Director - AI in Cirencester

We are building on our rich heritage and transforming our business to be more scalable and efficient, unlocking capabilities needed for future success. This includes significant investment in technology, streamlining the way we work and creating an environment where colleagues feel engaged, empowered and accountable.

As the Director of AI, you will establish and guide SJP’s enterprise AI strategy, vision, and risk framework, ensuring AI is applied effectively and responsibly in alignment with our Corporate Strategy and business goals. You will partner with engineering, architecture, delivery divisions across SJP, SS&C, and strategic partners to advance our corporate strategy through broader AI adoption, leading innovation, supporting transformation, and incorporating AI‑led change organisation‑wide. You will also guide the creation and use of AI and ML tools throughout SJP, ensuring solutions provide clear value, are well controlled and support sustainable growth.

Responsibilities

• Define and take responsibility for SJP’s enterprise AI strategy, vision, and roadmap, aligned to corporate priorities.
• Apply strong commercial judgement to the evolving AI landscape, identifying material opportunities and translating them into investment cases.
• Lead end‑to‑end delivery of strategic AI initiatives, ensuring measurable business value.
• Partner with engineering, architecture, technology operations, and delivery teams to build, deploy and scale AI solutions that are robust, secure and aligned to business priorities.
• Build and govern delivery plans with senior collaborators, managing dependencies, trade‑offs and risk to transition initiatives from concept to live service.
• Drive identification and prioritisation of high‑value AI use cases, coordinating their lifecycle from ideation to optimisation and, where appropriate, decommissioning.
• Ensure solutions are production‑ready and scalable through MLOps, AI guardrails and emerging capabilities, maintaining long‑term sustainability.
• Define and integrate a comprehensive AI governance, risk and control framework aligned to SJP’s enterprise risk model and regulatory obligations.
• Ensure all AI solutions meet required standards across data protection, privacy, security and model governance.
• Monitor regulatory developments and adapt SJP’s approach to ensure compliance and leadership in responsible AI.
• Act as SJP’s authoritative voice on AI at GEC and senior leadership levels.
• Develop robust, trust‑centered connections throughout GEC, GEC‑1 and strategic partners to support the AI agenda.
• Drive clear communication of AI strategy, progress and outcomes throughout the organisation.
• Champion AI literacy across SJP and Partner practices.
• Build and develop organisational capability in AI and ML through mentoring, talent development and knowledge sharing.
• Provide strong functional leadership, ensuring clear accountabilities, effective prioritisation and long‑term capability.
• Lead by example in embedding SJP’s values, ethical standards and inclusive culture.
• Foster a high‑trust, collaborative environment encouraging open dialogue and continuous learning.
• Coordinate development of new machine learning models, evaluate existing models and find opportunities for innovation.
• Work closely with cross‑functional teams to incorporate AI and ML solutions into existing systems, platforms, controls, and workflows.
• Ensure compliance with all relevant data privacy and security regulations.
• Understand ethical considerations and governance frameworks necessary for responsible AI use.
• Communicate complex AI concepts and solutions to non‑technical collaborators, both internally and externally.

Mandate Special Requirement: This position is a Certification role under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime.

Benefits

We reward you through a discretionary annual bonus scheme that reflects personal and company performance, competitive annual leave allowance (28 days plus bank holidays, with option to purchase an additional 5 days), and an online rewards platform with a variety of discounts. Additional benefits include:

• Competitive parental leave (26 weeks full pay)
• Optional private medical insurance (taxable benefit)
• Non‑Contributory Pension – 10 % (growing to 15 % with length of service) with further pension matching.

Equal Opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer. If you require reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, please email us at careers@sjp.co.uk.

Additional Information

As a business regulated by the FCA, please familiarise yourself with the conduct regulations and consumer duty obligations prior to an interview with SJP.