Drone Operator / Pilot

The skill this job is named for, flying the drone, is being designed out, and the clearest evidence comes from the regulator itself. In August 2025 the FAA proposed a new rule (Part 108) for drones that fly beyond the operator's line of sight, the kind used for surveying, inspection, farming and delivery. Under the proposal, those drones would have to be "highly automated," "replacing direct manual control ... with automated controls." Joysticks and hand controllers would not be allowed; people could only give simple commands like changing speed, height or heading. The FAA says this is meant to "eliminate the need for advanced flight training." The rule would drop the pilot certificate requirement for these flights and replace the pilot with an operations supervisor and flight coordinators who monitor flights and step in when needed. It starts at one drone per coordinator, but the FAA says running several drones per person is "an important consideration in scaling" and is already approving it case by case for delivery and farm operators. As of September 2026 the rule was still being finalized.

The drone business itself is growing. The FAA's 2026 forecast counts about 493,000 certified remote pilots at the end of 2025, up more than 70,000 in a year, and expects about 628,600 by 2030. But a certificate is not a job. More than 90% of people who take the exam pass, and in the FAA's 2025 survey of commercial-registered drone operators, about a third flew only for fun or not at all. There is no government count of full-time drone pilot jobs, so we can't say how many paid positions that growth adds.

This stays at 4 because automation is taking over the core skill, one person may soon oversee several drones, and the barrier to entry is low. That points to more competition and pressure on pay for people whose main skill is flying. Our read is that the safer ground is what you do with the data (surveying, inspection and mapping analysis) and creative filming, where a person still steers the shot. What would change the score: a final rule that keeps one coordinator per drone for most operations, or evidence that full-time drone pilot jobs are growing as fast as certificates, would move it to 3.