As part of our spotlight on experts within the Plymouth and South Devon region we spoke to Sheldon Ryan, Chief Executive of Maritime UK Southwest, about the organisation’s role in the region, how it turns collaboration into tangible economic impact, and what the future holds for the South West’s maritime and defence cluster.
In simple terms, what role does Maritime UK Southwest play within the Freeport ecosystem?
We’re a convener. The Plymouth and South Devon ecosystem is full of small, highly innovative businesses spread across the region, alongside a smaller number of large manufacturers. The challenge is that geographic dispersion, brilliant companies doing brilliant work, but not always visible to each other or to the people who could invest in them. We act as a magnet, pulling those entities together so they can collaborate, attract investment, and access funding opportunities they might not find on their own.
How does that convening role translate into real impact?
We think about impact across three connected strands. The first is collaboration itself, bringing people together through events like the Ocean Tech Expo and through regular newsletters, which helps drive uptake of government support and strengthens innovation networks across the sector.
The second is strategic projects. Our network and cluster have championed maritime issues in ways that have directly supported the formation of major initiatives, the Plymouth and South Devon Freeport, the North Devon Innovation Centre, and the National Centre for Marine Autonomy among them. Right now, we’re focused on establishing a UK-first green corridor for clean fuel shipping.
The third strand is lobbying. The official designation of the National Centre for Marine Autonomy came after years of sustained advocacy. We also lobby on regulatory barriers facing marine autonomy and on investment in defence, both of which feed directly into the broader economic picture for the region.
Can you point to a specific example of that impact?
One of the clearest is the £7 million in funding we helped attract through the Great Southwest Innovate UK Launchpad programme, which is dedicated to the maritime sector. It gave local businesses vital support to secure funding and tap into regional resources that would otherwise have been harder to reach.
That funding doesn’t just sit there, either, it gets put to work. At our Ocean Tech Expo in June, around ten of the businesses we’d helped fund presented their work to an audience of 400 businesses. That’s the model: secure the funding, then make sure the innovation gets seen.
What makes the Freeport specifically valuable to that ecosystem?
The Freeport acts as a place-based anchor for related sectors, defence, aerospace, maritime, in a way that simply wouldn’t exist without it. It creates a high-growth cluster that gives those sectors a shared home, and that proximity is a big part of what makes collaboration possible in the first place.
Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities for the region?
There are several globally significant clusters that line up well with the Freeport’s key sectors: the offshore wind supply chain, ocean technologies, defence, marine autonomous systems, and clean maritime. All of them represent serious potential for the South West.
Skills and workforce development are critical to long-term success. How are you contributing to building local capability for the future?
Honestly, the bigger issue isn’t a lack of training, it’s visibility. People don’t always know these career opportunities exist here, so talent drifts off to London or Bristol.
We tackle that through our key sectors and centres of excellence, offshore wind being a good example, where we’re helping build the supply chain capability and skills pipeline the South West needs as floating wind development ramps up in the Celtic Sea. Alongside that, we’ve built a dedicated careers and diversity offer: a quarterly peer-to-peer network meeting for businesses covering skills and careers issues, company case-study videos, links to maritime training providers, and support organising work experience. Diversity matters here too, which is why we run a Women in Maritime Network. Full details of what’s on offer are on our support for businesses page.
On the talent-pipeline side, we distribute “Navigator,” our South West maritime careers magazine, through careers hubs, schools, careers fairs and Job Centre Plus, alongside video content and virtual work experience courses developed with Springpod. It’s aimed at young people and their parents and covers everything from marine manufacturing and shipbuilding to marine science and protecting ocean wildlife, the goal is simply to show people the breadth of what’s actually available here. More on that at Considering a Career in Maritime.
What misconceptions do you come across most often about building a career in the region?
The one we hear a lot is that the South West is a bit of a “career graveyard” good for sailing or surfing but not much else. That’s just not true. There’s a high density of high-value businesses here in fields like marine autonomy and defence, offering genuinely competitive salaries and strong career trajectories. Part of our job is simply making sure that story gets told.
What does meaningful collaboration actually look like, in practice?
For us, it means doing things together that no single organisation could pull off alone. Projects like Smart Sound and the Centre for Marine Autonomy are good examples, collaborative efforts that create an offering genuinely greater than the sum of its parts.
Looking five to ten years ahead, what’s the vision?
We want an ecosystem that attracts high-value businesses and, in doing so, lifts regional productivity and employment prospects. A big part of that is building the region’s “sovereign capability”, strengthening our manufacturing base and technical industrial output so the South West plays a genuinely strategic role.
For businesses or partners considering the Southwest, what’s the pitch?
Beyond the level of capability here, the biggest factor is the depth of partnership and cohesion between high-technology companies. That closeness and willingness to collaborate is hard to find elsewhere, and it’s what makes this ecosystem work.
Maritime UK Southwest is a partner within the Plymouth and South Devon Freeport, working to connect and grow the region’s maritime, defence, and marine technology sectors.