HMS OCEAN turned heads as the helicopter carrier slid out to sea past Devonport Dockyard on a sunny and blustery November day.

The giant vessel, which has just completed an upgrade at the yard, is a familiar sight – but is so big even some of those who worked on her can't help watching in awe and admiration as she moves, dwarfing everything else around.

High above, on the ninth floor of an office block, the yard's boss was causing heads to move, too.

Workers shook theirs in disbelief as word reached them about what Babcock Marine chief executive Archie Bethel had told reporters. Although 300 jobs were to go, there were no plans for further redundancies at the yard, said Mr Bethel. The order book was busy and the outlook for more work was good, he said.

His assessment, as bright and breezy as the weather outside, was so at odds with the mood of the 4,700 workers many of them scoffed at the boss's reassuring words.

After all, little more than a year ago, DML, the yard's previous owners were talking of the need to shed 900 jobs. And as recently as February this year Babcock – which took over the dockyard in a £350 million deal in June 2007 – reckoned 600 would go.

As it happens, the workers weren't alone in feeling a little cynical that day. So when my turn came among the procession of reporters who trooped in and out of the chief executive's office, I asked the brusque Scot whether he was being entirely open.

Either the 300 announcement was phase one and more would follow soon. Or Babcock were engaging in management games: pick a big figure – 600 or 900 – out of the air, get the workforce expecting the worst, then a few months later drop in the real number, 300, to make the announcement look like good news.

I almost wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

Mr Bethel bristled at the suggestion that he was playing games.

"No," he said. "That does not happen here. That [the 300] is it. We have no further plans for job cuts.

"In the short to medium term we have a really strong order book: stronger than we anticipated," he said.

"In the longer term the prospects look brighter than they did a year ago."

Of course there was a but – there always is any Dockyard story. Should the Government change its mind on Royal Navy spending there would be less work for Devonport and so fewer jobs.

"It all comes down to the size of the Royal Navy. But there is unlikely to be a major swipe at the Navy in the near future," said Mr Bethel. "If anything they are looking at further commitment with the CVF carriers (two planned new giant aircraft carriers) and Astute (the replacement for the Trafalgar class of nuclear-powered submarines) and there is the Type 45 destroyers being built."

Babcock Marine had contracts for service work on submarines for the Canadian, Australian and Spanish navies, too.

"The workload for Devonport is likely to be the same as we currently have," Mr Bethel added. "Add to that the decommissioning and disposal of submarines and we can see steady work for the next 10 or 15 years."

Looking further ahead, the Government was committed to a replacement for the Trident nuclear missile, which would mean a new generation of submarines to carry them, replacing the Vanguard class.

The programme of refitting the huge Trident-carrying subs is only now going on at Devonport, extending the life of the submarines, so talk of their replacements takes the yard decades into the future.

It all added up to "a pretty good picture" for Devonport's future, said Mr Bethel.

Now contrast that with the mood of other UK business leaders as we head into recession. Few bosses are daring to look beyond simply surviving the next couple of years, yet here is the head man of Plymouth's biggest private employers talking confidently about a future that stretches into the next couple of decades.

But the most quotable words he produces are that things are looking "pretty good".

It's clear Archie Bethel doesn't do sound bites, then. That does not make him dull, though. Just ask the Dockyard unions. There was outcry earlier this year when the workers' representatives learned that HMS Campbeltown would go to Babcock's other civilian yard, Rosyth, in Fife, for a refit. This was the first time the Devon yard had missed out on the contract for a Type 22 frigate.

"What the unions didn't say was that two days later HMS Albion (an amphibious assault ship) came into dock at Devonport for a refit package three times the size.

"So I gave the unions an offer: I said 'do you want me to keep Campbeltown here and send Albion to Rosyth?'"

His smile is so slight that I ask him to confirm that he was only joking.

"Was I?" he shoots back, with a much bigger smile.

So he was joking. I think.

I'm not altogether sure, because when he brings up the subject of the Appledore shipyard, which is also owned by Babcock, he is anxious to make a point about the row over pay differentials.

