Job description
AI Security Institute • 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.
Expression of Interest – Chem Bio
AISI’s Chem Bio team is open to expressions of interest from talented research engineers and scientists of all levels of seniority who want to work at the forefront of frontier AI safety and security, but do not see a role listed that matches their skills and experience. Our talent team will reach out should a role arise that may be a good match.
Team Description
The Chem Bio team conducts cutting-edge research to understand, evaluate and mitigate chemical and biological risks associated with frontier AI systems. We assess the extent to which advanced models may enable harmful capabilities, develop methods for evaluating these risks rigorously, and share our findings directly with leading AI companies, UK officials and allied governments to inform deployment, research and policy decisions.
Our work spans a range of technical and scientific challenges, including capability elicitation, model evaluations, benchmarking, threat modelling, and the development of safeguards and monitoring approaches. We combine expertise from machine learning, chemistry, biology, biosecurity and related disciplines to better understand how frontier AI systems may affect the chemical and biological risk landscape.
We work closely with partners across government, academia and industry, and collaborate with other technical teams across AISI to ensure our work is scientifically rigorous, operationally relevant and decision-useful. Many of our most impactful projects draw on expertise from across multiple domains, and we actively encourage collaboration in tackling the most pressing challenges in frontier AI safety and security.
What you might work on
Depending on your background and the needs of the team, you could contribute to work such as:
- Designing and running evaluations to assess chemical and biological capabilities in frontier AI systems
- Developing benchmarks, datasets and experimental protocols for assessing high-consequence risks
- Studying how model capabilities may generalise or transfer across scientific domains and task settings
- Building tools and automated methods for capability elicitation, testing and monitoring
- Investigating model safeguards and identifying where they may fail or require strengthening
- Conducting threat modelling and risk analysis to understand realistic pathways to harm
- Translating technical findings into actionable recommendations for frontier AI companies and government stakeholders
- Working with external partners in science, security and policy to improve the broader ecosystem’s understanding of chem/bio-related AI risks
Who we’re interested in
We are interested in hearing from candidates with strong technical, scientific or research backgrounds relevant to the Chem Bio team’s mission. This may include people with experience in:
- Machine learning, especially evaluation, robustness, interpretability or capability assessment
- Computational biology, bioinformatics, molecular biology, synthetic biology or related life sciences
- Chemistry, computational chemistry, cheminformatics or related disciplines
- Biosecurity, chemical security, threat assessment or dual-use risk analysis
- Research engineering, scientific software, automation or infrastructure for technical research
- Experimental design, benchmarking and empirical evaluation
- Interdisciplinary work at the intersection of AI and the natural sciences
We welcome expressions of interest from people at a range of seniority levels, including individual contributors, technical leads and research managers.
Salary£65,000—£145,000 GBPWhat 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 (cafes, food court, gym), 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).