Hire drone engineers and operators in the UK
Drone Jobs is the UK board for unmanned systems: the pilots and operations leads who fly them, and the autonomy, avionics and airframe engineers who build them. Advertise a role to them directly and pay a fixed price once.
- What it costs
- From £99 for a 30-day listing. Pay once — no subscription, no recruiter fee, no percentage of salary.
- How fast it goes live
- One working day. A person reads every advert before it publishes, usually within a couple of hours.
- Who reads it
- GVC-qualified pilots and survey operators, UAS operations managers, and the autonomy, flight-control and airframe engineers on the engineering side. Most are employed and read this board to see which operators and manufacturers are hiring — and whether a role is flying, engineering or both.
- What it is not
- A CV database you rent, or an agency taking a fee on the hire. You post the role; candidates come to you.
Already written the advert somewhere else?
Paste the link and we pull the title, salary, location and description into a draft. Nothing publishes and nothing is charged until you say so.
Write the advert from scratchNot ready to post? See what it costs and come back when you are.
There are three ways to fill a Drone role. We are honest about being one of them.
Drone hiring splits between operations and engineering, and between the regulated world of CAA permissions and the unregulated one of hobby flying. A route that cannot tell them apart returns the wrong people. Here is the short version, including where a board is the wrong tool.
A specialist board
You are hereFixed, from £99 per role
You know roughly who you want, the salary is competitive, and you want the applications to land in your own inbox or ATS.
You need someone headhunted out of a named competitor, or the role is confidential.
A generalist platform
Per-click or per-slot, unbounded
Volume roles where reach matters more than fit, and hiring for functions outside engineering at the same time.
Almost every drone role. "Drone" on a generalist site draws hobbyists by the hundred, and the operator with a GVC and two years of commercial survey work is one application among them.
A recruitment agency
Typically 15–25% of first-year salary
Heads of flight operations and chief engineers, and any search for a specific airframe, autopilot or BVLOS background where people are approached rather than advertised to.
Roles you can attract directly. On a £90k salary the fee is most of a hiring budget.
Who actually reads this board
A smaller audience than a generalist site, and one that knows the regulations. People arrive here because they fly or build unmanned systems for a living and want to see who is hiring for survey, inspection, autonomy and avionics this month — and whether the advert says which qualification it needs.
Who we have on the board
Each one opens the live roles for it on Drone Jobs.
Seniority mix of live roles
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Graduate and entry 5%
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Mid-level 21%
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Senior and staff 52%
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Lead and principal 13%
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Head of and director 9%
Where they are
Location pages carry the local salary picture and the companies hiring there.
How the live roles are worked
How the advert reaches them
- Search and Google Jobs
- Every listing is structured for Google Jobs and indexed on the board, so it keeps working for the whole run.
- Saved alerts
- Candidates subscribe to a specialism, a salary floor and a location. Matching roles email out as they publish.
- The weekly digest
- One email, curated, read by people who are not actively applying yet — which is where most senior candidates sit.
- The rest of the network
- Add any of the other fifteen boards for +£75 each. Only worth it where the field genuinely overlaps.
What Drone roles pay in the UK
Built from the salaries stated in live adverts on this board, not a survey — the range employers are advertising, and its midpoint.
Drone pay depends on whether the role is operations or engineering, and on the qualifications and permissions it needs. An advert that names the band and the qualification — GVC, BVLOS, a particular airframe — draws people who hold it; one that hides the number reads as an operator still working out its day rate.
All UK Drone salary benchmarks, coming soon
| Role | Midpoint | Top salary |
|---|---|---|
|
Avionics Engineer Jobs (UAV)
Avionics Engineer Jobs (UAV) jobs on Drone Jobs
|
£65k | £78k |
|
Drone Pilot
Drone Pilot jobs on Drone Jobs
|
£60k | £80k |
|
Drone Technician
Drone Technician jobs on Drone Jobs
|
£30k | £45k |
|
UAV Systems Engineer
UAV Systems Engineer jobs on Drone Jobs
|
£60k | £83k |
|
Counter-UAS Engineer
Counter-UAS Engineer jobs on Drone Jobs
|
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Drone Engineer
Drone Engineer jobs on Drone Jobs
|
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Drone Operations Manager
Drone Operations Manager jobs on Drone Jobs
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Drone Software Engineer
Drone Software Engineer jobs on Drone Jobs
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From live adverts on this board · rows link to the role
From £99 a role. Paid once.
Three tiers and three durations, priced up front. Extra boards are +£75 each and only worth adding where the field overlaps — we will tell you when it does not.
In every listing, including the cheapest one
- A person reviews the advert before it publishes
- Structured for Google Jobs and indexed on the board
- Emailed to matching alert subscribers
- Applications to your inbox or straight into your ATS
- Live for 30 days, extendable
- No subscription and no auto-renewal
If it does not perform
Every listing carries an application benchmark set from the role itself — pay, contract type, working pattern. Come in under it and we extend the run and re-promote the role at no charge. It is in the terms, not a goodwill gesture.
Hiring several roles, or running an agency desk?
Bundles across roles and boards, and automatic ingestion from your ATS or a feed so nothing is re-keyed.
Works with your ATS
Send applications straight into it, or let us pull your open roles from it — and send candidates straight back.
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Ashby
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Greenhouse
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Lever
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Workable
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Personio
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BambooHR
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Rippling
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Workday
Not listed? We can usually build a connector in about a week — tell us about your ATS.
Put the role in front of people who fly and build unmanned systems.
Paste a link or write it here. Nothing is charged until you publish, and a person reads it before it goes live.