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AI Hiring for UK Companies

Digitalent, the AI/ML executive search firm, places AI and machine learning specialists into UK companies, and increasingly the software engineers who make an existing engineering organisation work AI-natively. 100+ of our 500+ AI/ML placements since January 2021 have been in the UK.

Get in touchRecent placements

The UK at Digitalent

The UK at Digitalent

100+

UK AI placements since January 2021

5+

years with our longest-running UK client

90%+

still in post after 12 months

By market
300+ US, 100+ UK, 100+ Australia
By seniority
200+ executive and leadership hires, 300+ senior individual contributors
Brief to shortlist
approx. one week
Brief to offer
approx. three weeks for a permanent (full-time) hire, approx. one week for a contract hire
Led from
Manchester
Also placing in
UK-wide, including London, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bristol
UK entity
Digitalent Recruitment Limited

Figures updated August 2026.

Cities

Hiring in a specific UK city

Each city is a different hiring problem, so the detail lives on its own page.

We work UK-wide from the same desk. If you are hiring in Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh or anywhere else, the process on this page is the process.

Two kinds of hire

What we place in the UK

Two things, and most clients eventually need both: the specialists who build AI, and the engineers who work with it every day.

AI and machine learning specialists.

Software engineers who work AI-natively.

  • Software Engineers and Senior Software Engineers who build with AI-accelerated engineering tooling as standard
  • Engineers who can raise the bar for a team already mid-transformation
  • Technical leads who can take an existing engineering organisation with them

The shift

Hiring for an AI transformation

Most established companies do not need an AI research team. They need their existing engineering organisation to work differently, and some new people who already do.

The hard part is that this is a new category. There is no job title that reliably identifies an engineer who has genuinely changed how they build, no established pool to search, and nothing on a CV that separates someone who works this way from someone who has tried the tools once.

So we test for it rather than infer it. We work this way ourselves, which is why our questions get past the tooling and into the habits. An engineer who has genuinely changed how they build talks about it differently from one who installed the tools and carried on as before, and that difference is audible inside ten minutes if you know what you are listening for.

Case studies

Recent UK work

Two UK engagements, both with established companies, both hiring a team rather than one role at a time.

Full AI team build, from the leader down, at PE Limited (Petex)

PE Limited, also known as Petex, a software company in Guildford, built its AI function from scratch through Digitalent: the AI Lead first, then the four people who would report to them.

A team build has a sequencing problem an individual hire does not. The AI Lead had to be right first, because everyone after them would be their hire and their responsibility. Then the appointed lead had a three-month notice period, so the other four searches ran before they had started, with the CEO as hiring manager and nobody yet in the building to define what good looked like. Everyone works five days a week from Guildford, which narrowed all five searches to people already nearby or genuinely willing to move.

Five hires, from the AI Lead through to the engineers and data scientists reporting to them. The company went from no in-house AI capability to a working function.

Chris and the Digitalent team were instrumental in helping us to build our first AI team from the ground up... they found people we wouldn't have reached on our own.

Greg GrimshawCEO, PE Limited
Client
PE Limited, also known as Petex
Stage
Privately held, established
Location
Guildford, Surrey
Roles
AI Lead (the hiring manager for everything below), Senior AI/ML Engineer, Two Data Scientists, Senior Software Engineer

AI-native software engineers across PA Media Group

PA Media Group, the 150-year-old news and media group, hired software engineers who work AI-natively across its StreamAMG, Podium and Alamy brands, as part of moving an engineering organisation of more than 100 people to AI-accelerated ways of working.

The brief was not for AI specialists. It was for software engineers who already work AI-natively, using AI-accelerated engineering tooling as a normal part of how they build. That is a new enough category that there is no established pool to search, no title that reliably identifies it, and no conventional way to screen for it. A CV does not tell you whether someone has genuinely changed how they work or has simply used the tools once.

Engineers placed across two brands within the group, as part of a wider programme moving more than 100 software engineers towards working natively with AI.

Client
PA Media Group, including StreamAMG, Podium and Alamy
Stage
Established, 150 years old
Location
Manchester, Leeds and London
Roles
Software Engineers, Senior Software Engineers

Process

How a UK search runs

Brief to shortlist is approx. one week, and brief to offer is approx. three weeks on a permanent (full-time) hire.

Chris Morrow leads UK searches personally. In recruitment since August 2005, sixteen of those years in software recruitment, and working exclusively on AI/ML since 2021. AWS Certified AI Practitioner, and a BSc in Information Systems from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The firm contracts through Digitalent Recruitment Limited, registered in England and Wales.

Contract and interim work runs to approx. one week from brief to offer, including IR35 status conversations where they apply.

Commercials

Fees

We work retained or contingent, and we will tell you which one suits the role before you commit to either.

Retained. A third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement. Suits executive and leadership hires, and niche briefs where the search is genuinely labour-intensive.

Contingent. Payable when the candidate signs their employment contract, or on their start date. Our standard arrangement for permanent (full-time) roles.

Synergy. A small non-refundable deposit, offset against the final fee. Also for permanent (full-time) roles rather than contract.

FAQ

UK hiring: frequently asked questions

Where in the UK do you place?
UK-wide, with 100+ UK AI/ML placements to date. We have clients in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bristol, and we also work with UK companies hiring remotely across Europe.
What is Digitalent's legal entity in the UK?
Digitalent Recruitment Limited, company number 10894480, registered in England and Wales.
How quickly can you deliver a shortlist?
Brief to shortlist is approx. one week. Brief to offer is approx. three weeks for a permanent (full-time) hire and approx. one week for a contract hire.
Do you work retained or contingent?
Both, and they buy different things. Retained buys a full market map, direct approaches to people who are not looking, and sustained work on your brief alone, with the fee split in thirds: a third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement. Contingent works the reachable market quickly, with no fee until you hire someone. Payable when the candidate signs their employment contract, or on their start date. Retained suits scarce and senior hires; contingent suits most permanent (full-time) roles.

Hiring AI talent in the UK?

Whether that is a specialist team or engineers who can work AI-natively from day one, tell us the role and we will tell you what the market looks like.

Get in touch

Hiring in the US, the UK or Australia? You will reach the person who runs searches in that market.