Being a professional drone pilot may have seemed like something out of a futuristic fairytale only a decade ago. Now, the prospect of building a career as a drone pilot is gaining more legitimacy thanks to recent leaps and bounds in technological improvement.
Drones are now cheaper, easier to operate, and much more advanced. Making them a much more easily accessible option for those who are interested in pursuing this path. But how do you get started as a professional drone pilot and where would you even start looking for a job? We’ve got those answers and more for you in this full guide to becoming a paid drone pilot.
What Type of Drone Pilot Jobs are Out There?
There are plenty of jobs that drone pilots can do, and there’s plenty of work available too – especially if you know where to look. Although the field is starting to become less niche and more competitive.
There are the obvious ones like photography and filmmaking, both of which can be done on a freelance basis where you work for a company or use it as part of your own business model. But there is also quite a bit more to discover in the world of drone piloting. Keep in mind that many of these careers require extensive training and sometimes also specialization in other fields.
Drone pilots can fulfill a number of important roles across a diverse set of industries, including:
- Photography
- Filmmaking
- 3D modeling
- Surveying (agriculture, geological)
- Inspection (powerline, rooftop, construction, real estate, industrial)
- Drone flight instructor
- Drone delivery person
- Search and rescue aid
- Law enforcement aid
- Drone racer*
*Drone racing, a lot like other types of similar sports, is event-based and very competitive. Also, it’s still quite in its infancy so there aren’t that many opportunities yet and, you generally only get paid in winnings i.e. if you win.
Where to Find Drone Pilot Jobs
While there aren’t any job listing sites dedicated specifically to drone flying, jobs do pop up on regular gig sites now and then, as well as freelancing sites (although not all of them).
How Much Do Drone Pilots Get Paid?
As with any field, really, it depends on the type of work you do and who you work for. Drone piloting is also still a relatively new field, so there isn’t an established pay scale for this industry yet. On top of that, the remuneration can vary greatly depending on the type of pilot you are.
The industry does skew heavily towards freelancing and gig-based work, which means that drone pilots tend to determine their own rates based on expertise, their expenses, time spent on the project, and how much profit they aim to make. It’s very much based on skills and the market’s demand for those skills. Because of this, professional drone pilots’ salaries can differ greatly from one country or even one state to another, depending on the local demand for that specific service.
So that still leaves the question, how much can you expect to earn? To get a relatively accurate number, you should look at what people are charging in your industry, in your area. You can also scour job websites to see what companies are offering for this type of work and level of experience, on average. Although, as you get more familiar with the job and upskill yourself, you’ll have a better idea of what your work is worth.
Drone Pilot Average Pay According to Salary Comparison Websites
ZipRecruiter
According to the employment marketplace ZipRecruiter, the average annual salary for a drone pilot in the US is around $58,280 per year. That comes down to around $28 per hour or $4,857 per month. They also do a more detailed breakdown per US city, which we’ll discuss in more detail later in this article. The website states that this data is up to date as of June 21, 2021.
Top earners in fields related to drone piloting, according to the site, earned around $83,500 annually across the States, with some even going as high as $126,500 per year. However, the pay scale seems to be a little skewed in this regard because the site takes earnings from VP and management at drone-related companies into account.
Despite all of this, the site acknowledges that the pay for a drone pilot varies greatly from one person to another, suggesting that your level of income in this field is heavily based on level of expertise and location. It also suggests that there’s a lot of leeway for earning the type of salary you want, as well as the opportunity to advance a great deal.
Nowhere is this more clear than when you compare the average salary for a drone pilot with the listed average salary for an unmanned aerial vehicle pilot on the same site. Then the national average changes to $75,807 per year. Although it seems that the range for this job title includes military applications, according to this website, where the drone pilot definition apparently does not.
Then again, the average changes to $69,644 per year for the UAV Drone Pilot job title. What this tells us is that the field lacks some standardization in terms of job title definitions and salary expectations. ZipRecruiter gathers its data via job posts on the site as well as through third parties.
Glassdoor
While Glassdoor also provides information about general salary expectations for drone pilots, it provides an interesting look into salary expectations based on specialized professions as well.
