Senior Research Associate, Defence and National Security, AI for Intelligence Analysis

THE ALAN TURING INSTITUTE; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading research institute in data science seeks a highly skilled Senior Research Associate to drive innovative research in machine learning applied to intelligence analysis. The role focuses on improving data evaluation methods through deep learning and statistical models while engaging closely with various academic and government partners. This position involves both technical leadership and collaborative research within a vibrant interdisciplinary team. Candidates must hold a PhD or equivalent and demonstrate substantial experience in machine learning methods.

Benefits

Innovative work environment

Collaborative research opportunities

Qualifications

• PhD in machine learning, AI, computer science or related fields.
• Experience applying ML to real-world problems.
• Ability to mentor and evaluate the work of others.

Responsibilities

• Conduct leading research in machine learning for intelligence analysis.
• Lead and contribute to interdisciplinary research teams.
• Supervise early-career researchers as required.

Skills

Machine Learning

Statistical Analysis

Python/PyTorch

Machine Learning Interpretability

Computer Vision

Team Leadership

Education

PhD or equivalent

Tools

Jupyter

Git

Job description

Organisation/Company THE ALAN TURING INSTITUTE Research Field Computer science Mathematics Physics Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) Established Researcher (R3) Country United Kingdom Application Deadline 11 Jan 2026 - 00:00 (UTC) Type of Contract Other Job Status Full-time Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

Company Description

Named in honour of Alan Turing, the Institute is a place for inspiring, exciting work and we need passionate, sharp, and innovative people who want to use their skills to contribute to our mission to make great leaps in data science and AI research to change the world for the better.

Please find more information about ushere

Position

The Alan Turing Institute’s Defence & National Security Grand Challenge focuses on protecting our country, its people and the places they inhabit, by delivering strategic advantage in AI for the UK and its allies. The Turing is uniquely placed to lead this endeavour, working closely with government partners to strengthen UK defence and security; through world-class research groups advancing the state-of-the-art in AI, dedicated engineering teams translating research into leading-edge deployment-ready capabilities, and policy and governance experts who ensure AI-based capabilities are developed and deployed responsibly. Our independent research, driven by societal impact and public good, is invaluable for our partners, directly tackling the most difficult and impactful real-world challenges they face. In this interdisciplinary, independent and trusted capacity, the Turing also acts as an authoritative convener for diverse expertise in key areas across academia, industry and government

The AiTASHA project

The Turing has recently awarded a £1m EPSRC research grant to develop AI methods that can support and enhance intelligence analysis for national security and defence . For this project, the Turing will lead an interdisciplinary consortium that also includes Warwick, Southampton, Dundee and Cardiff Universities, working closely with UK government defence and national security partners. The project, entitled “AI Intelligence Triage & Acquisition Support for Human-centred Analysis” (AiTASHA), aims to improve the speed and confidence of intelligence analysts’ assessments by building new AI tools that can work alongside human analysts. Intelligence analysts are routinely required to make high-consequence, defensible assessments from vast, complex and uncertain datasets, to identify indicators and warnings of hostile or malicious activities. Analysts must make these assessments rapidly in a highly pressured and resource-constrained environment, where they face difficult choices of what data to analyse first, and whether to gather additional intelligence, potentially at the cost of delay or increased risk. Addressing this challenge is becoming increasingly urgent as both the scale and complexity of intelligence datasets, as well as the threat posed to UK safety, are growing, and existing AI support tools primarily focus on the identification and visualisation of patterns within datasets, without due consideration of human understanding or context, defensibility, and representation of uncertainty. The goal of this ambitious project is to make fundamental advances that will together underpin and enable a future explainable, defensible AI system that can complement, rather than replace, the work of intelligence analysts; recommending which existing data should be prioritised for human review and which potential new data should be prioritised for acquisition. To address this challenge, we will advance the state-of-the-art across multiple component disciplines; in interpretable multimodal deep learning models, in causal statistical models and in human-machine teaming and AI ethics.

ROLE PURPOSE

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Research Associate to conduct internationally leading research in machine learning, with applications to intelligence analysis. This role will involve investigating and developing methods that will allow deep learning models to identify subsets of data with the highest potential for reducing uncertainty of model outputs, leveraging and building on existing methods in ML explainability, interpretability, and uncertainty quantification. The research will focus predominantly on vision, language and multimodal models, and on integration of these models with cutting-edge graph-based statistical methods that have been previously developed by members of the project team to support national security use.

