What the data shows
- 1
Cars and robotaxis (401), Drones and aircraft (59), Autonomous trucks (34) and Vessels (1) had the most open roles on 31 Oct 2026, of the 4 vehicles named in role titles.
- 2
Of the vehicles that began with enough open roles for their change to stand on its own, Drones and aircraft expanded fastest (+133.3%, 12 to 28), while Autonomous trucks contracted most (-5.7%).
- 3
Drones and aircraft roles posted the top median rate at $35/hr and Cars and robotaxis the bottom at $27/hr, counting vehicles with 3 or more priced roles.
- 4
91.0% of the 544 open AV & Drone Operators roles name a vehicle in their title; the other 49 name none (often a robotics or operations technician whose description mentions vehicle work).
- 5
Where a full description is published, 89% of car and robotaxi roles require a driver's license, 97.1% of truck roles a CDL and 78% of drone and aircraft roles an FAA Part 107 certificate.
Figure 1
Open roles by vehicle
How many operator roles are there for cars and robotaxis, trucks, drones and vessels?
| Market | Live on 31 Oct 2026 | New listings | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cars and robotaxis | 401 | 57 | 21 | +9.2% |
| Drones and aircraft | 59 | 23 | 18 | +133.3% |
| Autonomous trucks | 34 | 4 | 8 | -5.7% |
| VesselsSmall sample | 1 | 0 | 1 | n/a |
Base: 495 of the 544 vehicle and drone operator roles open at the end of 31 Oct 2026 name a vehicle in their title; 4 markets have open roles. New listings from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026.
A role counts for a vehicle when it is AV & Drone Operators work and its title names the vehicle (for example 'Autonomous Vehicle Safety Operator', 'Class A CDL Driver', 'UAS Drone Pilot', 'ASV Operator'). Road roles whose title names a truck, a CDL or Class A count as trucks. A title naming no vehicle, or both a road and an aerial one, counts for none.
Change measures open roles at the window's start against its end, counting only employers followed throughout.
A row with under 6.6 open roles at the start carries a small-sample mark and is left unranked: under that count, the average across all rows says more than the row's own open roles at the start do (a weight fitted on the counts themselves).
Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition.
Figure 2
Advertised hourly pay by vehicle
Which vehicle pays its operators the most?
| Market | Median per hour | Middle half | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drones and aircraft | $35 | $35 to $36 | 28 |
| Autonomous trucks | $35 | $28 to $35 | 19 |
| Cars and robotaxis | $27 | $25 to $30 | 46 |
Base: Priced roles live on 31 Oct 2026, for markets that have 3 or more of them.
Pay is the posting's hourly rate, or the midpoint when it gives a range. 'Middle half' covers the 25th through the 75th percentile.
Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition.
Figure 3
Applicant interest per opening, vehicle by vehicle
Which vehicle draws the most applicants per opening, and which is short of them?
| Market | Weekly clicks per open role | Index | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drones and aircraftSmall sample | 0.02 | 0.18x | 4 | 44 |
| Cars and robotaxisSmall sample | 0.02 | 0.21x | 36 | 338 |
| Autonomous trucksSmall sample | 0.01 | 0.11x | 2 | 35 |
| VesselsSmall sample | 0.00 | 0.00x | 0 | 0 |
Base: Apply clicks made on RobotTraining.jobs for roles whose title names each market, from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, measured against how many days those roles stayed open.
Weekly clicks per role equal apply clicks divided by (open role-days / 7). An index of 1.00 matches the average for all open roles on the site.
All rows carry a small-sample mark and none is ranked: the rates of the markets vary no more than chance would make them vary, so no single row stands on its own.
Because RobotTraining.jobs lists roles open in a visitor's own country first, country-restricted roles are affected.
Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition.
Figure 4
Who hires for each vehicle
For each vehicle, do many employers hire or does one dominate?
| Market | Largest employer | Its share | Employers listing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cars and robotaxis | TSMG | 70.3% | 21 |
| Drones and aircraft | Amazon Prime Air | 28.8% | 18 |
| Autonomous trucks | TSMG | 29.4% | 8 |
| VesselsSmall sample | Saildrone | 100.0% | 1 |
Base: Roles live on 31 Oct 2026, grouped by the employer posting them.
When one employer's share is high, it controls most of the openings, leaving applicants with few other options and letting it set the going rate.
A row with under 3.8 open roles carries a small-sample mark and is left unranked: under that count, the average across all rows says more than the row's own open roles do (a weight fitted on the counts themselves).
Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition.
Figure 5
Where each vehicle's roles are open
Can an operator apply from any country, or are roles tied to certain places?
| Market | Open worldwide | Only listed countries | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drones and aircraftSmall sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 59 |
| Cars and robotaxisSmall sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 401 |
| VesselsSmall sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 1 |
| Autonomous trucksSmall sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 34 |
Base: Roles live on 31 Oct 2026; every percentage is out of that market's own openings.
