Research Scientist (Virologist), Chem-Bio

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 6th September 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth.

About the team

AISI's Chem Bio (CB) team conducts technical research to assess evolving AI capabilities related to science R&D and CB misuse, and the effectiveness of technical safeguards that might mitigate risks arising from those capabilities.

The goal of our research is to inform critical decisions on security, opportunities, policy, and risk mitigation made by governments and AI developers.

We're a close-knit, unusually interdisciplinary team—made up of machine learning researchers and engineers, software engineers, virologists and bacteriologists, behavioural research scientists, biosecurity experts, long-standing CB policy specialists and talented generalists—who work closely with other technical and policy teams across government.

Over the next twelve months CB will hugely scale the range and complexity of the evaluations and research programmes it carries out, and engage more deeply with partners in major AI labs, the wider biotech and pharma ecosystem and security services than it ever has before.

About the role

AI capabilities in the life sciences are advancing faster than at any point in history. Foundation models can now design novel proteins and interpret genomic sequences. Specialised biological models can both identify drug targets and design the compound to target them. These are extraordinary tools for scientific progress, but also have the potential for harm if misused.

This role is for a senior technical expert who can bring deep virology and biosecurity judgement to that mission. You will sit directly alongside the CB team’s researchers, helping design and interpret evaluations of how frontier and specialised AI systems perform on biologically relevant tasks, with a particular focus on pathogens and virology-relevant capabilities. You will help translate ambiguous biological risk questions into rigorous empirical evaluations, identify where model outputs are scientifically meaningful versus merely plausible-sounding, and advise on the mitigations, safeguards and evidence standards needed before those results can inform policy. It is a role at the interface of virology, AI evaluation, and biosecurity: shaping what we test, how we test it, and how we explain the significance of our findings to government and external partners.

What you will own

• Design risk-relevant biology evaluations: Design, develop and execute evaluations that test the frontier biological capabilities and risk-relevant behaviours of frontier and specialised AI models, with a particular focus on virology-relevant tasks.
• Translate research objectives into rigorous evidence: Help turn ambiguous biological risk questions into rigorous empirical claims, identifying the right evaluation designs, evidence standards, scoring rubrics and expert review processes needed to support high-confidence conclusions.
• Interpret evaluation results responsibly: Analyse and interpret evaluation findings, including their limitations, uncertainty, false-positive and false-negative risks, and implications for capabilities and risk.
• Communicate to decision-makers: Produce clear technical reports, briefings and recommendations for senior decision-makers within government and other trusted partners, translating complex scientific and AI-safety evidence into actionable conclusions.
• Collaborate across expert communities: Work closely with researchers, engineers, biosecurity experts, policy teams, AI safety specialists and external scientific partners to ensure AISI’s evaluations are technically rigorous and policy-relevant.

Role requirements

• Deep virology or microbiology expertise. You have a PhD in virology, microbiology, infectious disease, molecular biology or a closely related field, or equivalent practical experience. You have worked deeply on pathogenic viruses, bacteria, host-pathogen interactions, infectious disease, agricultural pathogens or another relevant area of applied microbiology, and can bring real scientific judgement to questions about what is biologically meaningful and experimentally plausible.
• Credibility with technical researchers. You can work directly with researchers and engineers on difficult, ambiguous technical problems. You do not need to be a machine learning researcher, but you need to be fluent enough in frontier AI and AI-enabled biology to engage seriously with model evaluations, experimental design, research trade-offs and what “good” evidence looks like.
• Strong empirical judgement. You know how to design, critique and interpret evaluations or experiments where the answer is not known in advance. You can identify limitations, confounders, weak proxies, evidential gaps and cases where results are being over- or under-interpreted. You care about turning ambiguous risk questions into rigorous empirical claims.
• Dual-use/biosecurity risk assessment experience. You have experience applying biosecurity principles to emerging technologies, ideally including AI systems, large language models, biological design tools or other AI-enabled scientific workflows. You can reason clearly about capability, tacit knowledge, real-world bottlenecks and the difference between theoretical and practically meaningful risk.
• Discretion and sound judgement. You understand that work at the intersection of AI and biology carries dual-use sensitivity. You are comfortable operating with appropriate discretion, working within sensitive or classified constraints where needed, and making sound trade-offs between openness, security, pace and scientific rigour.
• Clear communication for decision-makers. You can translate complex scientific, technical and safety evidence into clear reports, briefings and recommendations for senior decision-makers, within and outside government. You can communicate uncertainty without blurring the bottom line.
• Collaborative interdisciplinary working. You can work effectively with researchers, engineers, policy specialists, biosecurity experts, security stakeholders and external scientific partners. You influence through expertise, clarity and good judgement, not authority or process.