For instance, a Real Estate Photographer can expect to earn anywhere between 30k and 80k annually depending on where they’re located (which is a wide range). Whereas a drone pilot for the US army can expect to earn around 40k on average based on the jobs currently available on this job listing website. Glassdoor provides an average income of $59,308 per year for drone pilots in the US, which is very similar to what you’ll find on ZipRecruiter.
Again, this changes based on the job title you search for, and those classed as UAV pilots seem to earn more on average at $82,622 annually – yet it’s not exactly clear how this distinction is made by Glassdoor. This time around, a US Air Force UAV Pilot reported earning about $120k annually, which is quite the jump from the average listed for the US army under the drone pilot job title. Other aerospace and defense companies posted salaries in the $80k to $100k range as well. All of this is based on limited info, however, from a small number of contributors.
Then there’s also the UAV Operator, which has quite a bit more contributions to work with, but suggests that the average annual salary is around $35k. Needless to say, that’s a whole lot less than suggested by the other job titles we’ve explored so far. There may be a number of contributing factors that brings this salary range down, including more contributions from less experienced pilots or companies that hire pilots for roles with fewer responsibilities.
PayScale
Like the two websites above, PayScale makes a distinction between drone pilots and UAV pilots. Once again, the averages are relatively in line with what those platforms have shown as well, which is an average of around $51k per year for drone pilots and an annual average of around $75k per year for UAV pilots. Although in this case, at least, it’s clear that the numbers for both are influenced by years of experience.
The salary average for drone pilots is heavily influenced by the fact that most of the contributors are junior. This means that the salary for a more experienced drone pilot is likely much higher. New drone pilots charged around $20 per hour but more senior drone pilots could charge almost $30 per hour.
On the other hand, the contributors for the UAV pilot job title mostly seem to be in the mid-range career-wise. When delving a bit for more detail, it turns out that junior UAV pilots (around 1 – 4 levels of experience) can expect an average annual salary of about $51k which is in line with the data PayScale provides for new drone pilots. Pilots with more experience can expect anything upwards of $75k per year, even going as high as around $100k per year. Veteran pilots with a decade or more under their belt can expect $120k per year and up.
Salary.com
So far, the average salary expectation for a drone pilot with a few years of experience seems to be between $50 and $60k annually. The data provided by Salary.com however, puts this at around $78k annually, which does coincide more with the average shown for the UAV pilot job title as shown by the other websites mentioned here. Also, even though it does put junior salary expectations at around $70k which is lower than the average, it’s still comparatively high.
According to the website, a drone pilot’s level of experience and location also plays a big role in their salary expectations which is on par with what we’ve seen so far.
Drone Pilot Salaries Broken Down By US State
Knowing the general salary expectation, you can look forward to in this field is great, but let’s break it down geographically to get a better idea of what things look like on the ground. Again, this is based on estimations made by looking at a combination of various job listings and employment marketplace websites.
According to ZipRecruiter, cities in California pay the highest salaries on average out of any of the states for both the drone pilot and the UAV pilot job titles. It is worth noting, though, that the salaries can differ a lot depending on where you look. For instance, the highest annual salary shown for a drone pilot is at around $74k in San Mateo, CA, whereas the highest annual salary for a UAV pilot is $84k in Santa Clara, CA. That’s a whole $10k difference. Overall, the average drone pilot salary in California seems to be $68k according to the Economic Research Institute, which is a bit lower than those city averages.
Breaking down every state in this way, while interesting, would turn this into a whole white paper that you don’t necessarily want to read through. So instead, we’re just going to list the average drone pilot salary by state and highlight some of the more important facts.
- Alabama – Annual salary average of $56k, Top earners get around $77k per year.
- Alaska – Annual salary average of $67k, Top earners get around $81k per year.
- Arizona – Annual salary average of $51k, Top earners get around $80k per year.
- Arkansas – Annual salary average of $54k, Top earners get around $92k per year.
- California – Annual salary average of $68k, Top earners get around $108k per year.
- Colorado – Annual salary average of $60k, Top earners get around $111k per year.
