These roles can put you at the centre of how organisations use AI, software and data to create products, automate work, make decisions and compete.
Opportunity market
AI, Data & Software
Indicative UK base £100k–£180k
Few career areas currently offer the same combination of technical challenge, business influence and opportunity to build systems that did not meaningfully exist a few years ago.
The work
What these roles usually involve.
You could be defining an AI strategy, taking advanced systems into production, designing architecture used at serious scale, building a data platform that changes how a company operates or leading the engineering organisation responsible for a critical product.
The attraction is not simply working with newer technology. At senior level, you get to make the difficult decisions: what should be built, which technical bets are worth taking, how systems should scale, where cost and reliability matter most and how technical capability becomes commercial value.
Career impact
What successful contribution can look like.
Success could mean launching an AI product into production, solving a scaling problem that unlocks growth, dramatically improving reliability, reducing infrastructure cost, transforming engineering velocity or building a technical organisation capable of delivering much more ambitious products.
Relevant experience often combines strong technical depth with ownership of production systems, complex architecture, technical direction, organisational influence and measurable impact.
Typical opportunities include Head or Director of AI, Principal or Staff Engineer, Head of Data and Engineering Director.
Indicative UK base salaries range from around £100k to £180k, with exceptional technology packages extending significantly through bonus and equity.
These paths can lead towards VP Engineering, VP AI, CTO, Chief AI Officer, distinguished engineering leadership and wider product or technology ownership.
Explore AI, Data & Software opportunities with Prime Pick Recruitment.
Geography & scope
Where this market operates.
UK-wide and selected international appointments across applied AI, data platforms and software engineering.
Role profiles
Explore roles at this level.
Head / Director of AI
£100k–£180k baseOwn AI strategy, production deployment, technical direction, team leadership, governance and commercial adoption.
View role profilePrincipal / Staff Engineer
£100k–£150k baseDrive architecture, technical standards and the hardest cross-team engineering decisions while remaining technically credible.
View role profileHead of Data
£100k–£140k baseOwn data platform, strategy, governance, analytics enablement and senior data teams.
View role profileEngineering Director
£120k–£160k baseLead multiple engineering teams, engineering strategy, delivery, organisation design, budgets and product alignment.
View role profileSelective representation
Be known for the scale of what you deliver.
Register your interestExceptional AI and high-growth technology packages can extend higher through bonus and equity. These are indicative market role profiles. Specific live vacancies are shown separately when an employer mandate exists.