Job Specifications
Job Summary
The UK AI Security Institute (AISI) exists to make frontier AI systems secure, trustworthy, and beneficial for society. We work at the heart of the UK government with direct lines to No. 10- advancing our understanding of how to evaluate and govern advanced AI systems so they can be deployed safely and responsibly.
Our mission is to strengthen state technical capacity in AI security research to support both government and global partners in managing the risks and harnessing the opportunities of this transformative technology.
We’re building a world-class team of scientists, policy specialists, and operational professionals of united by one goal: ensuring AI benefits all humanity.
The Talent and Operations team is the engine that powers AISI’s mission. We need to move at the pace of frontier AI development while operating within government. That's an unprecedented challenge; we're the team making it happen.
We increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and talent density of every team at AISI, supporting world class research and enabling the organisation to achieve its objectives.
We operate across four critical teams:
Talent: attracting and recruiting globally competitive hires
People: supporting all employees during their time at AISI, responsible for culture, performance and retention
Operations: Supporting the Research team to navigating government machinery and make AISI a slick operating environment
Finance: Ensuring financial transparency for strategic decisions and delivering on budget
You'll join a high-impact team of people who love solving hard operational problems and building systems that work. We collaborate directly with AISI leadership, central DSIT and every team in AISI to remove blockers and enable pace.
Job Description
The role
As an Operations Associate, you’ll help build the operational backbone of AISI, ensuring our people and systems can deliver world-leading research at pace.
You’ll sit within the Operations team, supporting AISI’s finance function to keep our organisation running efficiently day-to-day while also contributing to broader projects that make us more effective, agile, and trusted.
You’ll gain deep exposure to how a cutting-edge government institute operates and play an active role in shaping how we scale. This is an opportunity to learn from some of the UK’s most ambitious public servants and technologists while developing the professional skills to grow into more senior operations roles.
Key responsibilities (first 6–12 months)
Deliver outstanding service: Process all finance requests within service-level agreements, earning strong satisfaction from internal teams. Help improve and simplify finance processes, preventing backlogs and ensuring clarity and transparency.
Drive measurable improvements: Lead or support projects that raise staff satisfaction, efficiency, or delivery performance across operations. This could look like rolling out a new PowerBI tool, improving user guidance, automating monthly finance reporting viewed by AISI senior leadership teams and central finance or other projects that you identify.
Shape smarter systems: Introduce or improve digital tools that help AISI work faster, smarter, and more securely.
Grow your capability: Build core skills in operational delivery, project delivery, and financial stewardship that open future development pathways.
Your development
This role is an exceptional platform to develop a career at the intersection of technology, security, and government.
You’ll build skills in:
Operational excellence – learning how to design and deliver systems that underpin high-performing scientific and technical work, bringing the pace and agility of a start-up to government.
Financial and commercial management – learning how public funds are used strategically to achieve national goals.
Digital operations – gaining hands-on experience using tools and workflows that make complex organisations move efficiently. This will include using excel, PowerBI and other finance systems
Strategic project delivery – leading initiatives that have tangible impact on performance, culture, or security outcomes.
As AISI grows, you may have opportunities to expand into other operational roles, programme delivery, or cross-functional roles that shape how the UK secures and governs advanced AI.
Person specification
Who We’re Looking For
We’re looking for organised, proactive, and curious individuals who love solving problems and improving how things work.
You’ll thrive if you bring:
Agency – You’re a self-starter who takes ownership and drives ideas through to delivery. You can evidence examples of seeing projects through from inception to execution and having resilience in the face of problems.
Organisation – You use structure and systems to stay on top of complex work and deliver at pace. You can provide strong evidence of organisational skills through personal, academic or professional projects.
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