How to Fly High in the Roofing Industry

Last week we brought you some news of exciting developments in the roofing industry with the revelation that drones are increasingly being used to carry out detailed roof inspections without the need to access the roof.  A roof inspection would traditionally require access to the roof and, in many cases nowadays, this is only permissible by erecting scaffolding due to more stringent health and safety legislation that means that using a ladder to access work at height is only acceptable for short periods of less than 30 minutes.  The need to scaffolding makes a roof inspection a much more expensive process and this does not go down particularly well with householders who want to get several quotes before choosing the right contractor to carry out repairs on their roofs.

We showed a video at the end of last week’s article demonstrating a roof inspection being carried out by a drone in America, where using drones to get the roof checked is becoming commonplace.  We suggested that this is an ideal start up idea for budding entrepreneurs here in the UK – launching a company that specialises in roof inspections so that roofing contractors can hire them as a speedy and low-cost method of carrying out inspections in order to provide homeowners with an accurate quote for work.

It’s not just roofing companies who will be lining up to take advantage of the services of a drone pilot.  If you have photographic skills, you could be working as an aerial photographer, providing bird’s eye images of homes and other buildings or undertaking surveys of buildings or land.  A professional drone pilot could make a small fortune by specialising in videoing sports events and other public entertainment spectacles.  A few aerial video clips of a wedding would make for some unusual shots in the Wedding Album. 

Now is the best time to start if you’re inspired to start a career as a professional drone pilot (and who wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to do such a cool job), this subsector of the roofing industry is in its infancy right now so you would be an innovative early adopter which just adds to the cool-factor.  In fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s second largest professional services company predicts that there will be more than 600,000 people employed in what it dubs “the drone economy” in the UK by 2030.

Here in the UK there is a legal requirement for professional drone pilots (who are usually referred to as commercial operators) to obtain a licence in order to fly, even though they are not physically on-board.  Next week, we’ll have some information for you on how to go about becoming a professional drone pilot, so if you don’t want to miss out on this, why not follow us on our Facebook Page or on our Twitter feed and find out what you need to do to grab yourself a cool new career.