The Standard
Can anyone certify you as an AI ethicist yet?
- EN 18274 due to be published by CEN (26pp)expected September 2026, not yet confirmed
- Standardisation mandate M/593confirmed
- BSI, Bureau Veritas, DNV, Infocert listed as certifierssponsored listing
- An accredited EN 18274 scheme you can sit todaynot confirmed
Those bodies appear under “get certified”, but as paid listings. A sponsored listing tells you a body is interested, not that a national accreditation body has approved a scheme. When one is genuinely live, this line will change, and it will be dated.
EN 18274: competence requirements for professional AI ethicists.
A European standard that sets out what a competent AI ethicist should know, be able to do, and hold to, expressed as knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and grounded in European values and fundamental rights. Here are the public facts, kept current.
The standard, still in draft ahead of formal publication, is already careful about what it is. It calls itself “intended to serve as a basis for the development of a certification scheme.” A basis, not the scheme itself. That is the gap this whole page tracks.
The three domains
Knowledge
What an ethicist must understand: European values and fundamental rights, the AI lifecycle, and the line between what is legal and what is ethical.
Skills
What they must be able to do: manage trade-offs, mediate dilemmas, assess societal impact, and communicate risk to very different audiences.
Attitudes
How they must carry it: independence, confidentiality, the willingness to raise an objection, and to use whistle-blowing channels when needed.
What the role covers
The standard frames the ethicist as an adviser who guides an organisation through ethical risk across the whole AI lifecycle: managing ethical trade-offs, analysing policy and mediating dilemmas, raising awareness and delivering training, developing ethical frameworks and guidelines, and conducting societal and ethical impact assessments. It also expects the role to reach beyond individual decisions, helping embed those same values into how the organisation actually operates day to day, its culture, not just its policy documents. Our gap report is built around these same areas.