Since I got my drone license in Africa four years ago, I have worked in different industries, ranging from surveillance, mapping, agriculture and training. The drone industry’s landscape was fairly new then, and being licensed and knowing how to fly was good enough. However, today you rarely see job postings that only look for people who can fly. Before the drone leaves the ground, a lot must happen in the background, from stakeholder engagement, gaining local authority approvals, obtaining security clearance and getting the civil aviation authority’s (CAA) approval to fly. Many companies now look for people who can handle these aspects, from planning and decision-making to final deliverables. The drone industry landscape has evolved, but has the training evolved at the same pace to fill in the gaps?
The Missing Link
Compared to other parts of the world, the drone industry in Africa is still moving slowly. Currently, fewer than 50% of African countries have accredited drone schools. That means many countries have no clear pathway to obtain a drone license. Even in countries where the industry has matured, such as South Africa and Kenya, obtaining a license remains a significant investment.
The challenge, however, extends beyond the cost of training. Many new pilots assume that obtaining a license automatically leads to employment. In reality, employers increasingly seek professionals who can contribute to more than just flying.
The current curriculum mainly focuses on the theoretical part of airspace regulations, weather, airspace classifications and human factors. However, not all licensed pilots can apply this “book knowledge” to actual drone projects. The companies that hire them often have to retrain them. Companies are often willing to train existing surveyors, engineers, agronomists, inspectors, or emergency responders to operate drones because they already understand the industry’s workflows. This creates an important question for aspiring drone professionals. If flying is becoming only one part of the job, what other skills should operators develop?
The 6 Skills of the Modern Drone Operator
In my opinion, every modern drone operator should have these six skills, whether in Africa and beyond.
Operational Management
Flying a drone is the smallest part of a drone project. Modern drone operations are increasingly won through planning rather than piloting.
Before conducting the first flight, you need to engage stakeholders, local authorities, CAAs and security agencies. You also need to plan around weather, schedule flights, conduct risk assessments and determine where to station the ground control station (GCS) during the flights.
Once the project starts, the role involves actively managing flights based on conditions such as the presence of manned aircraft, security issues and weather changes, all while coordinating a team and ensuring everyone’s safety. Being able to adjust the flying mission due to weather or other factors is as important a skill as sticking to the plan.
This change is particularly evident in Africa, where drone operations often take place in complex operating environments. Mapping projects, agricultural spraying, infrastructure inspections and humanitarian missions frequently involve multiple stakeholders, challenging logistics, and evolving operational conditions. Success often depends on an operator’s ability to manage the entire workflow, rather than simply fly the aircraft. For example, I was recently tasked with collecting data in an urban area in Kenya. The approval and stakeholder engagement took two months, while the actual flying took only four days.
Regulatory Management
Regardless of which country you may operate in, drone operations go beyond obtaining a license. Every day of flight requires approval from the CAA. For instance, in Kenya the CAA requires drone pilots not just to have a drone license and a registered and insured drone,
but also to obtain a letter from the landowner and provide a risk assessment of the flight area. The requirements may change depending on where you are flying. Each approval comes with conditions you must adhere to. Some companies will have a separate team to handle approvals, while others will require you to handle the approval application process as well.
Data Management
Clients increasingly pay less for drone flights, but more for the insights generated from the drone data. Knowing what the end product will be used for helps determine the type of drone or payload to be used to collect this data.
Other helpful skills that drone pilots should have in Africa include crop health analysis, inspections and crop spraying. I recently saw a job posting from an non-governmental organization (NGO) seeking drone pilots to fly in a settlement, map infrastructure and social amenities, conduct spatial analyses of issues such as flood-prone areas and present the findings. That goes beyond flying into a geospatial (GIS) analysis. Being able to collect drone data and turn it into insights is now more valuable than flying.
Automation
Drones are becoming some of the most automated systems in the world. The drone pilot’s role has evolved from flying to a supervisory role. For instance, a simple mission with a highly automated drone will not require the drone pilot to fly, but instead to set the parameters and observe to ensure the drone captures the required data.
Zipline’s delivery drones provide an example of this. While they still hire drone pilots and people with an aviation background, the delivery drones are fully automated. The drone pilot ensures everything is working as it should.
The role of the operator has shifted to mission oversight and validation of the collected data. Systems like the DJI Dock reduce a pilot’s input by automatically charging and recharging, conducting routine inspections and identifying issues using embedded AI. Drone swarms, where one operator manages several drones flying simultaneously, fly by these same concepts. As such, a drone pilot will be more valuable if they can build or manage automated systems and the data they collect.
Industry Specialization
Instead of just identifying as a drone pilot, drone professionals should pick a niche and understand the industry they have picked and what it entails. If you decide to get into agricultural drones, understand the various crops, chemicals and how they behave, as well as understand how plants work and how you can use drones to identify issues.
If you decide to go into mapping, understand GIS and photogrammetry principles, the various deliverables and how they are used. Inspection pilots need to understand how to identify infrastructure defects and present their findings. Medical delivery pilots need to understand the operational and regulatory framework for such operations.
Communication
Knowing how to communicate ideas to stakeholders and potential clients through proposals, webinars, and other channels has become critical. Up front, many people who need drone services don’t really understand how drones work, the approval framework, the different drones and what they can do, etc. On the back end, once you collect and analyze the data, you will need to present it in a way everyone can understand. This makes communication skills, presentation and reporting skills invaluable.
Bridging the Gap
Africa doesn’t simply need more licensed drone pilots. It needs more drone professionals. To bridge this gap between licensing and actual skills, African countries should consider reviewing curriculum and engaging academic institutions.
With regard to curriculum, drone training should go beyond introducing the various regulations and simply teaching people how to fly. It should also train them in different flight-planning software, how to conduct a drone mission from start to finish, and how to leverage apps like weather forecasting apps and FlightRadar that can help them successfully plan their missions.
Many academic institutions integrate drone studies into their curricula, but more can do so. Teaching students about drone regulations, safety aspects and the different ways they can use drones in their studies and future careers helps create a more future-ready workforce.
As the industry evolves, flying will remain an essential skill. The operators who succeed, however, will be those who can combine knowledge of aviation with regulations, GIS, automation, project management and communication. In other words, the future belongs to the professionals who can manage entire drone systems, understand their clients’ use cases and can translate data into actionable intelligence.