Head of AI Office

Head of AI Office

Location: Birmingham, Bristol, Eastleigh, Glasgow, Leatherhead, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Norwich, Perth, Sheffield, Worthing, York, London

Salary: National: £100,000 - 130,000 + bonus + excellent benefits and London: £120,000 - £155,000 + bonus + excellent benefits

Turn AI signals into strategic decisions

Aviva's Chief AI Office sits at the centre of an enterprise-wide transformation spanning markets, functions and customer journeys. It connects strategy with delivery, adoption and governance, helping the business apply AI faster, more safely and with clearer evidence of value. You'll join while the function is taking shape, helping establish how Aviva moves from individual AI opportunities to responsible, measurable change at scale.

Working alongside the Chief AI Officer, you'll shape Aviva's AI strategy and give senior leaders a clear view of the choices ahead. You'll connect evidence on investment, delivery, adoption, value and risk so decisions are focused, timely and grounded in what is happening across the portfolio.

A bit about the job

Operating at the heart of our Chief Operating Officer (COO) domain, the Head of AI Office is a pivotal leadership force shaping Aviva’s enterprise-wide AI transformation. This role offers rare executive visibility and genuine enterprise influence. You'll partner directly with the Chief AI Officer (CAIO), ExCo, and the Board to guide high-stakes investment decisions, set robust governance frameworks and steer our long-term AI ambition.

Designed for a strategic leader, you'll lead a talented team to connect strategic vision with commercial reality. From shaping future growth and navigating an evolving regulatory landscape to translating complex delivery into clear, board-level insight, you'll ensure our AI investments deliver lasting value across a business serving over 25 million customers.

You'll be responsible for:

·    Shaping Aviva’s forward AI strategy, priorities and agenda for the Chief AI Officer and senior governance forums

·    Developing clear, evidence-led materials for ExCo, the Board and the AI Advisory Council, subject to confirmed governance arrangements

·    Providing an integrated view of AI investment, token consumption, deployment, adoption, performance, value and AI portfolio risk

·    Bringing relevant regulatory, market, competitor and technology developments into strategic decisions

·    Helping shape Aviva’s approach to AI vendors, partnerships and ecosystem choices

·    Leading the AI Office team and ensuring senior decisions translate into clear ownership and action

·    Horizon scanning for new AI trends or new AI regulations and translating these into clear, decision-oriented executive briefings

·    Representing Aviva at external meetings concerning AI

·    Measured on: Contribution to team goals such as timely benefit realization, cost discipline, speed of AI deployment (from idea to production), enterprise AI portfolio compliance level with risk standards, enterprise AI adoption

Skills and experience we're looking for

You'll bring experience in many of these areas:

·    Significant experience in enterprise strategy, transformation, a CEO or COO office, portfolio leadership or corporate development

·    Evidence of advising executive committees or Boards and producing concise, decision-ready recommendations

·    Strong commercial and analytical judgement across investment, performance and value

·    The ability to connect business, technology, finance, risk and external perspectives

·    AI and digital fluency, with an understanding of opportunities, delivery realities and the evolving regulatory environment

·    Experience in financial services or another highly regulated sector is strongly desirable.

Why Aviva?

AI is already supporting work across claims summarisation, medical underwriting, customer service and fraud detection. The Chief AI Office is being established to give Aviva a clear enterprise view of that growing portfolio, connecting strategy, investment, delivery, value and risk.

Aviva is the UK's only diversified insurer, serving more than 25 million customers globally. Its scale, extensive proprietary data and single customer view create a significant opportunity and a demanding set of choices. You'll help leaders decide where to invest, how performance should be judged and how ambition should be balanced with value and risk.

What you’ll get for this role

Our purpose – with you today, for a better tomorrow – is a promise we make to our colleagues too. And one of the ways we live up to that promise is by investing in you. We have so much to offer when it comes to being an Aviva colleague:

• Salary: National: £100,000 -130,000 + bonus + excellent benefits and London: £120,000 - £155,000 + bonus + excellent benefits (depending on location, skills, experience, and qualifications)
• Bonus opportunity – 25% of annual salary (actual amount depends on your performance and Aviva’s)
• Generous pension scheme eg if you put in 8%, Aviva adds 14%
• 29 days holiday plus bank holidays, with the option to buy or sell up to 5 days
• Aviva-funded Private Medical Benefit to help you get expert support when you need it
• Up to 40% discount on Aviva products, and other retailer discounts
• Up to £1,200 of free Aviva shares per year through our Matching Share Plan and the opportunity to join our Save As You Earn scheme
• Brilliantly supportive policies including parental and carer’s leave
• Flexible benefits to suit you, including sustainability options such as cycle to work

• Make a difference, be part of our Aviva Communities and use your 3 paid volunteering days to help others
• We take your wellbeing seriously with lots of support and tools

Take a look to learn more.  Put a salary into this calculator to see what your total Aviva Reward could be

Aviva is for everyone

We’re inclusive and welcome everyone – we want applications from all backgrounds and experiences. Excited but not sure you tick every box? Even if you don’t, we would still encourage you to apply. We also consider all forms of flexible working, including part time and job shares.

We flex locations, hours and working patterns to suit our customers, business, and you. Most of our people are smart working – spending around 50% of their time in our offices every week - combining the benefits of flexibility, with time together with colleagues.

To find out more about working at Aviva take a look here

We interview every disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria for the job. Once you’ve applied, please send us an email stating that you have a disclosed disability, and we’ll interview you.

We’d love it if you could submit your application online. If you require an alternative method of applying, please give Harjot Kaur a call on +44 7353138456 or send an email to harjot.kaur@aviva.com