This role will be part of the Defence and National Security (D&NS) Grand Challenge and will report directly to the PI for the AiTASHA project. Within the Turing, this role will sit primarily within the Defence Artificial Intelligence Research (DARe) centre, which encompasses diverse AI research spanning future sensing, space systems, human-machine teaming, synthetic environments, and edge AI, but there will also be opportunities to engage with researchers from across the D&NS Grand Challenge, including from policy and engineering teams.

The successful candidate will also join a vibrant and interdisciplinary team of researchers in the AiTASHA consortium and will have frequent opportunities to engage with internal stakeholders and external government partners throughout the delivery of the project. During the project it is expected that they will work as part of a small tight-knit cohort of Early Career Researchers spanning the AiTASHA consortium Universities.

DUTIES AND AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Play a leading role in undertaking high-quality research, actively contributing to, and steering the broader research aims of the Defence and National Security Grand Challenge.
• Provide technical leadership for research projects, ensuring successful outcomes, including that research outcomes meet our government partners’ requirements and can be deployed in the real world.
• Contribute to, and lead where required, interdisciplinary research teams spanning multiple partner organisations.
• Contribute to software development including planning, execution and package release and management.
• Be a point of contact, supporting the PI in engaging with stakeholders regarding projects and deputising for the PI in meetings where necessary.
• Take the lead on writing up findings as they emerge, producing and developing reports and publications in peer- reviewed journals, in collaboration with the research team.
• Present, disseminate and explain our work at meetings/events and contribute to both the internal and external visibility of the Institute.
• Take responsibility for driving collaboration with academic experts and broader research partners from across the Turing, and the wider Turing/project community.
• Supervise the work of early-career researchers in the team and provide guidance as required with line management of direct reports if required.

Eligibility for Security Check (SC) clearance is a requirement for this role. Eligibility criteria and further information on the process can be found on the UK Government security vetting website . Successful candidates will be subject to a Dstl research workers form check at the offer stage.

Requirements

• A PhD (or equivalent commensurate professional experience and/or qualifications) in a field with significant use of both computer programming and advanced statistical or numerical methods, e.g., machine learning, AI, computer science, mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering.
• Practical experience developing and applying Machine Learning to real world problemsORstrong theoretical knowledge and academic experience with Machine Learning and adjacent topics.
• Significant experience in developing and applying computer vision and/or large language modelsORsignificant experience in machine learning interpretability, explainability, and/or uncertainty quantification.
• Experience developing software in a scientific computing context, ideally using Python/Pytorch, including the use of established libraries used in data science and artificial intelligence research.
• An understanding of the importance of good practices for producing reliable software and reproducible analyses, such as version control, issue tracking, automated testing, package management and literate analysis tools such as Jupyter.
• Experience conducting and publishing research to the standard required by top-tier peer-reviewed journals/conferences.
• Experience in scoping and investigating independent research questions within a given overarching theme and leading subsequent research projects to conclusion.
• Ability to mentor and evaluate the work of others (formal line management experience is not essential, but such applicants should be able to show significant evidence of informal mentorship).
• Must be eligible for SC clearance and be willing to undergo the clearance process once in post, if not already held.

Other information

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form including your CV (maximum 3 pages, no photo) and covering letter (maximum 2 pages) telling us:

• Your past experience innovating with code and/or data to solve real-world challenging problems.
• Why you would like to become part of the Turing’s Defence and Security Programme.
• How your skillset would complement the activities of the AiTASHA project.

Please note, if these details are not provided, we will be unable to progress with your application.

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: Sunday 11th January 2026 at 23:59 (London UK, GMT)

Interviews will take place in late January after the shortlisting process has been completed.

The successful candidate will need to be in post by or close to April 2026

As these roles require eligibility for Security Check (SC) clearance, you are required to include the following information as part of your cover letter:

• Your current nationality
• Your nationality at birth
• Other nationality (include dual nationality if applicable)
• Confirmation that you have been residing in the UK for the past 5 years (if you haven’t, please provide details of when and where you resided and the reason)

Please note, if these details are not provided, we will be unable to progress with your application.

The Alan Turing Institute is based at the British Library, in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter. We expect staff to come to our office at least 4 days per month. Some roles may require more days in the office; the hiring manager will be able to confirm this during the interview.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION

The Alan Turing Institute is committed to creating an environment where diversity is valued and everyone is treated fairly. In accordance with the Equality Act, we welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We are committed to making sure our recruitment process is accessible and inclusive. This includes making reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability or long-term condition. Please contact us at [e-mail] to find out how we can assist you.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to obtaining and retaining the right to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check. Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [e-mail] .