10 UAV Recruitment Agencies in the UK You Should Know (2025 Job‑Seeker Guide)

• Market Harborough
• On-site
• Permanent

Hands-on role taking ownership of UAV development from concept to flight-ready hardware, designing and integrating airframes, actuators, power systems and sensors. Joins an early-stage UK defence company as a founding engineering hire, working on Counter-UAS detection and interceptor technology in a fast-paced on-site environment.

• Burton-on-Trent
• Hybrid
• £75,000 – £80,000 pa
• Mid-level · manages people
• Permanent

Lead day-to-day delivery of UAV and Drone-in-a-Box services across multiple customer sites nationwide, coordinating people, equipment and technical resources. Translate customer requirements into operational plans, manage schedules and capacity, monitor SLAs and budgets, and mobilise new contracts. Involves office, field and home-based working with regular UK travel.

UAV · Drone-in-a-Box · Autonomous Systems +5

• Hereford
• £45,000 – £65,000 pa
• Senior

Design and develop UAV components and drone launch systems, creating mechanical schemes, detailed part and assembly designs, and associated drawings in SolidWorks. Use hand calculations, simulation and CAE tools to size and optimise systems, develop test plans and support in-house prototype builds within a small engineering team.

SolidWorks

• Cambridge
• On-site
• £55,000 – £70,000 pa
• Mid-level

Hands-on optical engineering role designing systems with lasers, lenses and cameras, taking products from concept through verification and troubleshooting to production readiness. Works closely with electronics, software and AI colleagues in a multidisciplinary team, integrating optical components with electromechanical systems, ideally using machine learning for machine vision.

AI

• Saffron Walden
• Hybrid · 3 days in office
• £70,000 – £80,000 pa
• Senior

Design, build and test RF-based systems from concept through to manufacture, working on airborne radars, drone sensors and LSWaP devices for GPS and radar communication. Collaborate with experts and customers to establish requirements, with hybrid working of three days a week in a state-of-the-art lab and R&D facility.

GPS · IoT

• Newcastle upon Tyne
• £80,000 – £120,000 pa
• Director · manages people

Lead a 12-person software engineering team building real-time embedded systems for critical infrastructure protection, reporting to the CTO. Own capability, delivery, standards and technical direction across the full product lifecycle, translating customer requirements into engineering plans. Requires C++ and embedded background plus security clearance eligibility.

NVIDIA Jetson · Linux