Defence AI Centre – Senior Business Relationship Manager

This role can be based at one of the following locations: Portsmouth (DSTL Portsdown West); Salisbury (DSTL Porton Down); Bristol (DE&S Abbey Wood); MOD Corsham, Wiltshire; MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London or Scale Space, White City, London.

Harnessing the game-changing power of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Defence AI Centre (DAIC) drives UK Defence’s strategic advantage to safeguard UK national interests both at home and abroad.

As part of the DAIC, you’ll be a crucial member of a world-class, multi-disciplinary team at the forefront of ambitious, safe and responsible AI innovations. You’ll support our collaboration with international partners, government agencies, and industry leaders, to shape the future of AI for UK Defence.

Joining the DAIC is an opportunity to help pioneer cutting-edge AI solutions to real-world problems, directly impacting the security and protection of the UK. You’ll be part of a dynamic, supportive team, contributing to work that’s unparalleled in terms of scale and significance. Nowhere is AI innovation more important than Defence – and our team is at the heart of it.

Watch our video to find out more about the DAIC.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week. 

Strategic Command is going through a significant transformation programme which aims to improve the way the Command conducts its business and delivers for Defence and the nation. As a consequence of this, all posts within Strategic Command Headquarters and in time the wider organisation, are/will be subject to review and potential changes as we continuously improve across the period of the transformation programme. These changes may be minor or could be more substantive and will generate new opportunities.  Throughout, the Command’s transformation programme is committed to following the MOD’s framework on managing and supporting people through the change process and places an emphasis on early and open consultation and engagement with the Command’s personnel and Trade Unions. 

We are looking for a dynamic individual to develop and deliver our plans to mobilise a more dynamic relationship between the Ministry of Defence and the wider AI community (aka – the ‘ecosystem’).

This role is central to the ‘Strengthen the UK’s AI ecosystem’ objective in the Defence AI Strategy – recognising it as a strategic national resource; as vital now as coal and steel were in the industrial age.

You must have keen business acumen to understand the perspectives of our government, industry, and academic partners. Combined with your strong analytical skills, you will use this to generate strategies that ensure the ecosystem is geared and incentivised to support priority national objectives. This includes delivering on commitments to:

• Clearly communicate our AI requirements, intent and expectations.
• Address barriers to frictionless collaboration.
• Incentivise engagement and co-creation.

You must have a proven ability to deliver, as you will lead interventions under an implementation roadmap that facilitates more open collaboration and connects the best talent to work on Defence challenges. Recent examples include:

• Artificial intelligence companies showcase defence capabilities at inaugural ‘DAIC Connect’ event – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• Dstl and Google Cloud Hackathon: new era of defence AI innovation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• Can robot dogs programmed with AI find hidden explosive devices? – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

You’ll need excellent communication and relationship building skills, acting as a key interface with external organisations, including MOD colleagues, cross-Government partners, start-ups, SMEs, academia and wider industry. You will use these to mobilise, attract, and engage internal and external stakeholders, communicating the benefits of the ecosystem.

Above all, you will have an innovative mindset and be curious about how new technologies can enhance Defence outcomes, while being motivated by the ambitious, safe and responsible use of AI in Defence.

Responsibilities

Working in the heart of the DAIC as part of the HQ and Strategy team, you will lead on the AI ecosystem workstream, including:

• Develop a coherent strategy and implementation roadmap, prioritising those initiatives that will maximise value against the objectives of the Defence AI Strategy.

• Champion and drive the implementation of the roadmap and associated initiatives, working with agility to address challenges and risks. Report on the progress of the roadmap and capability of the ecosystem against value based metrics.

• Cohere and align wider MOD activities to ensure consistency and avoid duplication. This includes chairing the monthly AI Industry Engagement Strategy meeting with colleagues from across Defence.

• Utilise pan-defence opportunities and related initiatives for the benefit of the broader external ecosystem. Develop and deliver briefing materials for senior stakeholders and build strategic relationships across the network (internal and external).

