Drone & Emerging Aviation Specialists operate, program, and maintain unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other emerging aviation technologies such as eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft and autonomous flight systems. Their work spans commercial applications including aerial surveying, infrastructure inspection, agricultural monitoring, cinematography, package delivery, and public safety operations for police and fire departments. Professionals in this field must navigate a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape overseen by aviation authorities like the FAA, while also mastering flight planning software, sensor payloads, and data analysis tools.
| Entry level | $48,000 |
| Median | $78,000 |
| Senior | $110,000 |
| Top 10% | $145,000 |
| Job growth | +32% |
| Professionals in the USA | 0.3 million |
| Typical hours/week | 42 hrs |
| Remote work share | 10% |
| Annual job openings | 18,000/yr |
| Demand | Very High |
AI and autonomy software are rapidly automating flight control, navigation, and obstacle avoidance for drones, reducing the need for manual piloting in routine missions. However, human oversight remains critical for regulatory compliance, complex mission planning, and operations in contested or unpredictable airspace.
Automation exposure: Manual piloting of routine flights (inspections, mapping, delivery), basic flight path planning, and data collection tasks are increasingly automated through AI-driven autopilot and swarm coordination systems.
The human edge: Humans excel at regulatory navigation, risk assessment in dynamic environments, emergency intervention, mission design for novel use cases, and integrating drone operations with broader business or public safety objectives.
Figures are estimates for exploration — verify current data with BLS.gov.