General Sir Gwyn Jenkins

General Sir Gwyn Jenkins KCB OBE ADC RM is First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, the professional head of the Royal Navy, having taken up the post on 15 May 2025. A Royal Marines officer who previously served as Commandant General Royal Marines from November 2022 and as Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, his appointment made him the first Royal Marine ever to hold the post in the service's history. He holds the rank of General, a four-star equivalent, rather than the naval rank of Admiral traditionally associated with the office.

His tenure has coincided with the Royal Navy moving into fast-track mode on autonomous systems, committing hulls to contested waters ahead of formal programmes of record. At the Combined Naval Event on 19 May 2026 he articulated the doctrine driving that shift: crewed where necessary, uncrewed wherever possible, integrated always.

That doctrine was borne out within days: the autonomous minehunter RNMB Ariadne docked inside RFA Lyme Bay on 27 May 2026 as the force sailed toward a potential mine-clearance role in the Strait of Hormuz, an eight-day interval between doctrine speech and operational deployment that signals a service moving at the pace of experiment rather than procurement cycle.