Head of Responsible Data Innovation and AI - GDS - G6

Location

Bristol, London, Manchester

About the job

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government — we are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services

2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good

3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure

4. elevating leadership and investing in talent

5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation

6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

The Data Directorate is responsible for developing strategies and innovations to ensure that data is used effectively and responsibly across the public sector. Our work supports key government priorities including the UK’s AI Adoption Plan, the Cyber Security Strategy, and the Blueprint for Modern Government.  We are focused on improving data quality, accessibility, and sharing, while managing security risks and enabling safe, value-driven use of data—especially in relation to AI. We are responsible for ensuring that innovation with data and AI across the public sector is trustworthy.

This is crucial both to protect the public from harm, but also to ensure that good innovation can maintain the public trust it needs to scale successfully to improve public services and drive economic growth. We help government build and use AI and data-driven technologies responsibly by developing and implementing cross-government tools and guidance.

Job description

This senior leadership role in Data Strategy shapes strategic planning and drives responsible innovation with data. As Head of Responsible Data Innovation and AI, you’ll lead cross-government efforts to embed accountable, effective use of data and AI.

You’ll champion a culture of experimentation—rapidly prototyping machine learning models and emerging data technologies. The role focuses on sustainable data use: reuse, preservation, and protection from misuse in AI. You’ll lead pilots to test innovations in real-world public sector settings, evaluating their impact and scalability.

Working closely with suppliers, you’ll shape roadmaps for AI and data tools that unlock public sector capabilities. Strong influencing skills are essential to demonstrate value, drive adoption, and embed responsible deployment across government. Collaboration with internal teams—data architecture, ethics, privacy, and protection—is key to translating innovation into scalable, responsible delivery.

Research & Horizon Scanning

• Lead cross-cutting research on emerging data and AI trends, especially technologies that enable data readiness. 
• Inform government AI blueprints through horizon scanning and evidence-based insights. 
• Foster supplier collaboration to build sustainable data ecosystems that drive innovation and responsible tech use. 
• Run experiments to test new approaches, with a focus on data reuse, long-term preservation, and protection from misuse.

Delivery & Implementation

• Lead cross-government programmes on responsible data and AI, focusing on data-driven reliability and data readiness. 
• Develop tools and methods to unlock structured and unstructured data for AI. 
• Scale successful innovations from pilot to deployment across departments.

Policy & Guidance

• Translate strategic policy into tangible, data-driven tools and frameworks that support responsible readiness of data for AI adoption.
• Ensure alignment with legal and regulatory requirements.
• Contribute to DSIT’s Responsible AI Advisory Panel and governance structures by embedding strategic data perspectives.

Evaluation & Assurance

• Design frameworks to assess responsible data use in AI. 
• Build open-source Python tools for data evaluation.
• Feed insights into data-driven AI reliability and maturity models to support trustworthy deployment.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Build strong partnerships across government, academia, and industry. 
• Shape supplier roadmaps for data-ready infrastructure. 
• Align innovation with ethics, privacy, and protection teams.

Rapid Prototyping & Tooling

• Champion a culture of experimentation and rapid prototyping. 
• Design scalable tools to unlock value from complex data. 
• Promote sustainable, secure data use and reuse.

Person specification

We are looking for:

• Proven ability to lead research and horizon scanning to identify opportunity to develop statistical insights reports and models to support organisational objectives such as strategic planning and technology adoption
• Experience developing methodologies and tools to unlock data for AI, including experimentation with unstructured data
• A strong grasp of ethical principles and risk mitigation, with experience designing data evaluation frameworks for data-driven AI reliability
• Skilled in rapid prototyping, collaborating on shared code bases, enabling collaborative innovation with academia and suppliers
• The ability to experiment with, analyse, and forecast data to inform data and AI policy, support the development of effective tools, and incorporate insights on public attitudes to ensure socially responsible innovation
• Experience in leading small teams, managing delivery and communicating technical experts on data innovations and data science evaluations
• Experience developing policy guidance and standards, translating strategic objectives into actionable frameworks
• Experience in building relations with specialist teams across organization, sectors, academia  to develop data science products enabling data for AI and emerging technologies
• Experience developing policy guidance and standards, translating strategic objectives into actionable frameworks
• Demonstrated in-depth understanding of a wide range of data science techniques such as LLMs, agentic AI, and other emerging technologies