PhD AI Internship - 6 or 12 months (2026 or 2027 start)

The Role

We have an exciting opportunity for an internship within our AI & Algorithms department. This placement can be between 6- and 12-months duration with a flexible start date across 2026 or 2027, and is suitable for PhD and Masters students who have completed their first year of study.

As an AI & Algorithms Engineer (PhD Intern), you’ll have the opportunity to get involved with a range of diverse projects working and supported by a talented team of experts and mentors. You'll engage in hands-on tasks such as modelling, training, testing, and data-wrangling. With cutting-edge labs and computing resources at your disposal, you'll use technology to solve problems in the real world.

What you’ll be doing

• Working alongside our engineers building AI systems, developing your skills through hands-on coding and training/testing models.
• Supporting projects for our clients to solve real-world problems.
• Learning software development skills in mixed-discipline teams, attending stand-ups and contributing to planning sessions.
• Contributing to our internal research and development programs, building on state-of-the-art AI literature to produce our own, market-leading solutions and compelling demonstrations that showcase our expertise to clients.
• Communicating the results of your work to your colleagues and clients.

What you can bring

We are looking for someone with a degree in a relevant subject, such as AI/machine learning, computer science, mathematics, physics or theoretical physics, and currently studying towards a relevant PhD or Master’s.

You will also have:

• Interest in applying AI and algorithmic techniques to real-world problems.
• Strong Python programming skills and understanding of modern version control (e.g. Git)
• Demonstrable research experience in a data-driven field (such as project work, conference proceedings, journals publications).

Some projects at Cambridge Consultants are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to obtain a Security Check (SC) level security clearance ( United Kingdom Security Vetting: Applicant ). You must be able to work in the UK without restrictions in accordance with UK National Law and be prepared to successfully undertake an appropriate level of UK National Security Vetting according to UK Government National Security Vetting criteria.

Please be aware that, for roles requiring Security Check clearance, applicants will typically need to have been continuously resident in the UK for a minimum of 5 years immediately prior to applying for this role in order to meet the requirements for Security Check (SC) clearance.

While not essential requirements, we would also be very interested if you have experience with any of the following:

• Information science, Bayesian statistics
• Signal processing
• Bioinformatics
• Reinforcement learning
• Transformer and diffusion models
• Robotics (including VLA models)
• Edge compute

Why Cambridge Consultants?

Cambridge Consultants creates exciting and novel breakthroughs in technology and products. Our work on intelligent systems area has helped create world-first and market-changing technologies including real-time AI-enhanced medical imaging, autonomous defence systems against cyberattacks, and edge algorithms to help visually impaired people navigate indoor spaces. We combine our research output with engineering rigour to create innovative and robust solutions to solve complex problems presented to us by our clients.

We help clients across a diverse range of markets, including defence/security, healthcare, biotech, industrial and energy, so there is no shortage of variety.

At the heart of what we do are talented and motivated multi-disciplinary teams empowered to create cutting edge technologies and systems to solve difficult problems for our clients. We offer a diverse, fun, and challenging work environment where you'll have the chance to work on a wide variety of projects that deliver real value using technology.

We recognise and celebrate individual talent and we understand the importance of letting individuals be just that. Our people are here to do the best work of their lives and our job is to provide the platform for them to do it.