Overview

Join to apply for the Manager - Lead AI Engineer role at KPMG UK.

Location: London plus network of 20 offices nationally; remote/hybrid arrangements may be discussed.
Note: The role involves significant time at client sites or KPMG offices.

Job Details

Location: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Reading, South Coast - Southampton, Watford

Capability: Audit
Experience Level: Manager
Type: Full Time
Service Line: Central Audit
Contract type: Permanent

What you will do

• Lead the technical delivery of AI projects within your squad, collaborating with data scientists, engineers, developers, cloud architects, and audit professionals to create scalable AI systems that improve audit quality, efficiency, and insights.
• Develop robust proof-of-concepts to enterprise-grade solutions, applying AI engineering expertise, cloud platforms, and technologies such as Generative AI, Azure, and Databricks to embed intelligence into critical audit workflows.
• Mentor junior engineers, promote best practices, and foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement; stay at the forefront of AI engineering trends and drive knowledge-sharing across technology and audit domains.
• Work with cross-functional teams to ensure AI capabilities are smoothly embedded within core audit platforms and services.
• Contribute to internal capability-building initiatives within the Audit Technology function.

Responsibilities

• Lead by example in a hands-on capacity, contributing to codebases and technical decisions while mentoring junior engineers.
• Develop and deploy production-grade AI systems tailored to audit applications; contribute to architectural decisions and solution governance.
• Own the implementation of ML pipelines, APIs, and data integration workflows.
• Define reusable development patterns, enforce coding standards, and implement MLOps best practices for version control, performance optimization, and maintainability.
• Collaborate with data scientists, product managers, platform engineers, and QA teams to align technical requirements and delivery timelines.
• Share practical AI techniques within the team to adopt and adapt AI effectively.

What you will need to do it

Minimum Requirements

• Significant professional experience in backend development as a Senior role.
• Strong proficiency in Python with hands-on experience in asynchronous programming, concurrency and multithreading.
• Experience building and integrating APIs; knowledge of OpenAPI/Swagger, RESTful design, authentication/authorization standards; Microsoft Graph API familiarity is a plus.

Experience & Knowledge

• Knowledge of generative AI, machine learning, deep learning, NLP or related AI fields.
• Proven track record designing, developing, and deploying AI systems in production.
• Proficient in Python and ML libraries (PyTorch, PySpark, scikit-learn, Hugging Face Transformers).
• Experience with Azure ML, Databricks, MLflow, LangChain, LangGraph.
• Git, version control, unit testing, and containerisation; familiarity with Jira and Confluence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor (preferably master or PhD) in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Statistics, Engineering, or related field.
• Advanced certifications in AI, ML, cloud computing, or data engineering are advantageous.
• Professional accounting qualification is desirable but not required.

Locations

Core tech hubs for this role: Glasgow, Leeds, London Canary Wharf, Manchester. We have 20 sites across the UK and offer flexible arrangements; discuss your needs with our team.

Additional information

For more information about applying, find guidance with our recruitment team after you apply, create a profile, and upload your CV.