Each posting's location text sets its rule, or the posting's own description when that text names no country. Whatever a row leaves unaccounted for is roles that exclude certain countries or state no rule.
All rows carry a small-sample mark and none is ranked: they vary no more than chance would make them vary, so no single row stands on its own.
Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition.
Figure 6
What each vehicle's roles require
Which licences, checks and minimum ages does each kind of vehicle work require?
| Market | Driver's license | CDL | FAA Part 107 | Pilot license | Minimum age 21 or more | Background check | Drug test | College degree | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cars and robotaxis | 89.0% | 1.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 31.7% | 24.9% | 21.7% | 1.7% | 401 |
| Autonomous trucks | 100.0% | 97.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 50.0% | 64.7% | 58.8% | 0.0% | 34 |
| Drones and aircraft | 11.9% | 0.0% | 78.0% | 5.1% | 0.0% | 3.4% | 10.2% | 0.0% | 59 |
| VesselsSmall sample | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1 |
Base: 495 vehicle and drone operator roles open on 31 Oct 2026 whose job board publishes a full description, by the vehicle their title names.
Read with the requirements report's reader: a licence, an age or a check counts only when the description requires it (a preference does not), except the drug test, which counts wherever it is mentioned.
A row with under 1.4 descriptions carries a small-sample mark and is left unranked: under that count, the average across all rows says more than the row's own descriptions do (a weight fitted on the counts themselves).
Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition.
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1,432 robot training roles followed, history included
Every role on 100 employer job boards, read each day since 12 Sep 2026: its pay, its place, and the first and last day it was up.
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How it was measured
Every day this site reads the public job boards of the robot training employers and programs it follows. Vehicles are read from role titles; licences from the full descriptions; apply clicks are made on RobotTraining.jobs. A single database query produces each figure for the window shown, and the live page and every monthly edition run that identical query. The note under each figure gives its base.
- Vehicle of a role
- A role in the AV and drone operator kind of work counts for a vehicle when its title names one: a car, robotaxi or autonomous vehicle; a truck, a CDL or Class A (trucks); a drone, UAS, aircraft or flight test (drones and aircraft); a vessel or boat. A title naming no vehicle, or both a road and an aerial one, counts for none.
- Licence required
- A driver's license, a commercial driver's license (CDL), an FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate or a pilot license that the description requires (a preference does not count), read with the requirements report's reader.
- Open role
- On a given day, a role that has been posted and still shows in the employer's feed.
- New listing
- A role seen for the first time during the window, at an employer this site was already following the week before. Whatever an employer has up in its first tracked week is back catalogue and does not count as new.
- Advertised pay
- The hourly rate a listing gives, using the midpoint when it gives a range. A median appears only when 3 or more roles state a rate, and the middle half spans the 25th to the 75th percentile.
- Weekly clicks per open role
- Apply clicks made on RobotTraining.jobs, over the total days the roles stayed open, multiplied by 7.
- Demand index
- One group's weekly clicks per open role set against the same rate for every open role on the site. A reading above 1 means the group pulls more applicants than a typical role.
- Location rule
- Taken from the location text of each listing or, when that text names no country, from what the listing's own description says: worldwide, worldwide with named exceptions, named countries only, or no rule given.
- Window
- Live page: the 28 most recent full days (UTC). Edition: a single calendar month (UTC).
Limits of this data
- Hiring that happens off public job boards is invisible here, and some data-collection programs sign people up inside an app instead of posting a job.
- A posting does not equal a hire. Certain employers leave evergreen roles up for months, and others post the same role once per city or country.
- A role whose title names no vehicle is not counted for one, so each vehicle's count is a floor.
- Apply clicks reflect what interests people using RobotTraining.jobs, and roles placed higher on the page collect more of them.
Collection and classification of listings are explained on the methodology page. Freshness, completeness and consistency are tested daily in the data quality report.
Monthly editions
The live page spans the 28 most recent full days and updates daily. Every finished month also gets its own edition, locked two days after month end, so a number quoted from it stays fixed.
- Live page28 most recent full days, rebuilt daily
- October 2026 edition (you are here)Will lock when the next daily refresh runs
Quoting this report
You may quote, chart or republish these figures under CC BY 4.0, provided you link back to this page. This edition is locked: its numbers will not change.
Citation
RobotTraining.jobs (2026). Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition. https://robottraining.jobs/research/vehicle-and-drone-operator-work/2026-10
BibTeX
@misc{robottrainingjobs_vehicle_and_drone_operator_work_2026_10,
author = {{RobotTraining.jobs}},
title = {Autonomous Vehicle and Drone Operator Work, October 2026 edition},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://robottraining.jobs/research/vehicle-and-drone-operator-work/2026-10}},
}Keep reading
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