Drone Pilots Hired and Put To Work During Pandemic

During the Pandemic, drone pilots keep getting hired for simple jobs as companies realize the value of drones.

As the COVID-19 Pandemic has left almost 20 Million People unemployed, drone pilots have been hired at varied rates.  The Drone U Flight Crew: recently launched the Aerial Intelligence Survey to our community pilots to better understand where drone pilots are being hired.  (YOU CAN STILL TAKE THE SURVEY AND HELP!)

Drone pilots should be hear that almost 55% of drone pilots are still working throughout the pandemic! It seems that drone jobbing volume may have decreased overall.  The survey asked participants how many drone jobs they have flown since the beginning of the pandemic.

The survey asked respondents to differentiate between how many drone jobs they actually flew since the pandemic. Drone pilots were asked if they have flown 1-4 drone jobs or more than 5 drone jobs. This breakdown was strategic in nature to better identify the quality of drone jobs.

Industry Verticals: Where are drone pilots being hired?

While more than half of drone pilots are currently working, which industry verticals are hiring drone pilots?  Originally we had reported that during the shutdowns, drone pilots were primarily being hired for roof inspections and construction jobs. Most states made media an essential job and drone pilots have been serving the news at record levels ever since.

While it looks like our predictions were not far off, creative drone pilots and photographers take most of the drone jobs.  With creative photography being the number 1 drone job by respondents, we wonder what typical deliverable price points might be.

Creative photography, residential real estate and construction seem to be the most popular verticals of the drone jobs. Our production team was surprised to learn how many drone pilots are working on small business videos or productions.  The pandemic has caused most businesses to work remotely in one way or another.

A new macro trend that may be unraveling…small businesses modernizing to work remotely.  This means that small businesses will need to film more videos to educate their customers.  As customer engagement time is down significantly, businesses need to communicate instructions, navigation and logistics. Drone pilots are getting hired to create scalable production systems, and help provide content to them.

Businesses clearly need to communicate with customers more frequently, albeit businesses also need to keep teams productive and scale remote operations.  One particular Drone U member has completely pivoted his business to help other businesses produce videos.  This drone pilot was hired to create an internal production system for employees to produce information pieces matched with aerial b-roll.

The drone pilot used his knowledge of video production to help businesses create systems to film and stream numerous participants simultaneously.  Jason said the businesses he helps are requesting high-end live streaming gear.  The businesses want to reduce connectivity issues and improve streaming, recording and interactive playback.   Often times this drone pilot will be asked to film something to be shown on a production that was created using his consulted system. (Brilliant)

Deliverable Trends

Drone Pilots are being hired to produce simple deliverables with quality. One particular pattern we keep noticing is how more simplistic deliverables are being adopted at a wider rate than technical issues.  This makes sense as more employees are not familiar with advanced software.  If employees can solve simple issues with videos and photos, they’ll prefer to use those deliverables.  We should have predicted this using the Laws of Human Nature.

Stay tuned for more industry insights as we analyze the data.  One particular trend is very clear. Drone pilots who were educated on creative and technical deliverables are able to take advantage of more opportunities.

Check out Drone U’s largest online flight school with courses including Photogrammetry, Photography, Advanced Videography and Part 107 Study Guide. 

Thanks for reading and for your support.

-Taitkenflight