Senior / Principal Insurance Ontologist

Senior / Principal Insurance Ontologist – OWL, RDF, JSON-LD | London Hybrid | Permanent or Contract

Location: London (Hybrid)  Job Type: Permanent / FTE or Contract (Subcontractor)  Salary / Rate: Market standard (depending on experience)  Industry: Insurance

We are hiring an experienced Insurance Ontologist to support the development of a canonical enterprise insurance ontology covering underwriting, policy, coverage, claims, product taxonomy, and reinsurance.

This is a hands-on ontology engineering role, not a traditional data modelling position. The successful candidate will work closely with underwriters, claims specialists, actuaries, architects, and AI/data engineering teams to create and govern machine-readable insurance semantics used across knowledge graphs, AI/RAG applications, analytics, and regulatory reporting.

Key responsibilities

• Design and extend enterprise insurance ontologies using OWL 2, RDF, and RDFS

• Define classes, properties, relationships, restrictions, and named individuals

• Work extensively with JSON-LD and Turtle serializations

• Translate business concepts from underwriting, claims, and product SMEs into formal ontology definitions

• Map source data structures (SQL, XML/XSD, Excel, JSON schemas) to ontology terms

• Establish and maintain ontology governance standards including naming conventions, namespaces, cardinality, and deprecation policies

• Support semantic integration for knowledge graphs, LLM/RAG pipelines, and BI semantic layers

• Maintain provenance and auditability using PROV-O

• Contribute to ontology tooling, validation, and release processes

Required skills and experience

• 4+ years of hands-on ontology engineering experience

• Strong knowledge of OWL 2, RDF, RDFS, and SPARQL

• Proficiency in JSON-LD, Turtle, or RDF/XML

• Experience mapping source schemas and explaining ontology design decisions

• Familiarity with at least one upper or mid-level ontology such as gist, FIBO, BFO, PROV-O, or Dublin Core

• Ability to communicate complex ontology concepts in clear business language

• Excellent written documentation skills

Highly desirable

• Strong insurance domain knowledge (commercial or consumer insurance)

• Experience with FIBO or ACORD standards

• Knowledge of SHACL for constraint validation

• Experience with provenance modelling patterns

• Exposure to ontologies used in AI, knowledge graphs, or RAG solutions

• Python scripting for ontology tooling or automation

Important note

We are specifically looking for candidates who understand the difference between traditional data modelling and ontology engineering. Experience working with JSON structures, semantic modelling, and schema-to-ontology mapping will be highly valued.

Why apply?

• Opportunity to shape the semantic backbone of a large-scale insurance platform

• Work on cutting-edge AI, knowledge graph, and semantic architecture initiatives

• Flexible engagement model: Permanent or Contract

• Hybrid London working with collaborative architecture and business teams

If you have deep expertise in insurance semantics, OWL/RDF, and JSON-LD and want to work on a strategic enterprise ontology programme, we would like to hear from you.