Head of AI Research

Central London (4-5 Days per Week in Office) 130,000 - 180,000 + Equity + Bi-Annual Salary Reviews + Annual Performance-Based Equity Refresh

Are you a proven AI Research leader with deep expertise in Agentic AI, LLM fine-tuning and applied machine learning, looking to build and lead a world-class research function while remaining hands-on with cutting-edge AI systems solving complex challenges within one of the world's most highly regulated industries? This is a rare opportunity to join a rapidly scaling AI business at the forefront of financial crime intelligence, where model quality, explainability and accuracy are fundamental to the product.

You will take ownership of the entire AI research strategy, building a high-performing research organisation focused on developing advanced AI agents, LLMs and vision models that outperform manual human review processes across AML, compliance and financial crime investigations. Working at the intersection of Applied AI, Agentic Systems and Financial Services, you will lead research from concept through to production.

You will drive decisions around frontier model adoption, fine-tuning, distillation, evaluation frameworks and proprietary model development, whilst building robust AI systems capable of operating within heavily regulated financial environments where accuracy, auditability and explainability are critical.

The ideal candidate will have a track record of leading AI research or applied machine learning teams in production environments, with particular expertise in LLMs, autonomous agents, model evaluation and continuous improvement systems. Experience within banking, financial services, fintech, compliance, AML, fraud detection, risk management or other regulated environments would be highly advantageous.

The Role:

• Own the AI research strategy, roadmap and build-versus-buy decisions across LLMs, vision models and agentic systems
• Build and lead a team of AI Researchers and ML Engineers while remaining hands-on with the most complex technical challenges
• Drive model training, fine-tuning, distillation, agent development and evaluation frameworks
• Develop AI systems for compliance, financial crime, due diligence and fraud detection use cases
• Establish benchmarking, validation, governance and explainability standards required for regulated environments
• Partner with product, engineering and commercial teams to bring research into production.

The Person:

• Proven leadership experience within AI Research, Applied AI or Machine Learning Engineering
• Strong hands-on expertise with LLM fine-tuning, agentic AI systems, model evaluation and production ML infrastructure
• Experience developing and deploying AI systems within highly regulated industries
• Deep understanding of model quality, benchmarking, explainability, governance and continuous improvement frameworks
• Background in banking, financial services, fintech, compliance, AML, fraud, risk or financial crime intelligence desirable
• Able to combine strategic technical leadership with hands-on research and development

Rise Technical Recruitment Ltd acts as an employment agency for permanent roles and an employment business for temporary roles. The salary advertised is the bracket available for this position. The actual salary paid will be dependent on your level of experience, qualifications and skill set and will be decided by our client, the employer. Rise are not responsible or liable for any hiring decisions made by the end client. We are an equal opportunities company and welcome applications from all suitable candidates.