From Drone Operator to Drone Entrepreneur: What SMEs Say They Need to Grow
Updated: 6 days ago
Europe’s drone sector is growing, creating new opportunities for SMEs and entrepreneurs. But knowing how to operate a drone is only one part of building a successful business around it. To better understand what drone businesses need to grow, SME-RISE partners in Portugal, Greece, and Cyprus reached out directly to SMEs, startups, freelancers , and young entrepreneurs in the sector.
Led by IPN, with contributions from Future Needs, CVTT-ISCTE, European Progress and Spotin partners, the research brought together insights from 34 professionals, alongside an analysis of the drone business landscape in each country.
The goal was to understand the challenges businesses face today, the skills they are missing, and what could help them take the next step.
Technical skills are not the biggest challenge
One of the clearest findings is that drone professionals feel more confident about their technical capabilities than about the business side of their work.
Across Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, technical competencies were among the strongest areas in respondents’ self-assessments. But when they compared the skills they have today with the level they would ideally like to reach, bigger gaps appeared in areas such as Business Management & Strategy and Sales & Marketing.
This was particularly visible in Cyprus, where respondents rated their current Sales & Marketing capabilities considerably lower than the level they would like to achieve. Similar gaps between current and desired capabilities can also be seen across the three countries in other business-related areas.
For many drone professionals, the challenge is not simply mastering the technology. It is also developing the skills needed to turn technical expertise into a sustainable business.
What skills are businesses missing?
When respondents were asked what skills they lack to scale their businesses, EU Drone Regulation emerged as the most consistent need, selected by more than half of respondents in each of the three countries. Marketing, cost and pricing, innovation and entrepreneurship were also among the areas identified.
When looking at priority learning topics more broadly, Advanced Regulatory Compliance, Technical Data, and Funding & Finance were among the strongest needs. Priorities also differed between markets: Cyprus showed demand across a broad range of topics, Greece placed particular emphasis on Funding and Technical Data, while Portugal highlighted Regulation and Sales & Value Proposition.
These findings show why business development in the drone sector goes beyond delivering the service itself. Entrepreneurs also need to know how to price their services, communicate their value, navigate regulation and identify opportunities to finance their growth.
Regulation remains a practical challenge
Knowing the rules is another important part of running and growing a drone business. And the research shows that the biggest regulatory challenges differ from country to country.
In Portugal, respondents reported the greatest difficulty with U-Space/Traffic Management and SORA. In Cyprus, cross-border operations, flight authorisations and insurance emerged as particularly challenging. Greece showed a more moderate and evenly distributed pattern of regulatory difficulties.
For a small business, these are not simply regulatory questions. They can influence which services can be offered, how operations are planned and how easily a company can expand its activities.
The business value is already visible
While the research identifies barriers to growth, it also shows why the opportunity is worth pursuing. Businesses participating in the research reported practical benefits from using drones, including reduced staff hours, faster execution and fewer on-site interventions. In Portugal and Cyprus, more than 60% of responses pointed to significant or moderate efficiency gains.
The examples shared by respondents make that impact much easier to see.
In Greece, one respondent reported using drone mapping to inspect around 70 buildings in just 4–6 flight hours, compared with 5–7 days of manual roof inspections.
In Portugal, an industrial service provider reported that drones helped eliminate thousands of hours of unnecessary field operations for a major cement-industry client, while also improving worker safety.
And in Cyprus, one respondent described using drones instead of setting up cranes for certain operations, reducing setup time and crew requirements.
These are individual examples rather than sector-wide averages, but they illustrate the real business value that drone services can create. The next challenge is helping more entrepreneurs turn that value into viable and scalable services.
Training needs to fit the reality of running a business
The research did not only ask what professionals want to learn. It also looked at how they want to learn.
Hybrid or blended learning was the most preferred format in all three countries — approximately 90% in Portugal, 60% in Greece and 63% in Cyprus. Cyprus respondents also showed strong interest in micro-learning and practical workshops.
There is a practical reason for this preference. Lack of time and operational pressure were among the main barriers to participating in training, particularly in Greece and Cyprus.
For entrepreneurs and small teams already managing day-to-day operations, training therefore needs to be flexible, practical and easy to fit around running a business.
From drone operators to drone entrepreneurs
Taken together, the findings point to an important shift. Supporting the growth of the drone services sector is not only about developing more technical expertise. Business development, commercialisation and regulatory knowledge need attention too.
Based on these findings, the report recommends that SME-RISE focus its future training on Business Readiness, including practical regulatory compliance, business modelling, and Sales & Value Proposition, helping SMEs better understand how to build and communicate the value of their services.
Most importantly, these priorities have not been defined in isolation. SME-RISE is using the experiences and needs reported by businesses themselves to help shape the educational materials that will be developed next.
The goal is to help turn strong drone operators into stronger drone entrepreneurs, equipped not only to deliver innovative services, but to build sustainable businesses around them.
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