Technical Lead – Artificial Intelligence
£70,000 – £77,000 plus benefits
Reports to: Head of Engineering
Grade: P3 (MP)
Directorate: Chief Operating Office
Contract: 2 year fixed‑term contract
Hours: Full time 35 hours per week
Location: Stratford, London; high flexibility with mostly remote work.
Visa sponsorship: You must be eligible to work in the UK. Cancer Research UK is not able to offer visa sponsorship.
About the role
As a Technical Lead, you will turn ambitious AI opportunities into high‑quality, scalable technology solutions. You will work across the full lifecycle—from early stage ideas and proofs of concept through to production‑ready systems embedded in the organisation. You will be accountable for technical quality and delivery in a matrixed environment alongside internal product teams and trusted external partners.
This hands‑on leadership role offers variety, influence, and the opportunity to help define how engineering practices evolve in the age of AI while supporting a mission that saves lives.
What will I be doing?
- Act as Technical Lead for key AI initiatives at different stages— from emerging ideas and proofs of concept through to solutions ready to scale and operationalise.
- Assess technical complexity, feasibility and effort, helping teams make informed delivery decisions.
- Identify where foundational changes to platforms or infrastructure are needed to unlock AI capabilities.
- Work with Product Managers and colleagues to assess when and how to partner with external suppliers.
- Collaborate closely with Product and Project Managers, Architects, UX and Service Designers, and Business Analysts to understand user needs and iteratively design effective solutions.
- Provide technical assurance and constructive challenge for external technology partners.
- Validate high‑level designs and support smooth transitions from design into delivery.
- Produce low‑level designs, technical work plans and documentation in line with delivery standards.
- Proactively surface technical risks, issues and dependencies to initiative leads.
- Contribute significantly to testing strategies and plans to ensure solutions are robust, secure and reliable.
What are we looking for?
- Experience delivering Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, from procurement through to live operation.
- Recent, hands‑on experience writing clean, maintainable, and well‑tested code using proven design patterns.
- The curiosity and adaptability to learn new languages, frameworks and tools.
- Deep technical expertise and the confidence to tackle complex problems independently.
- A strong interest in AI and innovation, with the ability to role‑model how modern engineering practices can evolve to deliver greater impact.
- Experience working across a range of domains, with the ability to context‑switch as priorities change.
- Proven experience running critical services in production and designing scalable, secure and highly available systems.
- Experience acting as a technical lead: defining solutions from scratch, shaping technical direction and reviewing the work of other engineers.
- Knowledge of modern software delivery approaches (e.g., Scrum, Kanban), with some understanding of specification‑driven development.
- Excellent communication skills, enabling you to explain complex ideas clearly and influence both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
- Comfort working in complex environments with multiple priorities, and the resilience to adapt to continual change.
- Highly desirable to have experience implementing bespoke data, machine learning or AI solutions from pilot through to operationalisation.
- Ideally hold a professional certification (e.g., cloud architect) in at least one major cloud data platform (e.g., GCP, Azure, AWS, Snowflake, Databricks) and be an active participant in that cloud's community.
Benefits
We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high‑quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work‑life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals.
#J-18808-Ljbffr”, “datePosted”: “2026-05-20”, “hiringOrganization”: { “@type”: “Organization”, “name”: “Cancer Research UK”, “sameAs”: “https://uk.whatjobs.com/pub_api__cpl__436979595__4861?utm_campaign=publisher&utm_medium=api&utm_source=4861&geoID=33” }, “jobLocation”: { “@type”: “Place”, “address”: { “@type”: “PostalAddress”, “addressLocality”: “London” } } }Technical Lead – Artificial Intelligence
£70,000 – £77,000 plus benefits
Reports to: Head of Engineering
Grade: P3 (MP)
Directorate: Chief Operating Office
Contract: 2 year fixed‑term contract
Hours: Full time 35 hours per week
Location: Stratford, London; high flexibility with mostly remote work.
Visa sponsorship: You must be eligible to work in the UK. Cancer Research UK is not able to offer visa sponsorship.
About the role
As a Technical Lead, you will turn ambitious AI opportunities into high‑quality, scalable technology solutions. You will work across the full lifecycle—from early stage ideas and proofs of concept through to production‑ready systems embedded in the organisation. You will be accountable for technical quality and delivery in a matrixed environment alongside internal product teams and trusted external partners.
This hands‑on leadership role offers variety, influence, and the opportunity to help define how engineering practices evolve in the age of AI while supporting a mission that saves lives.
What will I be doing?
- Act as Technical Lead for key AI initiatives at different stages— from emerging ideas and proofs of concept through to solutions ready to scale and operationalise.
- Assess technical complexity, feasibility and effort, helping teams make informed delivery decisions.
- Identify where foundational changes to platforms or infrastructure are needed to unlock AI capabilities.
- Work with Product Managers and colleagues to assess when and how to partner with external suppliers.
- Collaborate closely with Product and Project Managers, Architects, UX and Service Designers, and Business Analysts to understand user needs and iteratively design effective solutions.
- Provide technical assurance and constructive challenge for external technology partners.
- Validate high‑level designs and support smooth transitions from design into delivery.
- Produce low‑level designs, technical work plans and documentation in line with delivery standards.
- Proactively surface technical risks, issues and dependencies to initiative leads.
- Contribute significantly to testing strategies and plans to ensure solutions are robust, secure and reliable.
What are we looking for?
- Experience delivering Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, from procurement through to live operation.
- Recent, hands‑on experience writing clean, maintainable, and well‑tested code using proven design patterns.
- The curiosity and adaptability to learn new languages, frameworks and tools.
- Deep technical expertise and the confidence to tackle complex problems independently.
- A strong interest in AI and innovation, with the ability to role‑model how modern engineering practices can evolve to deliver greater impact.
- Experience working across a range of domains, with the ability to context‑switch as priorities change.
- Proven experience running critical services in production and designing scalable, secure and highly available systems.
- Experience acting as a technical lead: defining solutions from scratch, shaping technical direction and reviewing the work of other engineers.
- Knowledge of modern software delivery approaches (e.g., Scrum, Kanban), with some understanding of specification‑driven development.
- Excellent communication skills, enabling you to explain complex ideas clearly and influence both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
- Comfort working in complex environments with multiple priorities, and the resilience to adapt to continual change.
- Highly desirable to have experience implementing bespoke data, machine learning or AI solutions from pilot through to operationalisation.
- Ideally hold a professional certification (e.g., cloud architect) in at least one major cloud data platform (e.g., GCP, Azure, AWS, Snowflake, Databricks) and be an active participant in that cloud’s community.
Benefits
We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high‑quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work‑life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals.
#J-18808-Ljbffr…