AI Ethics Officer

The AI Ethics Officer is responsible for ensuring the organisation's AI systems are designed, deployed, and operated in line with its ethical commitments, covering bias, fairness, transparency, human oversight, explainability, and the organisation's responsibilities to people affected by AI-mediated decisions.

About the role

This role is distinct from the AI Risk and Compliance Manager in emphasis: compliance addresses what regulation requires; ethics addresses what is right where regulation doesn't yet provide a clear answer. That distinction matters in practice and so does the question of whether this role holds genuine authority to slow or stop a deployment, or is advisory only. It's worth exploring that directly in any recruitment process.

The role is most commonly found in larger organisations and regulated sectors, sitting within the AI Governance Function and reporting to the AI Governance Lead or Chief AI Officer.

What you'll actually be doing

You'll be doing a combination of policy development, assessment work, and organisational education. On the policy side, that means developing and maintaining the organisation's responsible AI principles, defining human oversight requirements, and establishing explainability standards. On the assessment side, you'll be conducting bias and fairness audits, reviewing new AI use cases for ethical risk before deployment, and monitoring what academic, regulatory, and civil society communities are saying about AI ethics.

The education dimension is often underestimated: developing training and awareness programmes for technical teams, business units, and leadership (and making those conversations productive rather than abstract) is a real and important part of the role.

What we're looking for

A deep understanding of AI ethics as a field (bias, fairness, explainability, human oversight, accountability) including familiarity with academic literature and the main ethical frameworks in use across the industry. Experience developing and applying ethical review processes in an organisational context. The ability to engage constructively but critically with technical teams and product managers, and to hold a position under commercial pressure.

A policy, research, law, or social science background is as common as a technical one.

Typical background

Postholders come from a wide range of backgrounds: philosophy, social science, public policy, law, and computer science are all represented. Academic AI ethics research, civil society, regulation, and human rights are all valid routes in. AI ethics professional qualifications are emerging but not yet standardised.