You’re a drone pilot who wants to advance your career. What’s the next step?

When people see which projects you covered already they will already have a good understanding on what you can achieve for them. Also, highlighting the biggest and the most attractive projects can always help to distinguish yourself from the others.

Keeping your portfolio up to date is essential in showcasing your drone piloting expertise. Your portfolio should feature a range of content like photos, videos, maps, or reports that you've produced using your drone.

Content is King; your website and portfolio are key to your success, showcasing images and video footage of your work, understanding how to achieve stunning images with great compositions, and flying smoothly with your chosen subject in the frame.

As a drone pilot, it's essential to explore various software tools that can help in planning, executing, and analyzing your missions. Depending on your area of expertise, you might need to comfortable yourself with software for mapping, surveying, inspection, modeling, editing, or data analysis. By learning new software, you can increase your capabilities, boost efficiency, and bring creativity.

Software is the key for being more productive! Level of automation can almost always be increased by using the right software. Be always open to learning new solutions and try to utilize the option of the trial versions of the software so you can see how some software can optimize your workflow.

Boosting your career as a drone pilot involves obtaining a license from a recognised organization. License validates your skills, professionalism, and commitment to safety and ethical guidelines. Depending on your location and sector, you may require license from a national or regional aviation authority like DGCA

Obtain advanced certifications such as the AUVSI Trusted Operator Program (TOP). I enhanced my drone piloting skills by completing specialized training to become a certified Level 1 Thermographer. This certification sharpened my ability to capture and interpret thermal data, expanding my service offerings in infrastructure inspection and search and rescue missions.

Building connections with other drone pilots can provide valuable learning experiences, allow you to share your knowledge, and open doors to new opportunities. Whether online or offline, you can engage with peers through social media platforms, discussion forums, blogs, podcasts, or industry events.

Much of my work is completed by collaborating with other Drone pilots and videographers I have connected with on LinkedIn. When one camera is not enough on a shoot, I can always pull in reliable and professional pilots/videographers from my network, working as a team to ensure our clients' expectations are met and exceeded. Checking other Pilots/Videographers' work on social media is a must before working with them, ensuring their standards of work meet your requirements.

Engage with the drone pilot community both online and offline. Attend drone expos, seminars, and workshops. Joining forums like the 'Commercial UAS forum', social media groups, and professional associations, like AUVSI, can also provide opportunities to meet potential employers, clients, and mentors.

Receiving feedback from clients is of paramount importance, whether good or bad, to Identify what you are doing right and possibly what you are doing wrong, ensuring you improve your services where they may be lacking; 100% always request a review, preferably Google, which can lead to improved rankings, and potential clients looking for a Drone pilot can view them which improves customer confidence and credibility of your business brand.

Improving your drone piloting skills involves seeking input from various sources like clients, employers, colleagues, or mentors. Their feedback helps you understand what you're good at and where you need to improve.

Feedback loop is the crucial part of every process. In this way we can learn the best what are should we change with regards to the whole process of the process workflow. What I strongly encourage is asking customer if he would prefer if something was done differently and learning more about it if the answer is yes.

The drone industry is very young and fast advancing so you need to try to improve by the day. By exploring new fields of interest you can increase your offerings and then of course distinguish yourself from other pilots.

The drone industry is evolving all the time, with new applications, sometimes you can just find a niche, that fits your experience and flying skills that a client requires, which can lead to long-term contracts

Try to be the best one available and to understand the processes in the background. Just being the pilot can probably be almost everybody but actually learning more on the data and handling it is very fruitful since not everybody can understand it.