Agentic AI Risk Modelling and Mitigations

The deadline for applying to this role is Sunday 8 March 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth. 

Team Description 

As AI systems grow more capable and autonomous, understanding how humans could lose the ability to oversee, correct, or shut down these systems becomes critical – as does identifying what we can do to prevent it. Risk models for AI agents (for example, loss of control risk models) remain far less developed than those in comparable domains like cybersecurity and chem-bio, and practical mitigations remain underexplored (especially beyond traditional alignment and control work). 

AISI is building a new team to close this gap. The new Agentic AI Risk Modelling and Mitigations team will develop rigorous models of how agentic AI could cause harm, identifying practical mitigations with a focus on measures the UK government are well-placed to implement. We will draw on expertise only available within government – especially the national security community – to develop risk models and mitigations far more developed than those in academia or industry. 

The hiring manager for this role is Benjamin Hilton; the team is advised by Geoffrey Irving. You'll collaborate closely with researchers across AISI's red teams, evaluation teams, and alignment team, as well as with government stakeholders. 

Related previous publications from AISI include the International AI Safety Report, the Frontier AI Trends Report, as well as: adapting vulnerability disclosure for AI safeguards, safety cases for cyber misuse risk from frontier AI, a sketch of an AI control safety case, an alignment safety case sketch based on debate, and evaluations of autonomous replication capabilities. 

Role Description 

Your work will draw on empirical evidence from AISI's evaluations, alongside the broader cybersecurity and ML literature to develop detailed and precise threat models and mitigations. You'll need to reason carefully about complex and uncertain scenarios and communicate findings clearly to both technical researchers and policy decision-makers. Some projects may also involve hands-on ML or cybersecurity work, in collaboration with government partners, to develop mitigations. 

We are open to hires at junior, senior, staff, and principal research scientist levels. We may also make an offer to particularly promising candidates with management experience to lead the workstream in a management role. 

Representative projects you might work on 

• Developing detailed models of specific loss-of-control scenarios — such as deceptive alignment during internal deployment, or a long-horizon agentic cyberattack — specifying their causal structure, key assumptions, and plausibility given current and projected AI capabilities and propensities. 

• Translating risk models and associated uncertainties into specifications for AISI's red teams and evaluation teams — identifying the tests that would provide the most informative evidence about whether specific risk pathways are viable. 

• Analysing the effectiveness of mitigations — such as monitoring infrastructure, compute governance, deployment guidelines, or containment protocols — drawing on input from national security stakeholders, and assessing which risk pathways remain plausible once mitigations are in place. 

• Collaborating and communicating with government and national security stakeholders to develop and implement possible interventions, in parti. 

What we're looking for 

In accordance with the Civil Service Commission rules, the following list contains all selection criteria for the interview process. 

Required experience 

The experiences listed below should be interpreted as examples of the expertise we're looking for, as opposed to a list of everything we expect to find in one applicant: 

You may be a good fit if you have: 

• Experience producing detailed threat models, risk analyses, safety cases, or similar structured analytical work — in AI safety, cybersecurity, national security, or another domain. 

• A track record of published research or substantial written analysis demonstrating rigorous reasoning about complex, uncertain topics. 

• Strong written communication: an ability to present complex technical arguments clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. 

• Deep familiarity with cybersecurity and the ways in which it will be impacted by high-capability AI agents; alternatively with the AI alignment and AI safety literature, including existing work on loss of control, deception, power-seeking, scalable oversight, and AI control. 

• A sense of mission, urgency, and responsibility for success. 

• An ability to bring your own research ideas and work in a self-directed way, while also collaborating effectively and prioritising team efforts over extensive solo work. 

Strong candidates may also have: 

• Hands-on experience with large language models (e.g., training, fine-tuning, evaluation, or red-teaming), providing concrete understanding of current model capabilities and limitations. 

• Familiarity with AI capability evaluations and benchmarking methodologies. 

• Desire to (and experience with) improve teams through mentoring and feedback. 

Security clearance 

We have a preference for candidates eligible for UK government SC clearance which typically requires residence in the UK for the last 2 years. You may also be required to undergo Developed Vetting (DV). DV typically requires a longer period of UK residency (around 5 years). 

Other core requirements   

• You should be able to spend at least 9 days per fortnight working with us. 

• You should be willing to work from our office in London (Whitehall) at least 3 days/week.   

• You should be UK-based. 

 What We Offer

Impact you couldn't have anywhere else

• Incredibly talented, mission-driven and supportive colleagues.
• Direct influence on how frontier AI is governed and deployed globally.
• Work with the Prime Minister’s AI Advisor and leading AI companies.
• Opportunity to shape the first & best-resourced public-interest research team focused on AI security.

Resources & access

• Pre-release access to multiple frontier models and ample compute.
• Extensive operational support so you can focus on research and ship quickly.
• Work with experts across national security, policy, AI research and adjacent sciences.

Growth & autonomy

• If you’re talented and driven, you’ll own important problems early.
• 5 days off learning and development, annual stipends for learning and development and funding for conferences and external collaborations.
• Freedom to pursue research bets without product pressure.
• Opportunities to publish and collaborate externally.

Life & family

• Modern central London office (cafes, food court, gym) or option to work in similar government offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, Salford or Bristol.
• Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.
• At least 25 days’ annual leave, 8 public holidays, extra team-wide breaks and 3 days off for volunteering.
• Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option for additional unpaid time).
• On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
• Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, donations and retail/gyms.

*These benefits apply to direct employees. Benefits may differ for individuals joining through other employment arrangements such as secondments. 

Salary 

We are hiring individuals at all ranges of seniority and experience within this research unit, and this advert allows you to apply for any of the roles within this range. Your dedicated talent partner will work with you as you move through our assessment process to explain our internal benchmarking process. The full range of salaries are available below, salaries comprise of a base salary, technical allowance plus additional benefits as detailed on this page. 

• Level 3 - Total Package £65,000 - £75,000 inclusive of a base salary £35,720 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £29,280 - £39,280 

• Level 4 - Total Package £85,000 - £95,000 inclusive of a base salary £42,495 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £42,505 - £52,505 

• Level 5 - Total Package £105,000 - £115,000 inclusive of a base salary £55,805 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £49,195 - £59,195 

• Level 6 - Total Package £125,000 - £135,000 inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £56,230 - £66,230 

• Level 7 - Total Package £145,000 inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of £76,230