Head of Applied AI

About This Opportunity

We are representing a fast-growing cloud consultancy in Central London that is scaling its Applied AI practice. This is a senior leadership role with full commercial accountability for a business unit that launched recently and has already established live client engagements, a defined offering, and a healthy pipeline. The previous Head is stepping back for personal reasons and will provide a thorough handover, so you'll inherit momentum rather than starting from scratch.

This is a hands-on role combining technical depth, commercial ownership, and practice leadership. In a single week, you might advise a client CTO on AI strategy, review an engineer's architecture decisions, write a business case for the leadership team, and represent the firm at an industry conference. You'll be building the formal structure around a running practice—defining the team, roles, and commercial framework—while maintaining relentless focus on client delivery and pipeline growth.

The role requires up to 3 days per week onsite in Central London and at client sites, with frequency varying by customer and week. SC clearance is required; you don't need active clearance, but you must be eligible to pass SC checks upon joining.

Responsibilities

Commercial and Strategic Leadership

• Carry full P&L accountability for the Applied AI business unit, measured on pipeline, revenue, and gross profit
• Report monthly KPIs to the leadership team and build investment cases to fund the unit's growth
• Own AI go-to-market offerings: define what each offering is, who buys it, the problem it solves, indicative pricing, and delivery model
• Track the AI market—model releases, tooling, frameworks—and advise leadership on what to adopt, monitor, or set aside

Client and Partner Relationships

• Build trusted-advisor relationships with client CTOs, CDOs, and engineering leaders, translating insight into the right language for each audience
• Lead pre-sales activity on AI opportunities from qualification through proposal, supporting bids where AI credibility is the differentiator
• Develop reusable client collateral—opportunity assessments, roadmaps, business cases—grounded in real delivery experience
• Own partner relationships with AWS, Anthropic, OpenAI, and relevant industry bodies, including technical relationships, joint go-to-market, and maintaining partner competencies

Technical Delivery and Practice Building

• Provide technical delivery oversight of AI customer engagements—technical enough to hold your own with client engineers and to delegate the detail
• Review architecture and design decisions, acting as decision-maker when a technical call is needed
• Build and lead the AI practice: hire and line-manage the team, own capability development, and establish repeatable methodology and delivery standards
• Build reusable AI accelerators, frameworks, and reference architectures that shorten and de-risk customer delivery
• Enable company-wide AI usage: define internal AI learning pathways, set guidance for internal AI use, and run enablement activity across the business

Thought Leadership

• Establish the firm's public voice on applied AI through speaking, meetups, blogs, and whitepapers grounded in delivered work
• Build standing in external AI communities and contribute to industry discussion

What We're Looking For

Essential Experience and Skills

• Current, hands-on understanding of AI technologies, models, and tooling—sufficient to direct development work and review architecture decisions
• Commercial track record owning a revenue or gross profit target, building the pipeline behind it, and reporting against a plan
• Strong consulting and client credibility: able to advise at C-suite level and engineering level, with clients wanting you in the room for significant decisions
• Experience building a team or capability from a small base: hiring, setting delivery standards, creating repeatable methodology
• Familiarity with the AWS and Anthropic ecosystems (or comparable hyperscaler and model-vendor landscape), including partner competencies and joint go-to-market
• Track record of public contribution on applied AI, or clear appetite and ability to build one
• Experience leading and line-managing a technical team, including setting direction, delegating ownership, and developing people
• Strong judgement and prioritisation: ability to decide where to concentrate effort and discipline to stop work that isn't producing
• Eligibility to pass SC clearance (will be undertaken upon joining)

What Success Looks Like

• Six-month revenue plan delivered, with forecast gross profit covering your cost within six months and team gross profit positive within two quarters
• Practice structure formalised: team defined, roles clear, commercial framework in place
• Pipeline and client relationships growing consistently, with referenceable engagements and repeat work
• AI accelerators and IP registered and in use, shortening delivery cycles
• Company-wide AI enablement in place, with colleagues across the business using AI in their everyday work

How We Work With You

Our talent team at Get A Job.ai partners with this client to find exceptional leaders for their growing practice. When you apply through our platform, a recruiter will conduct an initial screening to understand your background and assess fit. If we move forward together, we'll submit your profile to the client for consideration. The client's interview process includes a remote interview with the hiring manager followed by a final in-person meeting with the leadership team in Central London.

Please apply exclusively through Get A Job.ai. Do not contact the client directly, as all applications are managed through our recruitment process.

Pay

This role is based in London and requires up to 3 days per week onsite. Our client offers a competitive package including discretionary bonus, share options schemes, 25 days' annual leave, 5 additional days per year for training or charity work, life assurance, long-term disability cover, pension contributions, and comprehensive health and wellbeing support.

Get A Job.ai is an equal opportunity recruiter. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ancestry, age, marital status, disability, parental status, religion, or medical history. If you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.