Agentic AI Risk Modelling and Mitigations 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.
The deadline for applying to this role is Sunday 8 March 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth.
Team description As AI systems grow more capable and autonomous, understanding how humans could lose the ability to oversee, correct, or shut down these systems becomes critical - as does identifying what we can do to prevent it. Risk models for AI agents (for example, loss of control risk models) remain far less developed than those in comparable domains like cybersecurity and chem bio, and practical mitigations remain underexplored (especially beyond traditional alignment and control work).
AISI is building a new team to close this gap. The new Agentic AI Risk Modelling and Mitigations team will develop rigorous models of how agentic AI could cause harm, identifying practical mitigations with a focus on measures the UK government are well placed to implement. We will draw on expertise only available within government - especially the national security community - to develop risk models and mitigations far more developed than those in academia or industry.
The hiring manager for this role is Benjamin Hilton; the team is advised by Geoffrey Irving. You'll collaborate closely with researchers across AISI's red teams, evaluation teams, and alignment team, as well as with government stakeholders.
Your work will draw on empirical evidence from AISI's evaluations, along with the broader cybersecurity and ML literature to develop detailed and precise threat models and mitigations. You'll need to reason carefully about complex and uncertain scenarios and communicate findings clearly to both technical researchers and policy decision makers. Some projects may also involve hands on ML or cybersecurity work, in collaboration with government partners, to develop mitigations.
We are open to hires at junior, senior, staff, and principal research scientist levels. We may also make an offer to particularly promising candidates with management experience to lead the workstream in a management role.
Representative projects you might work on
- Developing detailed models of specific loss of control scenarios - such as deceptive alignment during internal deployment, or a long horizon agentic cyberattack - specifying their causal structure, key assumptions, and plausibility given current and projected AI capabilities and propensities.
- Translating risk models and associated uncertainties into specifications for AISI's red teams and evaluation teams - identifying the tests that would provide the most informative evidence about whether specific risk pathways are viable.
- Analyzing the effectiveness of mitigations - such as monitoring infrastructure, compute governance, deployment guidelines, or containment protocols - drawing on input from national security stakeholders, and assessing which risk pathways remain plausible once mitigations are in place.
- Collaborating and communicating with government and national security stakeholders to develop and implement possible interventions, in partnership.
What we're looking for In accordance with the Civil Service Commission rules, the following list contains all selection criteria for the interview process.
Required experience The experiences listed below should be interpreted as examples of the expertise we're looking for, as opposed to a list of everything we expect to find in one applicant.
You may be a good fit if you have:
- Experience producing detailed threat models, risk analyses, safety cases, or similar structured analytical work - in AI safety, cybersecurity, national security, or another domain.
- A track record of published research or substantial written analysis demonstrating rigorous reasoning about complex, uncertain topics.
- Strong written communication: an ability to present complex technical arguments clearly to both technical and non technical audiences.
- Deep familiarity with cybersecurity and the ways in which it will be impacted by high capability AI agents; alternatively with the AI alignment and AI safety literature, including existing work on loss of control, deception, power seeking, scalable oversight, and AI control.
- A sense of mission, urgency, and responsibility for success.
- An ability to bring your own research ideas and work in a self directed way, while also collaborating effectively and prioritising team efforts over extensive solo work.
Strong candidates may also have
- Hands on experience with large language models (e.g., training, fine tuning, evaluation, or red teaming), providing concrete understanding of current model capabilities and limitations.
- Familiarity with AI capability evaluations and benchmarking methodologies.
- Desire to (and experience with) improving teams through mentoring and feedback.
Security clearance We have a preference for candidates eligible for UK government SC clearance which typically requires residence in the UK for the last 2 years. You may also be required to undergo Developed Vetting (DV). DV typically requires a longer period of UK residency (around 5 years).
Other core requirements
- You should be able to spend at least 9 days per fortnight working with us.
- You should be willing to work from our office in London (Whitehall) at least 3 days/week.
- You should be UK based.
What 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.
- If you're talented and driven, you'll own important problems early.
- 5 days off learning and development, 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 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.
Salary levels
- Level 3 - Total Package £65,000 - £75,000 (inclusive of a base salary £35,720 plus additional technical talent allowance of £29,280 - £39,280)
- Level 4 - Total Package £85,000 - £95,000 (inclusive of a base salary £42,495 plus additional technical talent allowance of £42,505 - £52,505)
- Level 5 - Total Package £105,000 - £115,000 (inclusive of a base salary £55,805 plus additional technical talent allowance of £49,195 - £59,195)
- Level 6 - Total Package £125,000 - £135,000 (inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of £56,230 - £66,230)
- Level 7 - Total Package £145,000 (inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of £76,230)
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