AI Engineer

Accenture UK; Cheltenham; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Accenture is seeking an AI Engineer to develop and optimise AI agents and LLM-powered applications for its Security Operations Centre capabilities. The role includes configuring LLMs, building agentic workflows, and integrating with SOAR/SIEM/EDR, with a strong emphasis on secure design and governance.

You will work across platforms (Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI) and collaborate with security engineers and SOC analysts to deliver production-ready AI solutions in a hybrid

Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience within AI/ML engineering.
• Hands-on experience building and deploying AI agents or LLM-powered applications in production environments.
• Practical experience with enterprise AI platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI or similar.
• Strong understanding of LLM concepts and vector databases, including context windows, temperature and sampling parameters, system prompts and tool/function calling.
• Experience implementing RAG pipelines end-to-end, including data ingestion, chunking strategies, embedding model selection and retrieval tuning.
• Experience implementing parsing pipelines for tasks such as document processing and ingestion, including handling unstructured data.
• Knowledge of AI security risks, including familiarity with the OWASP LLM Top 10.
• Experience working within enterprise governance frameworks.
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python and familiarity with common AI/ML libraries.
• Ability to build custom tools that can interact with or be exposed to LLMs.
• Strong understanding of REST APIs and integration with third-party platforms and internal tooling.

Responsibilities

• LLM Configuration: Configure, evaluate and tune large language models for security use cases, including prompt engineering and RAG.
• Agent Development: Design, build and maintain AI agents and workflows using platforms and security toolsets.
• Secure Configuration: Implement safeguards against adversarial inputs and ensure secure AI development.
• System Architecture: Architect modular, scalable AI solutions with secure development principles.
• Governance: Align solutions with AI governance framework, data handling and audit logging.
• Cost Management: Optimise LLM API usage and infrastructure costs with caching and guardrails.
• Collaboration: Work with security engineers and SOC analysts to prototype and iterate.
• Documentation: Produce clear technical documentation for ongoing management.

Skills

AI/ML engineering

Python

REST APIs

LLM concepts

Security awareness

Tools

Azure AI Foundry

AWS Bedrock

Google Vertex AI

Job description

Role title: AI Engineer

Location: UK Nationwide (2x a month in the Cheltenham office- hybrid working)

Salary: Competitive salary and package (Depending on level of experience)

Please Note: Any offer of employment is subject to satisfactory BPSS and SC security clearance which requires 5 years continuous UK address history (typically including no periods of 30 consecutive days or more spent outside of the UK) at the point of application. The above information relates to a specific client requirement'

We are looking for an AI Engineer to develop and optimise AI agents and LLM-powered applications that will help advance Accenture’s Security Operations Centre (SOC) capabilities.

Working closely with security engineers and SOC analysts, you will design, build and operationalise AI-powered workflows that integrate with security tooling and help accelerate threat detection and response.

You’ll bring strong AI engineering expertise, with hands‑on experience building production‑ready LLM applications, agentic workflows and RAG solutions.

Previous cyber security experience is advantageous but not essential.

We are at an exciting point in the evolution of defensive cyber operations, with AI playing an increasingly important role in responding to a rapidly evolving threat landscape. We’re looking for innovative, practical engineers who want to apply their AI expertise to this challenge.

Responsibilities

• LLM Configuration: Configure, evaluate and tune large language models for security use cases, including prompt engineering, system prompt design, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) and tool/function calling.
• Agent Development: Design, build and maintain AI agents and agentic workflows using platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, integrating with security toolsets such as SOAR, SIEM and EDR.
• Secure Configuration: Implement safeguards to protect against adversarial inputs, including prompt injection and jailbreaks, ensuring AI systems meet robust security standards.
• System Architecture: Architect AI solutions that are modular, maintainable and built to scale, following secure development principles.
• Governance: Implement solutions in line with our AI governance framework, covering areas such as data handling, audit logging, human‑in‑the‑loop controls and regulatory compliance.
• Cost Management: Monitor and optimise LLM API usage and infrastructure costs, implementing strategies such as caching, model tiering and guardrails to ensure solutions are economically viable.
• Collaboration: Work closely with key stakeholders, security engineers and SOC analysts to understand operational challenges, prototype solutions and iterate based on feedback.
• Documentation: Produce clear technical documentation to support the effective ongoing management of developed capabilities.

Essential:

We are looking for:

• 2+ years of experience within AI/ML engineering.
• Hands‑on experience building and deploying AI agents or LLM-powered applications in production environments, including appropriate observability and evaluation mechanisms.
• Practical experience with enterprise AI platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI or similar.
• Strong understanding of LLM concepts and vector databases, including context windows, temperature and sampling parameters, system prompts and tool/function calling.
• Experience implementing RAG pipelines end‑to‑end, including data ingestion, chunking strategies, embedding model selection and retrieval tuning.
• Experience implementing parsing pipelines for tasks such as document processing and ingestion, including handling unstructured data.
• Knowledge of AI security risks, including familiarity with the OWASP LLM Top 10, and an understanding of how these risks can be mitigated.
• Experience working within enterprise governance frameworks.
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages, such as Python, and familiarity with common AI/ML libraries.
• Ability to build custom tools that can interact with, or be exposed to, LLMs.
• Strong understanding of REST APIs, with the ability to integrate AI solutions with third‑party platforms and internal tooling.

Desirable:

The following would be beneficial but are not essential:

• Previous experience within cyber security or security operations.
• Knowledge of enterprise security tooling such as SOAR, SIEM and EDR.
• Experience applying AI to security operations, threat detection or incident response.
• Experience deploying infrastructure-as-code.

What we're looking for

• A collaborative and engaging approach to problem‑solving, with a willingness to work as part of a wider team.
• Self‑motivated, results‑focused and pragmatic, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deadlines.
• Someone who values diversity and recognises the innovation and competitive advantage that comes from diverse, highly skilled teams where equal opportunities are genuinely valued.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent‑and innovation‑led company with approximately 791,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities.

Visit us at www.accenture.com

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We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by applicable law. Our rich diversity makes us more innovative, more competitive, and more creative, which helps us better serve our clients and our communities.