Unions say workers at the North Devon yard – which will build the bow sections of the new 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers – are paid less than those doing similar tasks at other facilities.

Babcock was "surprised and disappointed" unions rejected the company's offer of a 12-per-cent increase over two years and moved to strike action.

"I hope they accept the offer but there is no prospect for the company to offer more than that," he said.

"If they continue we would have no option but to move the (aircraft carrier) work to another location."

So he doesn't do spin, talks tough and isn't about to offer any soothing words on the controversial subject of more nuclear work coming to Devonport, either.

There are five decommissioned nuclear submarines afloat at the yard and two or three more will join them in the next few years, waiting on a decision from the Government about the interim storage of nuclear waste on land.

The prospect of the subs being cut up and their reactor cores and chambers being removed at Devonport has dismayed anti-nuclear campaigners.

They see more and more nuclear work – including the Trident refits – being done at Devonport and believe the city is getting the dirty end of the stick while conventional tasks go to other naval yards.

Although Mr Bethel was speaking before details emerged of last Friday's leak of radioactive coolant from a nuclear submarine at the base, this was a chance for him generally to play down the risks.

But he does so only obliquely, describing the reactor core removal – work which might be done here in the future – as "a fairly simple process" that would be "very easy to do here".

He doesn't recognise the classification of work into clean and dirty. Instead the distinction involves money and skills.

"Nuclear is the highest-technology, highest-engineering content work in the UK. It is much higher value-added and requires a greater skill level," he said.

Staying with nuclear, he raises his eyes in disbelief at media reports Devonport's future is endangered by the Astute submarines because the new vessels will not need refuelling during their lifetimes.

The stories appeared as the future of Britain's three naval bases – Devonport, Faslane and Portsmouth – was being reviewed. They appeared to add weight to the theory that Devonport was vulnerable while Faslane (the only place where submarine nuclear weapons be can handled) and Portsmouth (the historic home of the fleet) were not.

"But the Astute submarines will need refitting during their lives – and that is twice the amount of work compared to refuelling," he said. He won't comment about the naval base issue other than to stay that strategically Britain "clearly needs three bases" as the Ministry of Defence stated, ending speculation last year.

He is just as dismissive of the idea Devonport Dockyard is losing, or could lose out in the future, to Rosyth. The job cuts here are happening as a direct result of Babcock's purchase of the yard.

The posts, mainly administrative, resulted from "efficiency savings" caused by the integration of Devonport into Babcock Marine but the Devon yard was not being singled out for cuts, said Mr Bethel. Babcock's operations at Rosyth and Faslane had both had job losses in recent years, he pointed out.

Devonport would gain directly and indirectly through being part of a stronger and larger company that now had 100 per cent of Britain's submarine, and 75 per cent of the surface ship, support facilities, Mr Bethel added. Devonport would gain next year as refit work from Rosyth was moved here so the Scottish yard could start building sections of the new aircraft carriers. As for any suggestion that Devonport might be the preferred casualty if the Ministry of Defence spending tap were turned off – as the Scottish Babcock boss would favour Rosyth, a yard in his homeland – that almost made him laugh out loud as he pointed out his company, his own boss and his board of directors are English. There was actually an audible laugh when Scottish independence was mentioned.

"It's great" being a Scot, but as for the Scottish National Party delivering on its policies of securing an independent, nuclear-free Scotland, throwing the UK's defence strategy – and Devonport's future – into chaos, "that won't happen" he said, adding: "Scottish independence has been talked about since I was a boy, it is still being talked about and it will never happen."

That's a statement that won't endear him to many of his countrymen, just as his straight-talking on pay and jobs hasn't made him overly popular with some of his workforce and his uncompromising championing of Devonport's nuclear future won't win him any friends among greens.

His blunt honesty reminds me of one of his predecessors as Devonport boss: Mike Leece, a man who similarly wasn't worried about popularity.

By now Mr Bethel has stopped talking and HMS Ocean is far out in the Sound, but still an imposing presence on the horizon.

It strikes me the ship and the man have one thing in common: if you were ever in a fight, you wouldn't want either of them on the other side.