Executive Assistant - Sovereign AI Unit

London, Manchester, Birmingham. If based in Manchester and Birmingham, you will be required to travel to London 1x a week. Travel will be reimbursed.

Job Summary In January 2025, the Prime Minister launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan, placing artificial intelligence at the centre of the UK’s economic and national security strategy. The Sovereign AI Fund sits at the heart of this mission, with a clear mandate: to identify, back and scale the companies that will define the UK’s position in one of the most consequential technologies of our time.

Backed by up to £500 million, the Fund exists to turn ambition into action, supporting high-potential AI startups and scaleups to become national champions and strengthening the UK’s sovereign capability in frontier AI.

We are hiring an Executive Assistant to support the Managing Partner and Chair of Sovereign AI.

This is a role for an individual who has been a trusted partner to high agency teams. You have strong judgment, discretion, and stakeholder management skills, and the proven ability to run complex calendars and travel, manage competing priorities, coordinate board/ministerial-level engagements, and build scalable operating rhythms. Ultimately, you are highly organised, proactive, and outcomes-focused and are genuinely excited by the mission of SovAI.

Job Description Key responsibilities:

• Provide high-level executive support to enable effective leadership, governance, and execution of the Sovereign AI Fund’s strategic agendas.
• Executive support: End-to-end management of diary, email triage (as delegated), meeting logistics, follow-ups, and action tracking.
• Prioritisation & workflow: Manage competing priorities, anticipate needs, and ensure deadlines and deliverables are met.
• Governance & meeting management: Prepare agendas, board/steering papers support, packs, minutes/records of decision, and action registers.
• Travel & events: Arrange complex domestic/international travel, itineraries, expenses, and executive-level events.
• Confidentiality & risk: Handle sensitive information with discretion; maintain document control and secure filing systems.
• Operations management: improvement: Establish/maintain operating cadence (weekly priorities, check-ins, templates)
• Using AI tools: competent and comfortable using AI tools to automate processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide high-level executive support to enable effective leadership, governance, and execution of the Sovereign AI Fund’s strategic agendas.
• Executive support: End-to-end management of diary, email triage (as delegated), meeting logistics, follow-ups, and action tracking.
• Prioritisation & workflow: Manage competing priorities, anticipate needs, and ensure deadlines and deliverables are met.
• Governance & meeting management: Prepare agendas, board/steering papers support, packs, minutes/records of decision, and action registers.
• Travel & events: Arrange complex domestic/international travel, itineraries, expenses, and executive-level events.
• Confidentiality & risk: Handle sensitive information with discretion; maintain document control and secure filing systems.
• Operations management: improvement: Establish/maintain operating cadence (weekly priorities, check-ins, templates)
• Using AI tools: competent and comfortable using AI tools to automate processes.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Executive calendar management and prioritisation in dynamic environments
• High discretion, confidentiality, and sound judgment
• Meeting governance: agendas, packs, minutes, action registers
• Project coordination and task tracking across multiple streams
• Travel planning and expense management
• Event coordination (executive meetings, roundtables, delegations)
• Process improvement and building repeatable admin systems

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

Alongside your salary of £36,735, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £10,642 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automa…