Senior Counsel, Artificial Intelligence & Data Privacy

Company Description

Work with Us. Change the World.

At AECOM, we're delivering a better world. Whether improving your commute, keeping the lights on, providing access to clean water, or transforming skylines, our work helps people and communities thrive. We are the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, partnering with clients to solve the world’s most complex challenges and build legacies for future generations.

There has never been a better time to be at AECOM. With accelerating infrastructure investment worldwide, our services are in great demand. We invite you to bring your bold ideas and big dreams and become part of a global team of over 50,000 planners, designers, engineers, scientists, digital innovators, program and construction managers and other professionals delivering projects that create a positive and tangible impact around the world.

We're one global team driven by our common purpose to deliver a better world. Join us.

Job Description

The Senior Counsel, Artificial Intelligence & Data Privacy will lead and advise on global data protection and AI governance across the global jurisdictions in which AECOM operates, ensuring compliance with international privacy laws and emerging AI regulation, mitigating legal risk and supporting responsible innovation. 

The role is also the embedded legal partner to AECOM's AI Engineering teams located across Europe. It helps those teams develop and deploy AI-driven products quickly while protecting AECOM's intellectual property, its clients and the people whose data it handles, giving clear, practical answers and streamlining the legal review and compliance process. 

The postholder will be the gateway and quarterback between the AI teams and the wider global AECOM legal team, and a senior, business-facing partner to leaders across the business. A cultural fit with the AI teams is essential, and a technology or product background is valued. 

1. Lead product counsel embedded within AI development teams 

• Act as the embedded legal partner to the AI Engineering teams across the whole product lifecycle, managing legal design and compliance issues, and making pragmatic, risk-based calls rather than adding process. 

• Build self-service playbooks, decision guides, standard templates and pre-approved positions so that engineers and product teams can get most answers without waiting for legal review. 

• Support product launches into new markets with fast, risk-based guidance on local legal requirements, product terms and AI transparency obligations. 

• Advise on the IP position of AI development, including rights to training data, model and dataset licenses, open-weight model license terms (use restrictions and attribution), open-source software compliance, and ownership of AI-generated outputs. 

• Protect clients' confidential information and IP by setting clear rules for how client construction information may be used, including for model training and fine-tuning, and ensuring product behavior matches AECOM's contractual commitments. 

• Provide generalized legal support to the AI teams, including review & negotiation of vendor and other commercial agreements, contracts, and provide advice and counsel on general legal matters where needed. 

• Act as gateway and quarterback between the AI teams and the wider global legal team: bring in the right internal specialists, leadership at all levels, and external counsel across jurisdictions, and keep spend proportionate to the risk. 

• Guide the legal team and senior stakeholders on privacy, AI governance and regulatory developments, and give strategic advice on integrating privacy and AI compliance into product development and operations. 

• Lead and coordinate legal professionals within the AECOM legal function with full or partial responsibility for related tasks and deliverables. 

2. Global privacy and AI regulatory compliance 

• Advise on global privacy laws, including GDPR and UK GDPR, US federal and state laws such as CCPA/CPRA, LGPD in Brazil, PIPEDA in Canada, the Australian and New Zealand Privacy Acts, and key Asian regimes such as Singapore's PDPA. Advise on lawful basis, DPIAs, cross-border transfers and data residency. 

• Advise on AI regulation and governance, including the EU AI Act, UK AI principles, emerging US federal and state AI rules, and emerging risk frameworks, turning them into practical requirements that teams can build into their normal way of working. 

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of the company's privacy and AI governance frameworks, policies and procedures. 

• Conduct Data Protection Impact Assessments and AI Impact Assessments for new projects and technologies, and recommend technical and organizational measures to mitigate privacy and AI-related risks. 

• Establish procedures to respond to client AI-related requests and restrictions, ensuring contractual and regulatory obligations are met promptly and effectively. 

• Track and interpret legal and regulatory developments and enforcement trends in AI, IP and data protection across AECOM's markets, and brief internal stakeholders on what matters and what needs action. 

• Represent the company in regulatory inquiries and investigations related to data privacy and AI. 

• Deliver privacy and AI governance training to employees and business units and promote a culture of privacy and responsible AI by design and default. 

Qualifications

• A senior, experienced, qualified lawyer, with a law degree and admission in a relevant jurisdiction. 

• Deep knowledge of GDPR, UK GDPR and US privacy laws, with experience of cross-border data transfers, and of emerging AI regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act and how they apply to products in practice. 

• Deep expertise in intellectual property and technology commercial work, including software, data and technology licensing, SaaS, enterprise client and vendor agreements, and open-source license compliance. 

• Hands-on experience advising on AI products, including training data rights, model licensing and AI-specific contract terms. 

• Strong drafting, negotiation and advisory skills. 

• Ability to manage complex, cross-border projects and orchestrate legal support across multiple jurisdictions, working with in-house specialists and external counsel, and to communicate effectively with senior stakeholders. 

• A track record of working at pace in fast-moving product or engineering teams, explaining legal risk clearly and pragmatically, and giving straight answers that enable delivery rather than block it. A technology or product background is valued, and a cultural fit with the AI teams is needed. 

• Experience in a large global organization, working across regions, business units and enterprise governance and compliance processes. 

Preferred 

• Certifications such as CIPP/E, CIPP/US, CIPM, IAPP AIGP or other AI governance credentials. 

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities. 

• Experience with patent strategy for software or machine learning inventions. 

• Familiarity with the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector, including how design and construction information is owned and licensed. 

• Technical literacy in how machine learning models and LLMs are trained, fine-tuned and deployed, including the difference between hosted and self-hosted models. 

Additional Information

At AECOM, we are committed to maintaining a secure and trustworthy recruitment process and take any fraudulent hiring activity seriously. To support this commitment, all newly hired employees are required to attend an in-person Day 1 onboarding at an AECOM office location as a condition of employment.

About AECOM

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity 

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation, benefits and well-being programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We’re the world’s trusted global infrastructure firm, and we’re in this together – your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you’ll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm – access to industry-leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and will offer an interview to applicants who have a disability or long-term condition, who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role. Please let us know using this email address ReasonableAccommodationsUKI@aecom.com  if you would like to apply through the Disability Confident Interview Scheme.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.