Strong candidates may also have:

• Clinical or wet-lab virology experience. Experience in clinical virology, molecular virology, infectious disease research or relevant wet-lab environments, including experience working in BSL-2 laboratories or higher.
• AI safety framework familiarity. Understanding of AI safety frameworks, model evaluations, responsible capability assessment, release governance or other approaches to managing risks from advanced AI systems.
• Dual-use biology knowledge. Knowledge of dual-use biology, biological weapons issues, relevant mitigation approaches, and key governance frameworks such as the Biological Weapons Convention.
• Technical tooling fluency. Experience using command-line tools, coding, data analysis workflows or bioinformatics tools, sufficient to work productively with technical researchers and evaluation engineers.
• Relevant institutional experience. Experience working in or with organisations such as Dstl, MOD, DHSC, UKHSA, academia, public health bodies, frontier AI labs, biotech companies, national security organisations or equivalent institutions in other settings.
• Existing security clearance. Existing SC or DV clearance
• AI-enabled research experience. Experience using AI tools to accelerate research, analyse biological data, support literature review, develop benchmarks or improve scientific workflows.

Other core requirements:

• You should be able to spend at least 9 days per fortnight working with us.
• You should be willing to work from our office in London at least 3 days/week.
• You should be UK-based.

Security Clearance

Appointment is conditional on successfully completing UK Government SC clearance. Prior clearance is not required—we will sponsor and support you. You should normally have been a resident in the UK for the past 5 years.

You will also be required to undergo Developed Vetting (DV). DV typically requires a longer period of UK residency (around 10 years). Employment is conditional on obtaining and maintaining the required clearance(s). More detail on clearance eligibility can be found on the UK Government website: National security vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK.

Selection process

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage you to apply early.

• Application - CV and short application questions.

• Screening interview - Lightweight conversation on relevant skills, motivation and fit.

• Technical take home test - A take-home exercise designed to test your applied subject matter expertise and judgement in context. You will receive this after the screening interview.

• Technical interview - Discussion of your work test with a current AISI SME.

• Behavioural interview - Deeper dive on non-technical skills needed to succeed in the role: communication skills, judgement and team dynamics.

• Senior leadership interview (30 min) - Final conversation with AISI senior leadership.

What We Offer

Impact you couldn't have anywhere else

• Incredibly talented, mission-driven and 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, AI research and adjacent sciences.

Growth & autonomy

• If you’re talented and driven, you’ll own important problems early.

• 5 days off and annual stipends for learning and development, and funding 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-wide breaks and 3 days off for volunteering.

• Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option for additional unpaid 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.

Salary

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 technical expertise in frontier AI safety, robustness and advanced AI architectures.

The full range of salaries are available below:

• Level 3: £65,000–£75,000 (Base £39,850 + Technical Allowance £25,150–£35,150)
• Level 4: £85,000–£95,000 (Base £47,355 + Technical Allowance £37,645–£47,645)
• Level 5: £105,000–£115,000 (Base £61,620 + Technical Allowance £43,380–£53,380)
• Level 6: £125,000–£135,000 (Base £74,605 + Technical Allowance £50,395–£60,395)
• Level 7: £145,000 (Base £74,605 + Technical Allowance £70,395)

Additional Information

Use of AI in Applications

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Internal Fraud Database

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented. For more information please see - Internal Fraud Register.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check and get baseline personnel security standard (BPSS) clearance before they can be appointed. Additionally, there is a strong preference for eligibility for counter-terrorist check (CTC) clearance . Some roles may require higher levels of clearance, and we will state this by exception in the job advertisement. See our vetting charter here.

Nationality requirements

We may be able to offer roles to applicant from any nationality or background. As such we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet the standard nationality requirements (opens in a new window).

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window) . As part of the application process, we monitor statistics on D&I. You can see how we process this data here: Recruitment privacy notice - GOV.UK .

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