Deputy Director, Head of AI Assurance

The Deputy Director, Head of AI Assurance will lead HMRC’s approach to assuring the responsible, safe and effective deployment

of AI across the organisation.

The role will provide strategic leadership for the AI assurance function within the Chief AI Office (CAIO), ensuring that AI activity across HMRC is aligned to organisational priorities, meets clear governance and assurance expectations, and can progress at pace within appropriate guardrails.

The post holder will not replace existing specialist functions such as data protection, cyber security, legal, commercial, architecture, risk or ethics. Instead, they will act as the senior alignment point for AI assurance, bringing together the right expertise at the right point in the lifecycle and ensuring that teams receive clear, proportionate and practical assurance advice.

• Lead the development and operation of HMRC’s AI assurance approach, ensuring that central, local and federated AI activity meets a consistent assurance bar.
• Establish clear assurance routes for AI use cases, from early idea through experimentation, deployment, scaling and live service.
• Provide senior oversight of AI assurance decisions, ensuring that risks, mitigations, dependencies and decisions are recorded, evidenced and traceable.
• Contribute to development of AI Agents to support delivery of effective assurance across the enterprise.
• Work with senior colleagues across HMRC to embed proportionate assurance into existing governance, delivery, security, data, commercial and change processes.
• Lead the AI assurance team, setting priorities, allocating work and ensuring a coherent service to delivery teams and business areas.
• Ensure assurance activity supports responsible acceleration rather than unnecessary delay, helping teams understand what is required to progress safely.
• Maintain a single view of material AI assurance issues, risks, themes and decisions, escalating where appropriate to the Chief AI Officer and relevant governance forums.
• Oversee the development of reusable assurance products, including checklists, evidence packs, decision templates, guidance and playbooks.
• Build strong working relationships with existing HMRC specialists in security, data protection, data governance, legal, ethics, commercial, architecture, risk and internal audit.
• Support external confidence in HMRC’s use of AI by ensuring transparency, audit readiness and clear evidence of responsible redeployment.
• Represent HMRC in cross-government AI assurance, governance and professional communities, helping shape emerging standards, frameworks and best practice for responsible AI adoption.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

For full selection process details please see attached Candidate Pack

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.