- Connecticut – Annual salary average of $67k, Top earners get around $121k per year, which allows a lot of opportunity for advancement.
- Delaware – Annual salary average of $62, Top earners get around $117k per year.
- Florida – Annual salary average of $58, Top earners get around $106k per year.
- Georgia – Annual salary average of $58k, Top earners get around $108k per year.
- Hawaii – Annual salary average of $62k, Top earners get around $117k per year.
- Idaho – Annual salary average of $54k, Top earners get around $105k per year. Although the starting salary tends to be low, the cost of living in Idaho is also low, making up the difference.
- Illinois – Annual salary average of $63k, Top earners get around $114k per year.
- Indiana – Annual salary average of $57k, Top earners get around $109k per year.
- Iowa – Annual salary average of $55k, Top earners get around $107k per year.
- Kansas – Annual salary average of $54k, Top earners get around $106k per year.
- Kentucky – Annual salary average of $55k, Top earners get around $105k per year.
- Louisiana – Annual salary average of $72k, Top earners get around $107k per year.
- Maine – Annual salary average of $80k, Top earners get around $111k per year.
- Maryland – Annual salary average of $62k, Top earners get around $115k per year.
- Massachusetts – Annual salary average of $66k, Top earners get around $121k per year.
- Michigan – Annual salary average of $56k, Top earners get around $112k per year.
- Minnesota – Annual salary average of $62k, Top earners get around $114k per year.
- Mississippi – Annual salary average of $52k, Top earners get around $97k per year.
- Missouri – Annual salary average of $55k, Top earners get around $106k per year.
- Montana – Annual salary average of $53k, Top earners get around $101k per year.
- Nebraska – Annual salary average of $61k, Top earners get around $102k per year.
- Nevada – Annual salary average of $81k, Top earners get around $114k per year.
- New Hampshire – Annual salary average of $59k, Top earners get around $113k per year.
- New Jersey – Annual salary average of $66k, Top earners get around $123k per year.
- New Mexico – Annual salary average of $72k, Top earners get around $102k per year.
- New York – Annual salary average of $70k, Top earners get around $120k per year.
- North Carolina – Annual salary average of $50k, Top earners get around $106k per year.
- North Dakota – Annual salary average of $70k, Top earners get around $105k per year.
- Ohio – Annual salary average of $58k, Top earners get around $109k per year.
- Oklahoma – Annual salary average of $53k, Top earners get around $105k per year.
- Oregon – Annual salary average of $59k, Top earners get around $111k per year.
- Pennsylvania – Annual salary average of $58k, Top earners get around $111k per year.
- Rhode Island – Annual salary average of $63k, Top earners get around $117k per year.
- South Carolina – Annual salary average of $56k, Top earners get around $104k per year.
- South Dakota – Annual salary average of $66k, Top earners get around $95k per year.
- Tennessee – Annual salary average of $55k, Top earners get around $101k per year.
- Texas – The annual average salary in Texas can differ greatly depending on where you’re based in the state. For example, in Houston the average is about $82k, while in a town like Highland Village the average is $61k per year.
- Utah – Annual salary average of $55k, Top earners get around $106k per year.
- Vermont – Annual salary average of $58k, Top earners get around $107k per year.
- Virginia – Annual salary average of $60k, Top earners get around $111k per year.
- Washington – Annual salary average of $64k, Top earners get around $119k per year.
- West Virginia – Annual salary average of $54k, Top earners get around $99k per year.
- Wisconsin – Annual salary average of $54k, Top earners get around $110k per year.
- Wyoming – Annual salary average of $56k, Top earners get around $99k per year.
Of course, as is the case with the information outlined above with regards to the job comparison websites, this information is based on the input from a relatively small number of contributors. It’s also hard to get a good grasp on the level of experience of these contributors and their responsibilities. Then there’s also the issue of job title confusion between “drone pilot” and “UAV pilot” which seems to confuse the results even more. All of that aside, it seems that these averages tend to fall within the $55k – $70k range, which is in line with the data we could find on the US national average salary for drone pilots.
