---
title: "Commercial Drone Pilot"
description: "Flies small unmanned aircraft for paid work such as surveying, mapping, construction progress, infrastructure inspection, film and agriculture."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/commercial-drone-pilot"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Commercial Drone Pilot

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-3031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-3031.00

Flies small unmanned aircraft for paid work such as surveying, mapping, construction progress, infrastructure inspection, film and agriculture.

Also advertised as: UAS Operator; Remote Pilot; Drone Operator; UAV Pilot; sUAS Pilot; Drone Inspection Pilot.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $54,240 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $26.08/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $37,520 to $81,630, with the middle half between $45,430 and $66,700
- **Total US employment:** 58,010
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 39/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 58,010 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $37,520 |
| 25th | $45,430 |
| 50th (median) | $54,240 |
| 75th | $66,700 |
| 90th | $81,630 |
| Mean (average) | $58,000 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $78,110 | $70,547 | 3,340 |
| AK | $76,970 | $75,196 | 300 |
| MN | $73,190 | $74,213 | 1,060 |
| WA | $62,720 | $58,610 | 1,030 |
| MD | $61,600 | $58,690 | 470 |
| ND | $60,870 | $68,425 | 160 |
| NJ | $60,720 | $55,806 | 750 |
| MT | $60,330 | $63,743 | 430 |
| OH | $60,330 | $65,029 | 1,350 |
| RI | $60,320 | $58,975 | 110 |
| UT | $59,600 | $60,285 | 360 |
| WI | $59,080 | $62,788 | 660 |
| IA | $58,950 | $67,170 | 390 |
| CT | $58,900 | $56,848 | 380 |
| NV | $58,790 | $58,802 | 680 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/commercial-drone-pilot/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/commercial-drone-pilot.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 58,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 62,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 3,400 jobs, or +5.8%. Faster than average: 5.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Check airspace restrictions and request LAANC authorization before flights
- Plan automated flight paths for mapping and inspection missions
- Fly drones to capture photos, video, thermal or LiDAR data
- Process imagery into maps, 3D models and inspection reports
- Maintain aircraft, batteries, sensors and flight logs
- Conduct pre-flight site safety assessments with clients
- Keep the FAA Remote Pilot Certificate current through recurrent training

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Geography — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.96 |
| C — Conventional | 5.63 |
| I — Investigative | 4.44 |
| A — Artistic | 1.91 |
| S — Social | 1.00 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 93.4 |
| ISTP | 81.7 |
| INTJ | 78.5 |
| ISFJ | 73.0 |
| ESTJ | 68.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Surveying and Mapping Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surveying-and-mapping-technician) — median $54,240
- [Cartographer and Photogrammetrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cartographer-and-photogrammetrist) — median $81,390
- [Geodetic Surveyor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geodetic-surveyor) — median $75,440
- [Geographic Information Systems Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geographic-information-systems-technologist-and-technician) — median $116,580
- [Surveyor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surveyor) — median $75,440
- [Geological Technician, Except Hydrologic Technicians](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geological-technician) — median $53,350
- [Architectural and Civil Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-civil-drafter) — median $66,150
- [Civil Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $64,950
- [Remote Sensing Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/remote-sensing-technician) — median $62,280
- [Remote Sensing Scientist and Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/remote-sensing-scientist-and-technologist) — median $122,570

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/commercial-drone-pilot