Steven Kelly, also known as Survival Ste, is a British TV survivalist, survival instructor, podcast host, and founder of South West Survival. He is known for appearing on Naked and Afraid, Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse, Bear Grylls: Wild Reckoning, and Naked, Alone and Racing to Get Home, bringing real-world fieldcraft, resilience, and leadership from decades of military and survival experience.
Steven's military background covers jungle, desert, Arctic and mountain environments, as well as leadership, instruction, navigation, fieldcraft and survival. He now applies that experience through television, outdoor education, speaking and practical training.
Steven’s television work includes completing 21 days in the Colombian tropics on Naked and Afraid and a further 35 days in South Africa on Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse. His other screen credits include Naked, Alone and Racing to Get Home, Bear Grylls: Wild Reckoning, No Time To Lose and Castle Rock. Across those projects, he has built a reputation for calm decision-making, practical fieldcraft and honest insight into what survival television demands.
Steven's 23-year career in 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery included operational deployment to Afghanistan, cold-weather training in Norway and work in Sierra Leone. Each posting strengthened his ability to read terrain and weather, keep teams functioning under pressure and make decisions when the margin for error was thin.
That same mindset now sits behind everything Steven does off camera. South West Survival exists to pass on real, tested skills rather than theory — fire, shelter, water, navigation and the psychology of staying calm when things go wrong. It's the same philosophy he brings to The Survival Debrief Podcast: strip away the TV edit and talk honestly about what actually gets people through.
See his full Naked and Afraid and TV credits, or get in touch about media, speaking and production enquiries.
