SC AI Strategy Consultant in England

Location: Onsite, Andover (min 3 days per week)

Security Clearance: current SC clearance is mandatory

Project duration: 4 weeks

Role Overview

This role is required to support a new first phase discovery and strategy engagement as an AI advisor, accountable for delivering defined outcomes within the engagement scope. The consultant will participate in first-phase AI strategy activities with other project members, translating complex business challenges into actionable, AI-enabled solutions. Combining deep technical expertise and senior stakeholder advisory, the consultant will shape the AI agenda from discovery through to strategic roadmap delivery, ensuring all recommendations are technically sound, commercially viable, and ready for transition into implementation.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead AI discovery and assessment activities, facilitating structured workshops with senior stakeholders to identify and prioritise high-value use cases against business objectives, technical feasibility, and organisational readiness.
• Develop the AI elements of the strategy deliverable, including high-level target-state architecture, data and platform requirements, an outline AI operating model, and a responsible AI governance framework tailored to the client’s regulatory and operational context.
• Support the production of a high-level business case and phased delivery roadmap, articulating value drivers, investment requirements, risk mitigations, and dependencies to support executive decision-making.
• Provide technical guidance across the AI landscape including generative AI, agentic systems, retrieval-augmented generation, fine-tuning, MLOps, and on-premise/cloud-native ML platforms, ensuring recommendations are grounded in implementation reality.
• Collaborate with the client’s internal teams (programme management, data engineering, architecture, delivery, change) and third-party partners to ensure the strategy is adoptable and transitions cleanly into delivery phases.
• Establish success criteria and measurement frameworks so the client can track AI value realisation beyond the engagement.

Required Experience & Qualifications

• Demonstrable experience in technology consulting or comparable advisory roles, with at least 3 years focused on AI/ML strategy, data-driven transformation, or advanced analytics.
• Experience in Defence, National Security, or other regulated sectors with an understanding of security-cleared environments and sovereign technology constraints.
• A track record of delivering strategy engagements end-to-end in complex, regulated, or high-security environments.
• Deep technical fluency across modern AI/ML stacks: on-premise and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), MLOps tooling, LLM orchestration frameworks, data engineering pipelines, and AI governance.
• Exceptional ability to translate technical complexity into strategic narratives for non-technical senior stakeholders.
• Strong commercial and delivery awareness, including experience with outcome-based models and phased programme planning.
• Candidates who have held high-level security clearance are most welcome to apply. Successful applicants will need to be security cleared prior to appointment; clearance may take a minimum of 10 weeks.

The organisation is committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable and accessible workplace where everyone feels valued and supported. We welcome applications from all individuals, regardless of background or identity, and we encourage candidates who may not meet every listed requirement to still apply. If you require any adjustments or support during the recruitment process, please let us know and we will work with you to ensure a fair and accessible experience.