Some of those conversations have been with shipping companies building their technology capability from almost nothing.
Others have been with established maritime technology businesses going through cloud transformation, scaling engineering teams or building entirely new products.
And the roles I’ve been recruiting have been equally varied.
Director of Technology. Head of Infrastructure. Head of Projects, IT & Software. Head of Engineering. Head of Product. Head of Maritime Intelligence. Data and Analytics Leadership. Head of Information and Cyber Security.
Different businesses. Different problems.
But one thing keeps coming up.
Technology leaders across shipping and maritime are being asked to wear an extraordinary number of hats.
And I’m beginning to understand why finding them can be so difficult.
What exactly is a maritime technology leader now?
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.
Because the answer seems to change depending on which side of the market I’m speaking to.
One shipping group told me:
“We have absolutely nothing. Lots of Excel sheets.”
They’re growing quickly, bringing vessel management in-house and trying to move from what they openly described as a fairly chaotic start-up environment towards something more structured.
There’s no finished IT strategy.
There isn’t even a defined technology budget yet.
The person joining will help create both.
At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been recruiting for a maritime technology business with more than 100 people across engineering and technology, established Heads of Engineering and Product, and a major cloud and platform transformation underway.
They need leadership too.
But clearly, these are two completely different jobs.
And that’s before you get into the other conversations I’ve had around infrastructure, product, data, maritime intelligence and AI.
The title might say Director of Technology or Head of IT.
What sits underneath it can mean almost anything.
The “unicorn” problem
This is probably where recruitment gets difficult.
Increasingly, shipping companies and maritime technology businesses aren’t simply looking for someone who understands technology.
They want someone who understands cloud, architecture, infrastructure and cyber.
Someone who can lead transformation.
Someone who understands data.
Someone who can manage distributed teams and third-party vendors.
Someone commercially minded enough to sit with the board.
Someone who understands shipping.
And, increasingly, someone who can tell them what AI means for their business.
Sometimes they need to be strategic.
Sometimes they need to be hands-on.
Usually, it’s both.
One CEO described what he wanted very simply:
“People need to look to that person as the wisdom. The centre of knowledge.”
Another business needs somebody who can take the owners’ ideas and effectively:
“Translate that vision into the language of technology.”
That combination exists.
But the pool gets pretty small, pretty quickly.
And those people aren’t cheap
This has been another interesting part of these conversations.
Across the senior technology people I’ve spoken with recently, salary expectations have ranged from around £80,000 to £450,000+.
Clearly, that’s an enormous range.
Different countries. Different company sizes. Different levels of seniority, equity and responsibility.
But there is a pattern.
People who have genuinely led technology and transformation inside major shipping organisations command a significant premium.
Especially those who can comfortably move between the boardroom and the technology team.
And perhaps that’s understandable.
Because if you want one person to understand your existing technology, define your future strategy, modernise infrastructure, improve your data, introduce AI, manage suppliers, build a team, influence the board and understand how your shipping business actually operates…
You’re not really hiring for one skillset anymore.
You’re hiring for several.
The more boxes you add, the smaller the talent pool becomes.
And inevitably, the price rises with it.
I’m valuing shipping knowledge more than I expected
This has probably been one of the bigger changes in my own thinking since I started recruiting specifically within maritime.
I came into this market from general technology recruitment.
Naturally, my instinct was to look at the technology first.
Can they lead engineering teams? Have they modernised legacy platforms? Do they understand cloud? Architecture? Data? Cyber? AI?
I still think all of that matters.
But particularly for technology leadership inside shipowners and managers, I’m increasingly appreciating the value of somebody who actually understands shipping.
One former maritime HR leader described something his business had deliberately tried to do during its own digital transformation.
They improved the technology literacy of their shipping people.
But equally importantly:
“We worked hard to improve the shipping literacy of our tech people.”
I think that’s a really important distinction.
They physically placed their digital team amongst chartering and operations so they could hear the conversations happening around them and understand the problems they were actually trying to solve.
Because technology in shipping doesn’t exist independently of the business.
AI is widening the brief again
Then, of course, there’s AI.
Almost every technology leadership conversation I have now touches it somehow.
Some companies are already building with it.
Others are experimenting.
Some are still trying to work out where it genuinely adds value.
And there’s plenty of scepticism too.
One maritime technology leader told me:
“Everyone is using AI. Most companies say they are using it, but they’re not doing it properly, just trying to sound trendy.”
Another described AI simply as:
“A tool. An enabler.”
I tend to agree.
But it creates another expectation for technology leaders.
They don’t necessarily need to be AI engineers.
They do need to understand enough to separate useful applications from hype, work out where it belongs in the wider technology strategy, and make sure the foundations underneath it are actually ready.
Which brings us back to data, integration and legacy technology.
The same problems I’ve been hearing about since I entered maritime.
Maybe we need to stop looking for unicorns
I’m not suggesting businesses should lower the bar.
If anything, technology is becoming too important to shipping businesses for that.
But perhaps there needs to be more clarity around which problems this person is actually being hired to solve.
Do you need an engineering leader?
A transformation leader?
An infrastructure and operations specialist?
A commercially minded technology executive?
Someone who deeply understands shipping?
Someone to build the team that contains those capabilities?
Because expecting one person to be exceptional at everything makes an already difficult search considerably harder.
And I’ve spoken with some incredibly impressive people recently who would transform the right business, but wouldn’t necessarily tick every box on a ten-point job description.
My biggest takeaway
Six months ago, if you’d asked me what makes a great maritime technology leader, I’d probably have started with the technology.
I’m not sure I would anymore.
The more people I meet, the more I think the difficult bit is sitting in the middle.
Technology on one side.
Shipping on the other.
And increasingly, data, AI, people, commercial pressures and organisational change thrown in between.
The best people I’ve spoken with don’t necessarily know everything.
But they understand enough across those worlds to connect them, challenge people, make decisions and build the capability around them.
Finding people who can do that isn’t easy.
But after the searches I’ve worked on recently, I’m beginning to think that’s exactly where the best technology leaders in shipping sit.
I’m curious to hear from others working across shipping and maritime technology…
Are we asking too much of technology leaders today, or is the role simply evolving with the industry?