Head of Technical Standards and Best Practice

AI Security Institute; Greater London; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

London office

Salary benchmarking

Job summary

AI Security Institute in London is seeking a Head of Technical Standards and Best Practice to lead the creation and adoption of concrete technical guidance for frontier AI development. You will steer the team, coordinate with researchers and engineers, and collaborate with government and industry partners to ensure robust, transparent standards.

The role requires deep expertise in AI security, risk assessment, and standards development, with a focus on practical, implementable guidance.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in AI security research or engineering.
• Experience leading technical teams and cross‑functional groups.
• Understanding of safety cases, risk management and standards.
• Experience writing or reviewing safety/standards documentation.

Responsibilities

• Set direction and strategy for technical best practice in frontier AI safety.
• Lead technical engagement with frontier AI developers, evaluators and standards bodies.
• Build and lead the core team, with a repeatable drafting to publication process.
• Take best practice guidance from draft to publication and adoption.
• Define metrics and reporting requirements for transparency and risk management.

Skills

5+ years AI security

Lead teams

Policy understanding

Frontier AI knowledge

Job description

Head of Technical Standards and Best Practice

London, UK

About the AI Security Institute

The AI Security Institute is the world's largest and best-funded team dedicated to understanding advanced AI risks and translating that knowledge into action. We’re in the heart of the UK government with direct lines to No. 10 (the Prime Minister's office), and we work with frontier developers and governments globally.

We’re here because governments are critical for advanced AI going well, and UK AISI is uniquely positioned to mobilise them. With our resources, unique agility and international influence, this is the best place to shape both AI development and government action.

The deadline for applying to this role is Sunday 29th November 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth.

About the team

AISI's Technical Standards and Best Practice team identifies what best practice is needed to manage the most serious risks from frontier AI development and leverages AISI’s position to get it adopted.

AI capabilities are advancing faster than the science and practices used to manage their risks. Risks now emerge earlier, during training, internal deployment and evaluation, not just at public release, and evaluation methods are struggling to keep pace. Yet there is no consensus on the set of practices needed to safely use and develop the most capable AI systems, and high-level principles are not enough to manage these risks. What's needed is concrete technical guidance that developers agree is necessary.

AISI is uniquely placed to lead on parts of this industry-wide effort to establish best practice. We house researchers with state-of-the-art technical insight on keeping AI secure during internal use, hold existing relationships with industry and other frontier AI organisations, and offer a neutral third-party home to establish best practice collaboratively. This role directly delivers on part of the Prime Minister’s September 2026commitment that the UK will work towards principles and standards that ensure the most capable AI systems are developed securely and with appropriate transparency. It builds directly on our October 2026 publication Towards technical best practice for frontier AI development , setting out our view of the most urgent priorities.

This is a new, growing team with high ambitions. It is a cross AISI initiative that draws on and collaborates with researchers and engineers from across AISI's research teams, as well as our Communications, International and Strategy teams. We're now building a dedicated core team and expect it to grow as the work does.

Why this team matters:

AISI is uniquely placed to shape this guidance, and this team is how we'll do it:

• Technical expertise: AISI has roughly 10 technical and research teams whose expertise can be drawn on; one of the largest groups working on AI risk outside the frontier AI companies. AISI has evaluated more than 55 frontier models before release and published research on topics such as safety cases, monitorability and control.
• A research institute within government: we work directly with leading AI developers, other governments , and third-party evaluators, and can bring them together around practices no single company would set on its own. UK AISI also coordinates the International Network for Advanced AI Measurement, Evaluation and Science – a group of 10 AI security institutes and equivalents – which has already published its own and socialised others’ best practices.
• A track record of shaping industry practice: AISI has already helped establish voluntary practices such as pre-release testing, and built Inspect, now the standard framework for leading third-party evaluators.

We're not seeking to mandate requirements. We want to contribute our expertise to an industry-wide effort to develop technical best practice that could later inform formal standards.

What we're working on:

Examples of our first priority areas include:

• Overseeing AI systems: what monitoring and controls developers need to make sure AI systems behave as intended, and how to preserve that oversight as systems become more capable.
• Sharing information on the speed of AI development: which metrics best track progress, including AI's use in its own development, and when they should be shared with governments and the public.
• Assessing and documenting risk: what risk assessments and safety cases should cover, and what standard of evidence they should meet.

About the role

Primary objective: Lead AISI's work to define the technical best practice needed to manage the most serious risks from frontier AI development, and to get it adopted.

You’ll work with AISI leadership to set the direction for this work and be accountable for delivering it. You’ll lead a diverse team of technical experts and policy specialists who turn AISI's research into best practice, and take it into the forums where it can shape what frontier AI developers do.

