Although we've yet to confirm this with our own update, HTC Hero customers should be getting an Over the Air Update request from Tuesday following HTC making the 2.1 update available for download across Europe, and that presumably means the UK too.

"In our commitment to providing you with the best user experience, we are pushing out a new firmware update to your HTC Hero. Your phone will receive a notification of this update when it is made available", reads the support page from HTC.

"Simply press OK to accept the update via a data connection such as Wi-Fi or GPRS/3G. After installing the update, you can confirm a successful update by confirming the Build number (From the Home Screen go to MENU> Settings> About Phone> Build number)".

Nordic territories, Greece and Ireland are getting a different build. 

Hopefully that means dedicated Orange and T-Mobile updates in the UK any time now.

UPDATE: HTC has issued a statement on the update:

“Android Éclair update for HTC Hero will be released by the end of June. The upgrade will come in two parts, the first of which will roll out from this week and will be detected when the Hero next automatically checks for software updates. The second part of the update will follow towards the end of the month. As the second part of the upgrade will wipe all data on the handset, Hero users should ensure any important data has been backed up before proceeding with the installation. Due to the size of the update, wherever possible, we would advise using a WiFi connection for this download to avoid additional data charges.”