• Lead efforts to maintain effective market intelligence of the AI Sector and associated Defence applications. Work with AI and Autonomy policy makers and Commercial to capture future requirements.

• Support the delivery of a communications strategy, that aims to foster engagement from a wide range of external organisations and industry. Develop campaigns and deliver key market engagement events (e.g. DAIC Connect) and align with broader DAIC communication approaches and other government AI programmes.

• Manage engagement and opportunities for industry secondments into DAIC.

• Support wider DAIC implementation plans, with tasks allocated based on personal development and business need. As we move from ’start up’ to ‘scale up’ there are a range of areas that the postholder could be involved with, as we develop a deeper understanding of where the DAIC can maximise value to Defence.

This role can be based at one of the following locations: Portsmouth (DSTL Portsdown West); Salisbury (DSTL Porton Down); Bristol (DE&S Abbey Wood); MOD Corsham, Wiltshire; MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London or Scale Space, White City, London.

This role is suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estates capacity.  Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another MOD workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). DBS cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.

Dependent on the business need, there is a requirement to travel to meetings within the UK, including the occasional overnight stay away from home (and potentially occasional overseas visits).

The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Stakeholder relationship management (IT operations)
• Strategic thinking

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes
£11,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role with a dedicated minimum of 5 days per year
• 25 days paid annual leave rising (by 1 day per year) to 30 days upon completion of five years’ service
• Ability to roll up to 10 days annual leave per year
• In addition to eight public holidays per year, you will also receive leave for HM The King’s birthday
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• Parental and Adoption Leave
• Discounts on a range of services within and external to the civil service – Defence Discount Service, Civil Service societies for Sports and Leisure, Healthcare, Insurance, Motoring, Company discounts with Virgin, Vodafone, and Microsoft Office.
• In year rewards and ‘thank you’ schemes such as vouchers and gift cards
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• Please see Benefits Leaflet for more detail

Our people are at the heart of everything we do at Defence Digital. It’s vital that our workforce reflects the diversity of both our audience and the wider society in the UK, so we’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and we actively seek candidates from diverse backgrounds and communities. We also recognise the importance of a good work life balance, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including part-time and job shares for all our roles. Please let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process if this is something you want to explore.

Defence Digital operates an organisation model in which every individual belongs to a Government Profession. The successful applicant will be posted into one of the defined Government Professions on Standard Terms of Reference for the grade. Defence digital reserves the right to move individuals between roles, within their allocated profession, to meet the needs of the business and in support of agile resourcing.

Within Defence Digital each profession is led by a Professional Head of Community who will lead professional development and support the Continuous Professional Development path for their group.

The post does not offer relocation expenses. 

External recruits who join the MOD who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period. 

Please Note: Expenses incurred for travel to interviews will not be reimbursed. 

Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.  

Any move to MOD from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/. 

The Ministry of Defence is committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for its staff which includes educating them on the benefits of not smoking, protecting them from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and supporting those who want to give up smoking. Under the Smoke-Free Working Environment policy, Smoking and the use of all tobacco products (including combustible and chewing tobacco products) will not be permitted anywhere in the Defence working environment however some exemptions are in place, please refer to local guidance. The policy is Whole Force and includes all Defence personnel, contractors, visitors and other non-MOD personnel. All applicants seeking, considering, or accepting employment with the Ministry of Defence should be aware of this policy and that it is already in place at a number of Defence Establishments.  

MOD Recruitment Satisfaction Survey – we may contact you regarding your experience to help us improve our customer satisfaction. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. You may however be given the opportunity to provide additional information to help us improve our service which includes the collection of some personal data as defined by the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The MOD Privacy Notice sets out how we will use your personal data and your rights. 

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available.
You may want to save a copy for your records.

Job contact :

• Name : Defence Digital Talent Acquisition Team
• Email : ukstratcomdd-hr-talentacqdel@mod.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk