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Why hire & not buy?
A quick dive into the reality of flying a drone in the UK
*Updated with the new 2026 laws - all graphics shown are made and copyrighted by media4you*
Commercial vs Recreational
First it's important to know the difference between flying a drone commercially (for business), compared to flying a drone recreationally (for fun), and how the line between the two can often be blurred leaving you in a questionable grey area.
The laws and regulations behind how you fly the drone are the same either way, these don't change. What do change however are what you need when flying the drone, for example, you don't legally need insurance when flying recreationally, however you absolutely do commercially, likewise you don't need an A2 CofC qualification to fly a 900gram drone recreationally if you're out flying in an open field or wilderness, but you do need it flying the drone commercially when needing to get close to people or objects (more on that below).
Flying recreationally, all you need is a flyer & operator ID, and to follow the CAA rules and enjoy! To fly commercially, you need ID, Insurance, qualifications, Log Books, PDRA's, etc... On top of the additional qualifications and insurances, you also need to factor in maintenance costs, operating costs, software's, updates and much more!
Below you'll see what it takes to fly a drone commercially...
What you need to fly commercially.
The CAA Qualifications act like stepping stones, one feeds into the other, each serving it's own purpose. You don't need every single one of them, nor should you spend the money on them, but having them enables you to do, and fly more than you would be able to do otherwise.
First and foremost you need both a flyer ID and operator ID, one allowing you to fly, the other allowing you to actually own and operate the drone. Usually this is as far as most people go, you don't need anything more than this flying recreationally, however if you're flying commercially and want to legally be allowed to fly in more difficult situations with heavier or more capable drones, you'll need to obtain the A2 CofC. The next step on is the GVC, aka, the general visual line of site certificate, this allows you to fly both even heavier and more capable drones, but it also allows you to fly beyond the visual line of site of the drone in specific circumstances, which is otherwise not allowed normally. The GVC also grants you access into specific category operations which are both high risk and more complex.
To fly commercially, you need a PDRA (Log Book) and for low tier high risk operations, you can submit a SAIL application to be allowed to fly without any issues, however for more higher risk operations, you need to pair your PDRA and GVC together to even send off the application, whilst showing your A2 Cofc and flyer & operator ID for the CAA to then investigate and grant permission for a specific flight. This is most commonly used for when we need to fly over large crowds!
Drone Insurance
As you can probably imagine, drone insurance, or public liability insurance using it's official name, is extremely important when conducting a drone flight, no matter how small or quick the flight is, if something goes wrong, it can REALLY go wrong, so ensuring you're covered is a must!
Recreationally you don't require any insurance to fly, however we still recommend it because you never know when something will go wrong. Commercially though, you are legally required to have both insurance, and the correct level of insurance. Your basic recreational insurance will cover you up to £1M, however commercially we hold a £5Million liability cover than can be raised up to £25Million for more high risk flights. This may seem like overkill however when you're dealing with property or infrastructure and if something went wrong, there are a lot of costs and moving parts involved to fix that. We can also cover over £25Million in extreme cases, but this is very rare.
Insurance is expensive, but it's more expensive not to have insurance!
Cost of the actual drone
So already we've seen how much it costs to both get qualified and insured, now we're finally buying a drone! Picking a drone in of itself is difficult, with so many weight differences, price ranges, and capabilities, there really isn't such a thing as in 'one can do it all'. People often forget some of the things you need to purchase alongside the drone, such as the controller, the batteries, a protective carry case and much more, all of which raises the costs significantly. You can get deals online called 'Fly more combo' to get better deals with everything combined, but even then, it's often more than people expect.
As of right now, the DJI Mini 5 pro fly more combo, which is the smallest and most capable drone in the DJI range, is currently sitting at around £1,200, and if you wanted to use this drone commercially, you'd need to add on at least a few hundred more on top of that for more batteries and the gear needed to fly safely. It's much cheaper than it used to be, but it's still not cheap! Moving onto a more mid tier matrice thermal drone, you're now looking around £10,000 and to get a top of the range drone you're looking over £15,000 and that's without any extras, without the maintenance costs, without the operational costs, not including insurance, qualifications or anything else. Drones are much cheaper than they used to be but they're still a big hurdle to get past!
2026 CAA Weight Categories
As of 2026, the CAA has now released a new set of weight categories to further define that drones need what licences and insurance covers, to be able to legally fly and work in our skies. Ranging from UK0 which most sub 250g drones fall under like the DJI mini series, all the way up to UK6 which is for heavy drones doing specific operations, things like large 10 bladed drones used for construction or search and rescue.
Understanding these weight categories is fundamental in both knowing what drone to purchase, but also in how you can safely and legally operate it. The UK number rating is classified to a specific drone model, and it's then your job as the drone operator to ensure that you've got the correct qualifications and cover, and are flying it in the correct way. Otherwise you face both financial penalties, but also criminal prosecution.
That's just the drones...
With all that being said and done, we've not yet even covered the digital data side of operating a drone yet. You've purchased the drone and have succeeded in obtaining your qualifications, well done! You've gone out and took a load of photos for a photogrammetry project, now what? Well, now you need a specialist programme, to which any worth their weight costs money, then you need to know how to input the data correctly, to get the information or end product, that you're actually looking for!
This is why we recommend it's better to hire a professional than try it yourself, setting up to fly commercially is a big deal, with lots of ins and outs, lots of fees and charges, and lots of rules and regulations, that it makes it nearly impossible to follow if you're not doing it as a main service. Hiring a professional drone company is the same as fixing that broken pipe in your home, you can run the risk and fix it yourself and either absolutely make a mess or fix it with an okay result, or you can hire a plumber to get it fixed quickly and to a high quality.
If you want to get into drone's, then absolutely go for it, but do it gradually. It'll cost you more money trying to buy everything and doing it yourself than it would be hiring a professional to quickly get the job done!
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