What I do

I map the inside and outside of buildings using specialist equipment, including drones, in order to create plans.

How I became a technician

I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was at school, although I was interested in graphic design. I went to college and did a Level 3 BTEC in Engineering. From there, I found myself an apprenticeship as a CAD Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Technician at a big multidisciplinary engineering company. I later moved on to drone operations with Target Surveys.

My current job involves a few different roles. When I first started, I was a CAD Technician, which involves a lot of measuring and building surveys. But now, as well as the measuring buildings side of things (which essentially shows what’s inside) I also do a lot of topographical surveys, which show what is external. On the commercial side, I do a lot of multistorey buildings, which can take a couple of weeks. A typical standard residential house takes about a day. Most of the time the client already owns the land and wants to rebuild and regenerate the area. This is where I use the drones. It took me six months, on and off, to train to get my drone licence, but it’s been worth every minute.

A typical day in my
working life

If I am working with the drones, the day before I go out on a job, I do my operations checks to make sure it is safe to fly. If it’s raining, the drone can’t fly because it’s not fully waterproof. If it’s too windy, it also can’t fly. There are lots of checks you have to do to make sure that everything is safe, and that the weather conditions are okay. I’ll also double-check everything is charged up. Before I get to the site, I look at Google to see where the entrance points are and what the health and safety hazards could be.

On the day of the survey, I come into the office in the morning to collect the kit. Once on site, I’ll then rerun all the checks to make sure the drone is working properly. The flying is then the easy part. When I’m setting an area that I want the drone to fly in, I can see its location on the control panel screen, and I can generate a flight path for it. I have had instances where birds of prey and seagulls have been eyeing up the drone, so I have to keep my eye on it while it’s in action. I also have to be aware of potential hazards. Once the drone has flown the area, I take the GPS coordinates. Each battery lasts about 20 mins in the warm weather, so it will come back down after about 20 minutes and I’ll check everything is okay, change the battery and then send it back up. It remembers the last point it recorded, and it continues mapping from there.

At the end of the day, the batteries go into storage if they do not need to be charged for the next day. The drone takes lots of photos, and I download those off an SD card and put them into the drone mapping software, Pix4D. Typically, we leave it overnight and then, for a small job, in the morning the mapping should be done. It can take days to download larger jobs, depending on the resolution of the photos and how many there are. Once we have the point cloud, we can start drawing up the plans.

Working with new technology is exciting.

I used to think drones were an expensive hobby – now I see how vital they are to getting great results and saving clients’ money in the long run.

A surprising fact about my job

I do a lot of travelling in this role. The majority of our jobs are in London, but we do travel throughout the UK.

A little more about
my everyday role

What I wear to work

If I’m in the office, I wear smart casual clothing. If I am on a construction site, I wear all the necessary PPE, like high-vis and hard hat.

The best bits about working in a team

I still work closely with the CAD Technicians and there are about 10 of us. We all help each other out and bounce ideas off each other. If I’m flying a drone, usually I am by myself, but if there is a part that needs laser scanning, then someone else will come with me.

My favourite piece of equipment

My favourite equipment has to be the drones. I have a slightly smaller drone, which has a thermal camera on it, so I can do heat loss surveys and solar inspections. I went to a job at a school that wanted a heat loss survey, so I used the drone to photograph the windows and roof. I can also use it to spot defects in solar panels using a solar camera. It shows you ‘dead spots’, which are black and gives an assessment of which panels need fixing.

The next steps in my career journey

I would like to continue with drone work, as it is a relatively new industry, and I would like to run my own drone team.

The advice I'd give to
someone younger

Do what you enjoy. Give things a go and if it doesn’t work out, you can try something else. I didn’t know what I wanted to do following school, so the apprenticeship really helped me decide.

Surveying equipment on tripod overlooking water

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