AI & ML Engineer (Cybersecurity)
At a glance
Mid-level Machine Learning Engineering role at Accenture. Cheltenham · full-time · no salary stated · we estimate £60,000–£97,524 across the United Kingdom.
Accenture has not published a salary for this role. The figure below is our estimate, not theirs.
aimlroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Build and maintain AI agents and LLM workflows that connect with security tools to speed up threat detection and response
- Tune language models for security tasks using prompts, retrieval, and tool calling, then measure their performance
- Protect AI workflows from hostile inputs and design them around secure, modular, scalable development practices
- Apply governance controls for data, audit trails, human review and compliance, while managing model and infrastructure costs
- Work with security engineers and SOC analysts to shape prototypes, refine them from feedback and document the results
What you bring
- At least two years working in AI or machine learning engineering
- Production experience delivering AI agents or LLM applications, with evaluation and monitoring built in
- Practical experience with an enterprise AI platform such as Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex AI
- You have built RAG pipelines and document-processing flows, including ingestion and retrieval decisions
- You understand LLM security risks, enterprise governance, REST APIs and building custom tools for models
Who this fits
This mid-level engineering role suits someone who combines practical LLM development with a security-first approach and collaborative problem solving. The job is based in Cheltenham, with office attendance twice a month. Any offer depends on BPSS and SC clearance, requiring five continuous years of UK address history when you apply, typically without spending thirty consecutive days or more outside the UK.
From the employer
Role title: AI & ML Engineer (Cybersecurity)
Location: Cheltenham (2x a month in the office- hybrid working)
Salary: Competitive salary and package (Depending on level of experience)
Please Note: Any offer of employment is subject to satisfactory BPSS and SC security clearance which requires 5 years continuous UK address history (typically including no periods of 30 consecutive days or more spent outside of the UK) at the point of application.
The above information relates to a specific client requirement'
Responsible for developing and optimising AI agents and LLM-powered applications that drive the maturation of Accenture’s Security Operation Centre (SOC) offerings. Working closely with security engineers and SOC analysts, the AI/ML Engineer will design, build, and operationalise AI-powered workflows that integrate with our security tooling, to accelerate detection and response. We are at a critical inflection point within defensive cyber operations; the use of AI to counter the rapidly evolving threat landscape is the mission, and we are looking for innovative and passionate people to support this effort. You will bring strong engineering rigour and a security-first mindset to everything you build.
Responsibilities:
- LLM Configuration: Configure, evaluate, and tune large language models for security use cases; including prompt engineering, system prompt design, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and tool/function calling.
- Agent Development: Design, build, and maintain AI agents and agentic workflows using platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, integrating with security toolsets such as SOAR, SIEM, and EDR.
- Secure Configuration: Implement safeguards to protect against adversarial inputs, including prompt injection and jailbreaks, ensuring AI systems meet robust security standards.
- System Architecture: Architect AI solutions that are modular, maintainable, and built to scale, adhering to secure development principles.
- Governance: Implement solutions in line with our AI governance framework, encompassing factors such as data handling, audit logging, human-in-the-loop controls, and regulatory compliance.
- Cost Management: Monitor and optimise LLM API usage and infrastructure costs, implementing strategies such as caching, model tiering, and guardrails to ensure solutions are economically viable.
- Collaboration: Work closely with key stakeholders to understand operational pain points, prototype solutions, and iterate based on feedback.
- Documentation: Produce clear technical documentation to support effective ongoing management of developed capabilities.
We are looking for the following skills and experience:
- 2+ years of experience within AI/ML engineering.
- Hands-on experience building and deploying AI agents or LLM-powered applications in production environments, and the implementation of appropriate observability and evaluation mechanisms.
- Practical experience with enterprise AI platforms, such as Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex AI.
- Strong understanding of LLM concepts and vector databases: context windows, temperature and sampling parameters, system prompts, tool/function calling.
- Experience of implementing RAG pipelines end-to-end, including data ingestion, chunking strategies, embedding model selection, and retrieval tuning.
- Experience of implementing parsing pipelines for tasks such as document processing / ingestion, including handling unstructured data.
- Demonstrable knowledge of AI security risks (familiarity with OWASP LLM Top 10), and how these can be mitigated.
- Experience working within enterprise governance frameworks.
- Proficiency in one or more languages (such as Python), and familiarity with common AI/ML libraries. Ability to build custom tools that can interact with, or be exposed to LLMs.
- Strong understanding of REST APIs, and the ability to integrate AI solutions with third-party platforms and internal tooling.
- Experience of deploying infrastructure-as-code is advantageous.
- Knowledge of typical enterprise security tooling (such as SOAR, SIEM and EDR) is advantageous.
- Collaborative and engaging approach to problem solving, and a willingness to work as part of the team.
- Passionate for diversity, recognising the innovation and competitive edge that comes from a diverse highly skilled team where equal opportunities are truly valued.
- A problem-solver, always seeking the best solution for the right outcome.
- Self-motivated, results-focussed, pragmatic with the ability to manage conflicting deadlines and prioritise.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 791,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities.Visit us at www.accenture.com
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by applicable law. Our rich diversity makes us more innovative, more competitive, and more creative, which helps us better serve our clients and our communities.