilee will show you how to map the visitor journey from first invite to follow-up, create standout moments that bring your values to life, and turn a well-run morning into a decision-making experience that converts.

From Competitors to Frenemies

The instinct to compete runs deep. But what if it’s holding you back? In an increasingly pressured market, doubling down on competition often delivers diminishing returns. The smarter schools are taking a different approach. One that looks, at first glance, like the opposite of growth. They’re collaborating. This insight-led session is packed with real case studies showing how schools can partner with competitors to increase visibility, attract new audiences and drive more sustainable recruitment. This isn’t about being part of a school group. This is different. It’s not soft. It’s strategic. As part of a blueprint for change, we’ll explore how shifting from rivalry to collaboration can unlock growth that traditional approaches simply can’t deliver, and why the question is no longer if you should collaborate, but how. The story is told by two Frenemy consultants – Sophy & Rachel.

Roundtable: The Blueprint for Change

Join some of education’s most experienced experts in an open discussion on building positive and lasting change in independent education. More speakers to be announced.

Know your Customer

Get a view of Ubiq’s advanced first party data and learn how this could shape and impact your school’s marketing and admissions strategy. With the help of our in-house team, you’ll dive into a case study and explore how you can leverage 1:1 data to better guide, support, and convert families.

How to Use the Ubiq CMS

Get to grips with the sector’s most flexible website editing tool, the Ubiq AMAIS CMS. Quickly create pages, populate your content in a matter of minutes, and then optimise it using Ubiq’s new advanced AI capabilities. This hands-on session will demonstrate how you can turn informational pages into engaging, often immersive, digital hotspots designed to convert the right users at the right time.

The Psychology of Marketing

Standard marketing logic assumes parents choose schools rationally. Behavioural science proves otherwise. In this closing keynote, Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland unlocks the counter-intuitive psychology behind how families actually make high-stakes emotional decisions. Discover why subtle psychological triggers, perception shifts, and “irrational” human drivers consistently beat facts and figures, and how to harness them to transform your admissions pipeline.

Closing Remarks