#Drone pilot jobs uk software
#Drone pilot jobs uk plus

So, even if you only draw the UK median salary of £30k/yr, that's going to push your day rate up to £420/day.Īlso, you'll probably need a spare drone (what happens if you crash your drone or it fails for some reason on a job - you'll still need to complete the job) and you'll most likely aspire to command a salary of more than £30k/yr. On top of that of course, you need to factor in your salary or, if you're a sole trader, your living costs. That means, that just to cover your costs for each of your year one 100 days of work, you'd need to charge an absolute minimum of £120/day. So you can see in total your set up and annual operating costs might easily be in the region of £12k in year one. That's a very conservative estimate of £8k/yr And then there's insurance and drone maintenance etc.

#Drone pilot jobs uk software

Accounting costs, subscriptions, software licences and so on - let's say £500/yr.

Office space, utility costs, rates etc.

Marketing, website development and hosting - £1k/yr.

#Drone pilot jobs uk plus

Vehicles and their running costs - let's say you change your car/van every 3 years at cost to change of £8k - plus tax, insurance, maintenance and fuel - total £3k/yr.Video/still editing software and controller software if buying outrightĪs a minimum you should assume perhaps £4k for all that.Your training and CAA permissions application fee.The capital costs of your drone, controllers, cases.In the first year particularly, your costs may be substantial. So that's just 100 days per year at a client's site doing visible, productive, paid work. Days or weeks off for holiday and/or sicknessĬonservatively, you might work on the assumption that you'll only have paid work 2.5 days a week in perhaps 40 weeks of the year.Planning and admin days - although applications like Dronedesk can obviously help you reduce admin time substantially.Weather - it's a major factor, especially in the UK, and you're unlikely to be able to fly on every day of every week you're available.You need to consider that you'll only be able to fly for so many days in any year. So, what do you need to take into account? Flyable days In all likelihood, you're not going to be able to sustain that business model because your costs will quickly outweight your income. Just to re-iterate, what you should definitely not do is find out what your competitors are charging and simply undercut them. You might find this calculator I created useful for that purpose.

You need to accurately account for your cost of sales (including marketing), capital costs, target profit and, especially if you're a sole trader or one-man-band, your living costs. Like any business, you need to apply some basic accounting principles to your costing calculations. I implore you to to think twice and, instead, apply some rigor to your pricing structure. In the end, that can only be damaging to your reputation and to the commercial drone industry as a whole. And, in a world of low-ball pricing, jobs will be rushed, safety will be compromised and there will be an inevitable erosion of the quality of the end product. But, that would be a huge mistake.Īs tempting as it might be, pricing low will simply enter you into a race to the bottom with fellow operators. It might be all too tempting to simply price low in order to win business and get your new drone business off the ground (see what I did there!). When you're starting out, it's really difficult to work out how much to charge and that's precisely because you're new and probably inexperienced in the field. Nonetheless, relative to the amount of work available, that's a large number of people and businesses that you'll be competing with as a commercial drone operator. Not all of them are active drone businesses some are research institutions or police forces for example. This post attempts to provide some guidance as to what you should be thinking about when answering that question for your own business.Īs of March 2020, the number of commercial drone operators in the UK is just under 6,000. One of the most common questions we get from new commercial drone operators is 'How much should I charge my client for this job?'.