Lead AI Engineer in Manchester

Overview

Job Title: Lead AI Engineer

Target Start Date: ASAP

Contract Type: Permanent, Part Time, Full Time, Job Share option available

Salary Range: £100,000 – £110,000 Dependent on Experience

Location: Reigate, Manchester or Glasgow – Hybrid

Closing Date for applications: Friday 13th February

Lead AI Engineer: Step into a role where your work shapes the future of insurance. At Ageas/esure, we are building on an exciting foundation of 20 live AI use cases already empowering over 900 frontline colleagues — and we’re just getting started!

As a Lead AI Engineer, you’ll take a central role in driving and delivering the next generation of AI‑powered solutions across our business. You’ll lead a team of AI Engineers of all levels, setting technical direction, owning end‑to‑end project delivery and ensuring our solutions generate real, measurable impact. Alongside your hands‑on technical work, you’ll mentor and develop the team, guide requirement‑gathering with stakeholders, and play a key part in defining our future AI strategy.

If you’re motivated by technical leadership, large‑scale impact and building high‑performing AI capability, this is a chance to truly shape our AI future

Main Responsibilities

• Support and develop a small team, helping them grow and progress.
• Work with leaders to set and improve engineering and R&D standards.
• Shape the AI roadmap across both use cases and technology.
• Partner with senior stakeholders to understand processes and data, identifying high‑value GenAI opportunities.
• Drive scalable AI delivery as part of the Data Science & AI team, contributing to innovation across the enterprise.

Skills and experience

• Provide technical leadership and mentoring, supporting the growth of a high‑performing team.
• Proven experience delivering AI into production, solving real commercial problems and measuring impact.
• A self‑starter with a track record of taking research and models through to production to drive tangible business and customer value.
• Comfortable working both autonomously and collaboratively in a fast‑paced, cross‑functional environment
• Strong experience with advanced NLP, including developing models, prompt engineering and fine‑tuning LLMs in a commercial setting.

About Ageas and Benefits

At Ageas we offer a wide range of benefits to support you and your family inside and outside of work, which helped us achieve Top Employer status in the UK.

Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy at Ageas:

Flexible Working – Smart Working @ Ageas gives employees flexibility around location (within the UK) and, for many roles, flexibility within the working day to manage other commitments, such as school drop offs. We also offer all vacancies part‑time/job‑shares. We also offer a minimum of 35 days holiday (inc. bank holidays) and you can buy and sell days.

Health – Dental Insurance, Health Cash Plan, Health Screening, Will Writing, Voluntary Critical Illness, Mental Health First Aiders, Well Being Activities – Mindfulness.

Wealth – 50% off esure and Sheilas\\\’ Wheels motor and home insurance, Annual Bonus Schemes, Annual Salary Reviews, Competitive Pension, Employee Savings, Employee Loans.

Workplace – Well‑being activities, mindfulness sessions, Sports and Social Club events and more.

Family – Maternity/pregnant parent/primary adopter entitlement of 16 weeks at full pay and paternity/non‑pregnant parent/co‑adopter at 8 weeks’ full pay.

Other Benefits – Partner Life Assurance and Critical Illness cover; Tech deals on gadgets including wearables, tablets and laptops; Car Salary Exchange, Cycle Scheme, Vehicle Breakdown Cover; Return to work programme after maternity leave.

About Ageas

We are one of the largest car and home insurers in the UK. Our People help Ageas be a thriving, creative and innovative place to work. We show this in the service we provide to over four million customers.

As an inclusive employer, we encourage anyone to apply. We’re a signatory of the Race at Work Charter and Women in Finance Charter, member of iCAN and GAIN. As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are fully inclusive. That means if you are applying for a job with us, you will have fair access to support and adjustments throughout your recruitment experience. If the list does not cover the support you need, please contact our Recruitment Team to discuss how they can help. We also guarantee an interview for applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for the role. For more information, please see Ageas Everyone.

We have a zero‑tolerance approach towards any form of harassment during the recruitment process, ensuring that everyone is treated with respect and professionalism.

Our aim is to have great people everywhere in our business and we’re always looking for outstanding people to join us. Most roles across Ageas allow a proportion of your time to be spent working from home and we’re open to discussing flexible working, including full‑time, part‑time or job share arrangements. To find out more about Ageas, see About Us.

Want to be part of a Winning Team? Come and join Ageas.

Click on the ‘Apply button’ to be considered.

Important Notice – Recruitment Scam Alert: We are aware of fraudulent activity whereby individuals are being contacted with fake job offers claiming to be from Ageas, often for remote roles such as Administrative Assistants. These scams may include offers of high hourly pay and requests for upfront payments or deposits. Please be aware that Ageas will never ask for money at any stage of the recruitment process. Ageas will always ask you to make an application via our Company Websites and all legitimate Ageas job opportunities are listed on our official careers pages within. Communication will only come from verified Ageas email addresses and if you are unsure about the legitimacy of a job offer or communications you are receiving, please contact recruitment@ageas.co.uk with the subject FRAUD.