Steven Kelly

Steven Kelly was born on 27 March 1986 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. He was raised in Liverpool and developed an interest in outdoor activities and survival skills during his youth. At age 16, Kelly left formal civilian education to enlist in the British Armed Forces and began military training. Over a 23-year career, his education was primarily provided through the British Army, where he completed training to qualify for the 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery. His military training included fieldcraft, navigation, and survival skills in various environments such as Arctic, tropical jungles, deserts, and mountainous regions.

Kelly specializes in survival and bushcraft instruction and has provided fieldcraft training to British military personnel and allied forces. In 2018, he was featured training U.S. Marines in the Scottish Highlands during exercise Joint Warrior, as documented by the U.S. Department of Defense and Marine Corps Public.

After retiring from the military, Kelly moved into civilian outdoor education. He founded South West Survival, a bushcraft and wilderness training company based in Plymouth, Devon. The company offers fieldcraft, navigation, and environmental resilience training to various groups, including corporate clients, school groups, military veterans, and families. Kelly also host the Survival Debrief Podcast, which features interviews with survival experts, adventurers, and media figures discussing their experiences.

Kelly's television career includes appearances on international reality and survival-focused programs. In 2017, he took part in the Insight TV survival series Naked Alone and Racing to Get Home, which involved participants navigating through Deadman's Gorge. In 2024, Kelly appeared in the seventeenth season of the Discovery Channel's reality series Naked and Afraid, completing a 21-day survival challenge with an American partner in the Colombian tropics. He later participated in Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse (2025), where he completed a 35-day challenge in South Africa. In 2026, he was featured on the BBC One program Bear Grylls: Wild Reckoning.