AI Researcher

Location: Reading, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

AI Researcher

Reading (RG2 6GF) - Hybrid

Primary Purpose of the Role:

To conduct high-impact AI research that develops novel, trustworthy and operationally relevant AI capabilities across Thales UK businesses and for our customers, increasing the quality of our offers, winning new business, strengthening technical differentiation, and improving customer outcomes.

As part of the growing software, AI and research capability in cortAIx Factory / cortAIx UK, the AI Researcher will collaborate with AI engineers, AI assurance specialists, human-machine teaming researchers, product owners, domain experts, data engineers and software engineers to turn complex operational and business challenges into validated AI research outcomes, proofs of concept and transferable technical capability.

The role will contribute novel AI methods, research assets, technical reports, publications, invention disclosures and reusable experimental approaches to Thales UK’s internal catalogue of capabilities, accelerating responsible AI adoption across programmes. The role will connect with data, digital, research and engineering specialists across Thales UK and Group, maturing emerging AI technologies for future deployment and acting as a technical expert on advanced AI research used transversally throughout the business.

We are interested in people with a background of both conduct research and delivering across a diverse range of products or industries. We are looking for those who can undertake the research but also understand how to translate this into product. Highly advantageous if you’ve supported or led bids/bid requirements.

Key Responsibilities and Tasks:

• Conduct applied and experimental AI research to solve complex customer and business problems across defence, aerospace, cyber security, rail, critical national infrastructure and related domains.

• Develop state-of-the-art AI/ML solutions, proofs of concept and research prototypes using real-world data and operationally relevant problem statements.

• Investigate, design, implement and evaluate advanced AI methods, including but not limited to deep learning, multimodal AI, self-supervised learning, foundation models, generative AI, computer vision, NLP/LLMs, time-series analytics and reinforcement learning where relevant.

• Translate business and customer needs into clear research questions, experimental plans, technical requirements and measurable success criteria.

• Design robust evaluation methodologies, including baselines, benchmarks, ablation studies, uncertainty assessment, robustness testing and performance measurement against operationally meaningful metrics.

• Collaborate with AI V&V, AI Assurance, Human-Machine Teaming and Applied AI groups to ensure research outputs are trustworthy, human-centred, explainable and suitable for future operational use.

• Build reproducible research pipelines, including data preprocessing, feature engineering, model training, experiment tracking, evaluation and technical reporting.

• Ensure Responsible AI practices are embedded throughout the research lifecycle, including robustness, safety, explainability, transparency, fairness, privacy, security and alignment with MOD, regulatory and Thales governance requirements.

• Create proofs of concept, publications, invention disclosures, patents, technical reports and reusable research assets around advanced AI topics such as multimodal learning, self-supervised learning, foundation models and human-AI collaboration.

• Package research outputs in a form that enables transition to AI engineering teams, including demonstrator code, model cards, experiment reports, design notes and handover documentation.

• Support bids, PoCs, demos, customer workshops, innovation campaigns and stakeholder briefings by communicating research concepts and outcomes to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Work with data engineers, architects and domain experts on data acquisition, labelling strategies, synthetic data approaches, integration of third-party data and data quality management.

• Horizon scan for major AI research and technology trends, assess relevance to Thales markets, run trials and share best practices to accelerate responsible adoption.

Skills, experience and qualifications required

Degree/Masters, an equivalent in a relevant Software/AI subject, or equivalent experience. Relevant subject areas may include Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics or a related technical discipline.

• Strong Python programming skills; proficiency with modern software engineering and research practices, including testing, code quality, reproducibility and collaborative development.

• Experience conducting AI/ML research or advanced AI development in complex technical environments, preferably including defence, aviation, rail, cyber security, safety-critical, mission-critical or similarly regulated domains.

• Expertise in ML/DL algorithms and techniques for supervised, unsupervised, self-supervised and, where relevant, reinforcement learning.

• Proven ability to take AI research from problem framing through experimental design, model development, evaluation and prototype demonstration.

• Hands-on experience in at least one advanced AI area such as deep neural networks, computer vision, NLP/LLMs, multimodal AI, self-supervised learning, reinforcement learning, time-series analytics or foundation models.

• Experience with AI frameworks and libraries: PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, Hugging Face Transformers; OpenCV for vision applications.

• Strong understanding of experimental design, statistical evaluation, benchmarking and model validation.

• Experiment tracking and reproducibility tools, for example MLflow, Weights & Biases or equivalent.

• Data wrangling and analysis using Pandas, NumPy, SQL; familiarity with Spark or similar is a plus.

• Model optimisation and research-to-prototype deployment fundamentals, including ONNX, TorchScript, FastAPI/gRPC and GPU acceleration, with CUDA basics desirable.

• Responsible AI and security awareness: explainability, privacy-preserving methods, bias assessment, safety, assurance, adversarial robustness and secure AI.

• Scientific and technical writing skills, including preparation of technical reports, research papers, invention disclosures, model cards and experiment reports.

• Demonstrable experience producing high-quality technical documentation, research outputs, model evaluations or stakeholder briefings.

Interpersonal Skills

• Ability to engage and influence diverse stakeholders, including Product Engineering Leaders, Customers, Design Authorities, Project Management, IS/IT, research partners and academic collaborators.

• Highly effective in a matrix-based organisation; a collaborative team player who drives outcomes while maintaining scientific rigour.

• Excellent communication skills; able to explain complex AI research concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Curious, creative and intellectually rigorous, with the ability to challenge constructively and develop novel solutions to ambiguous problems.

• Encourages an open environment where ideas are shared, technical debate is welcomed and innovation thrives.

Desirable

• PhD or equivalent research experience in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics or a related discipline.

• Peer-reviewed publications, patents, invention disclosures, open-source contributions or recognised technical innovations.

• Experience with governance of architecture, research designs or detailed technical designs throughout the project lifecycle.

• Experience with large-scale data initiatives, data labelling strategies, synthetic data generation and data quality management.

• Familiarity with MLOps practices and cloud platforms for AI deployment.

• Experience working with academic partners, research institutions, grant-funded programmes or collaborative research consortia.

• Experience contributing to bids, proposals, customer demonstrations or externally funded innovation activities.

• Knowledge of cloud AI services, HPC environments, containerisation and secure research environments is desirable.

Security Clearance statement

Due the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a sole British National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance- United Kingdom Security Vetting - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

Your Career at Thales UK

Future opportunities will allow you to discover other domains or sites. You will be able to evolve and grow your Competencies in different areas:

• Room and attention to personal development

• Build your talents in another domain of Thales Group, discovering new products, new customers, new country or go to a more complex Solution

• Choose between a technical expertise or a leadership path

• Build an international career within a leading Engineering Group

What we can offer

We are committed to giving you opportunities to be your best. We believe in embracing the passion and potential of our people, and to achieve this we offer market leading training, development and experiences, along with the opportunity to be mentored and coached by some of the smartest minds in the industry. We hire from within as our first priority, so you’ll have a myriad of opportunities within our diverse, global organisation.

Our packages will include bonus, a strong pension contribution, private healthcare, development focused targets and relocation support can be provided if required along with a variety of learning, development and career enhancement opportunities. Further support can be provided towards academic and membership attainments.

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

Join Thales in the UK – Innovate with us and shape the future!