Core responsibilities:

• Set direction and strategy (20%)
• Decide which areas of best practice AISI should work on, and in what order, based on risk, AISI's expertise and appetite among developers.
• Own AISI's long-term strategy in this area and make the case inside and outside AISI for why it matters.
• Oversee researchers and experts across AISI as they develop best practice, and bring their expertise together into clear, usable documents.
• Make sure each document sets out specific, actionable practices: what developers should do, and how anyone could check it has been done.
• Technical engagement and adoption (25%)
  • Lead technical engagement with frontier AI developers, evaluators, standards bodies and government partners to test and improve drafts.
  • Oversee publications and company engagement, choosing the best route to adoption for each area.
• Build and lead the team (15%)
  • Line manage and grow the core team and set up a repeatable process from first draft to publication.
• Take AISI's best practice on monitoring and oversight from draft through testing with developers to publication.
• Lead best practice on which metrics developers should report as AI starts to speed up AI research, and what should be shared publicly or confidentially.
• Choose the next priority areas and set up the teams to deliver them.

Reporting and growth:

You’ll report to a Deputy Director and line manage the core team. We’re looking for a long-term lead: as the team grows, so will the role’s remit.

What we are looking for

We’re flexible on the exact profile and expect successful candidates will meet many, but not necessarily all, of the criteria below. Depending on experience, we will consider candidates at Level 5 or Level 6, and exceptional candidates at Level 4.

• Strong technical understanding of frontier AI systems and of the practices used to make them safe and secure, gained for example through 5+ years in AI security research or engineering, or AI evaluation.
• A track record of thought leadership on safer frontier AI development practices. For example: developed an industry standard, a published safety framework, or internal policies that engineering teams followed.
• Experience leading a team, or managing a large programme of work involving several organisations.
• Experience building credibility with senior technical people within and outside your own organisation.
• Clear, precise writing for both technical experts and senior decision-makers.
• Experience working at, or closely with, a frontier AI developer.
• Experience writing or reviewing safety cases, either for AI or in a safety-critical industry such as nuclear, aviation or medical devices.
• Expertise in one of our priority areas: monitorability, documenting and reporting risk, or transparency about AI research automation.
• Experience with formal standards development (for example ISO or NIST processes) or industry consortia.

Example backgrounds:

• A senior researcher or engineer from a frontier AI company's safety, alignment or security team who wrote internal safety policies or frameworks.
• A researcher at a third-party evaluation or AI safety organisation who has led published frameworks for evaluating or governing frontier AI.
• A safety or security engineer from a safety-critical industry who has led safety case or standards work and has moved into AI.
• A lead at a standards body or industry consortium who has been hands-on drafting technical content specifically on frontier AI development, not only running the process.

Core requirements

• You should be able to spend at least 4 days per week working with us.
• You should be able to work from our London office roughly 3 days per week.

Candidates should expect to go through some or all of the following stages once an application has been submitted:

• Initial interview
• Take home test
• Second interview and review of take home test
• Third interview
• Final interview with members of the senior team

What We Offer

Impactyoucouldn'thave anywhere else

• Incredibly talented, mission-drivenand supportive colleagues.
• Direct influence on how frontier AI is governed and deployed globally.
• Work with the Prime Minister’s AI Advisor and leading AI companies.
• Opportunity to shape the first & best-resourced public-interest research team focused on AI security.

Resources & access

• Pre-release access to multiple frontier models and ample compute.
• Extensive operational support so you can focus on research and ship quickly.
• Work with experts across national security, policy, AIresearchand adjacent sciences.
• Ifyou'retalented and driven,you’llown important problems early.
• 5 days offand annual stipends forlearning and development, andfunding for conferences and external collaborations.
• Freedom to pursue research bets without product pressure.
• Opportunities to publish and collaborate externally.

Life & family*

• Modern central London office, or where applicable, option to work in similar government offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, Salford or Bristol.
• Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.
• At least 25 days’ annual leave, 8 public holidays, extra team-widebreaksand 3 days off for volunteering.
• Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option foradditionalunpaid time).
• On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
• Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, donations and retail/gyms.

*These benefits apply to direct employees. Benefits may differ for individuals joining through other employment arrangements such as secondments.

Annual salary is benchmarked to role scope and relevant experience. Most offers land between £65,000 and £145,000 made up of a base salary plus a technical allowance (take-home salary = base + technical allowance). An additional 28.97% employer pension contribution is paid on the base salary.

This role sits outside of the DDaT pay framework given the scope of this role requires in depth technicalexpertisein frontier AI safety,robustnessand advanced AI architectures.

The full range of salaries are available below: