Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Paolo Leonetti · Marine Surveyor Consultant · August 2026
Specialist maritime consulting is bought on reputation, and in this market reputation travels through the fleets and the people a surveyor has already worked with. That is a strong channel with a hard edge to it: it is silent about everyone else. This map is everyone else, across Switzerland, Europe and the wider fleet. The company types that buy inspection, audit and technical work, who signs inside each one, and roughly how many sit there. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Trading and chartering houses in Switzerland
The segment nearest to you and the one that starts the work. A charterer decides which vetting regime a vessel has to satisfy before it is fixed, so the demand for a pre-vetting or a condition survey is often created on shore, in an office, by someone who never goes near the ship.
Who signs: marine assurance or vetting manager, head of shipping operations, chartering manager, HSSE lead.
800 to 1,000
commodity trading and shipping firms across Geneva, Zug, Lugano and Basel; roughly 150 to 250 of them run a vetting or marine assurance desk of their own
Tanker, chemical and gas operators
The regime that generates repeat work rather than one-off work. Vetting cycles, self assessment cycles and audit cycles land on dates that are known in advance, and a single observation or detention creates unplanned work the same week.
Who signs: designated person ashore, marine or technical superintendent, HSQE manager, fleet director.
1,200 to 1,800
companies worldwide with tankers, chemical or gas carriers in the fleet; the European cluster is roughly a third of them
Dry bulk owners and operators
Vetted by a different system to the tanker world and often with a thinner shore team behind it, which is exactly the profile that outsources inspection and audit work instead of building the capability in house.
Who signs: technical director, marine superintendent, quality and safety manager, and at owner run companies the principal.
2,000 to 2,600
companies worldwide operating dry bulk tonnage; the Greek and Cypriot cluster is the largest single concentration in Europe
Third party ship managers
Small by company count and heavy by vessel count, because a handful of managers run the outsourced fleet for many different owners. One relationship here reaches many ships, and audit, training and competency work is a standing need rather than an event.
Who signs: fleet director, QHSE manager, marine superintendent, crewing and training manager.
250 to 400
third party ship and crew management companies worldwide, of which a top tier of roughly 30 to 50 controls a large share of the managed fleet
Terminals, ports and ship to ship operators
The shore side of the same safety question. Terminal safety surveys, mooring and transfer work and compatibility reviews are bought by an operations seat with a budget of its own, and this segment rarely overlaps with the owners who already know you.
Who signs: terminal manager, marine operations manager or port captain, HSE manager, jetty superintendent.
350 to 500
European terminals handling liquid or chemical bulk; the wider European seaport count sits above one thousand
Marine insurance, claims and legal
A referring layer rather than an end client. Hull and machinery claims, casualty work and cargo disputes all need an independent expert, and the person who appoints one is looking for a name they already trust at the moment the file opens.
Who signs: claims director, technical claims handler, underwriting manager, marine partner or associate.
500 to 800
hull and machinery underwriters, claims correspondents, average adjusters and marine law firms across Europe

Where the openings are

1
The buyer who orders the inspection is often not the owner of the ship. Vetting requirements are set by the charterer, and Switzerland holds one of the densest concentrations of chartering and trading desks in the world. Your nearest market is a shore role a short train ride away, and it is reached by name rather than by reputation inside the fleet.
2
This work is bought at dated moments, not on a whim. An audit cycle, a change of flag, a port state control detention, a pre purchase, a revision to an inspection regime, a new charterer with stricter requirements. Those moments are visible from outside if somebody is watching the whole market on a schedule, and invisible to anyone waiting for the phone to ring.
3
Roles turn over faster than companies do. A new superintendent, designated person ashore or vetting manager almost always reopens the panel of surveyors and consultants they use. A channel built on named roles catches that week. A referral channel hears about it once the appointment is made.
4
The yacht side has no register at all. Owners representatives, management companies and captains are not enumerated anywhere public and have to be identified one at a time. That difficulty is precisely why the segment stays open to whoever is willing to do the identification work.
Built from public market data and public maritime sources, with counts banded deliberately. Vessels are not companies: one operator can control many ships, and a single ship can involve an owner, a manager and a charterer at once, so these figures describe reachable companies rather than tonnage. The smallest owner operators rarely appear in any public source.
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