Head of AI Standards and Responsible AI

Head of AI Standards and Responsible AI

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

Salary: National: £95,000 - £120,000 + bonus + excellent benefits and London: £120,000 - £150,000 + bonus + excellent benefits

Make responsible AI work in practice

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.

Responsible AI should enable good innovation, not sit beside it. You'll own the standards, framework and assurance approach that help Aviva develop and use AI safely, consistently and with confidence across customer and operational journeys.

A bit about the job

As Aviva scales its AI transformation, true innovation relies on unwavering trust. As our Head of AI Standards and Responsible AI, you'll shape the blueprint for ethical, safe and secure AI across the enterprise.

This is a defining, blank-canvas opportunity to build our Responsible AI framework from the ground up. You'll set the standards for AI deployments, safeguard data quality and champion risk management, ensuring that pioneering technology and rigorous governance go hand in hand. If you want to own the framework that gives a major institution the confidence to innovate safely, this is your platform.

You'll be responsible for:

·    Owning and evolving Aviva’s Responsible AI framework, principles, roles and evidence requirements

·    Defining proportionate enterprise standards covering quality, safety, transparency, human oversight, monitoring and lifecycle management

·    Leading assurance for AI deployments, making sure material gaps, decisions and exceptions are visible and traceable

·    Translating regulatory and policy developments into clear, practical requirements for teams

·    Embedding controls into the One Aviva Way for AI with engineering and delivery leaders

·    Acting as a trusted partner across Risk, Legal, Compliance, Privacy, Cyber, Model Risk, Audit and the business.

·    Measured on: speed of AI deployment (from idea to production) enterprise AI portfolio compliance level with risk standards – as well as contribution to team goals such as benefits realization, cost discipline, enterprise AI adoption.

Skills and experience we're looking for

You'll bring experience in many of these areas:

·    Significant experience in Responsible AI, AI governance, model risk, technology risk, data privacy, compliance or assurance

·    Certifications in relevant industry AI standards (e.g. ISO42001)

·    Evidence of designing enterprise standards, control frameworks or proportionate assurance processes

·    A strong understanding of modern AI, including generative and agentic systems, and the risks they create across the lifecycle

·    Experience translating regulation and policy into controls that work in product and engineering delivery

·    The authority and judgement to influence senior leaders, challenge constructively and enable safe delivery

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

Why Aviva?

AI is already supporting customer and operational journeys across Aviva, including claims summarisation, medical underwriting, customer service and fraud detection. In a business built on trust, standards and assurance need to work in live delivery, not only in policy documents.

You'll define how responsible AI is evidenced throughout the lifecycle, helping teams innovate while protecting customers and maintaining clear accountability. This is governance designed to enable good innovation, not sit beside it.

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: £95,000 - £120,000 + bonus + excellent benefits and London: £120,000 - £150,000 + 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