Data & AI
recruitment.

Data & AI recruitment

Hexford’s Data and AI practice places senior data engineering, ML, analytics, and AI leadership across the UK and EMEA. We work with scale-ups building AI-native products, enterprises consolidating or modernising data estates, and the small but growing community of specialist AI companies operating at the frontier.

The practice is led by Anya Petrova from our Edinburgh office, with senior coverage in London. It is, by some margin, our fastest-growing practice — reflecting where the market is moving.

Where we focus

We are most active in three areas. Senior data leadership — Heads of Data, CDOs, VPs of Data Platform, and the principal-level individual contributors who set technical direction in serious data organisations. ML and AI leadership — VP-level ML, Heads of AI, founding ML hires for AI-first companies, and the deeply technical IC hires that anchor production ML organisations. Analytics and BI leadership — for organisations where analytics is a real strategic capability rather than a reporting function.

We deliberately do not work on generic “data science” roles where the brief is unclear. We will help clients clarify the brief if needed, but the work we do is most useful when the role is genuinely senior and the technical bar is genuinely high.

How we work

The Data and AI market has unusual dynamics. Top-tier ML and AI talent is genuinely scarce, increasingly mobile, and increasingly aware of its market value. We have spent the past four years building deep relationships in this community across the UK, EMEA, and the US — relationships that are not, and cannot be, replicated by a database search.

For senior briefs we work on a retained or partially-retained basis. Process runs eight to twelve weeks for VP-level roles; longer for genuinely scarce technical leadership. Shortlists are curated, briefing is substantive, and the partner who takes the brief stays with it through to offer.

Who to talk to

Anya Petrova leads the practice from Edinburgh. For any senior Data or AI brief, Anya is the right first conversation. Marcus Chen in London also takes senior data leadership briefs where the role spans Data and Technology.