Many outstanding graduates are being locked in by companies before they even finish their studies, with highly attractive salaries. These days, this particular role has become extremely sought after.

Industry Desperately Needs Versatile Drone Talent Who Can Assemble and Program

According to CCTV Finance, from January to August this year, the number of drone engineer job postings rose 26% year-on-year, with an average monthly salary of 16,149 yuan. The scale of drone swarm flight planner positions has grown nearly eightfold over the past five years. At the 48th WorldSkills Competition currently being held in Shanghai, the drone systems event has attracted considerable attention from spectators.

Drone systems is one of seven new events added to this edition of the competition. Competitors are required to do far more than just operate flights — they must install hardware, calibrate flight control parameters, perform mission programming, and complete a drone capable of autonomous flight. A spectator remarked: "I've seen people flying drones outside before, and it felt really fascinating. I also wanted to see what exactly they compete in during this event." Another spectator said: "I encountered drone events when I was in university. China is now developing its low-altitude economy very well, so we're very interested in this too."

Sun Ruihui, deputy general manager of Shanghai Yunkunpeng General Aviation Co., had just returned to Shanghai from the China Air Transport Association Aviation Conference in Beijing and went straight to the venue to learn about this new WorldSkills event. As an industry insider, Sun had previously observed many similar vocational competitions. By comparison, she felt the difference at WorldSkills: while previous related competitions mostly focused on practical flight operations to complete tasks, this WorldSkills event is more systematic in its standards, requiring competitors to simultaneously possess multiple capabilities as engineers, pilots, programmers, and software developers.

The event settings of the WorldSkills Competition have always closely followed industrial development. Today, drone systems are widely used in environmental monitoring, disaster rescue, logistics delivery, urban management, and many other scenarios. As application scenarios continue to expand, the industry's demand for professional talent keeps growing.

Professional drone pilot Jia Yanxi has been involved with drones for five years and has worked full-time for nearly two years. His work assignments range from as short as three or four days to as long as one or two months. His salary is based on a commission from the total task amount. The considerable income, combined with the novelty brought by business travel, has made him very satisfied with this profession.

Compared to when he first entered the industry, Jia Yanxi clearly feels that the number of drone tasks in the industry has increased, the difficulty has risen, and the capability requirements for practitioners have correspondingly increased. Jia Yanxi, professional drone pilot, said: "When I first started, it might have just been capturing simple footage. Now there are more and more demands, such as hoisting, pesticide spraying, and the integrated application of drones with other industries."

Data shows that over the past year, new job postings in the low-altitude economy sector grew 67.64% year-on-year, with drone pilot positions growing 189.55% and maintenance and repair positions growing 147.39%. At the same time, the structural shortage of talent in the industry has become more prominent, with particularly strong demand for versatile technical talent who possess hardware assembly, software programming, and AI model tuning capabilities.

Gu Junjie, instructor of the "Drone Systems" WorldSkills event at Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Information School, said: "There's no shortage of assemblers, there's a gap in pilots, but what's most lacking is R&D talent. R&D mainly includes visual algorithm development, because we need to perform some high-precision tasks that require radar to help with positioning." The autonomous flight module set up for this WorldSkills event precisely corresponds to the R&D capability requirements in visual algorithms and radar positioning.

The competition standards of the event are also being transformed into teaching and industry standards for related majors. Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Information School officially launched drone-related courses in 2023. This time, the hard skills in drone system programming that competitors are required to master at the WorldSkills event have already been incorporated into daily teaching at the school.

Ling Hongxing, principal of Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Information School, said: "We can see more future career trend indicators from this competition. The school also needs to offer as many of these types of majors as possible for these future industries representing new quality productive forces."

For practitioners, the WorldSkills event has also revealed the bright future prospects of the drone industry. Sun Ruihui, deputy general manager of Shanghai Yunkunpeng General Aviation Co., said: "The fact that this WorldSkills Competition can hold events related to drone systems also shows that the country's future strategic layout places great importance on this area. The development of this industry is also very promising in the future."

From the competition arena to the workplace, drone talent is upgrading from "being able to fly" to "being able to fly, assemble, program, and understand applications." The future drone "pilot" may increasingly resemble an "all-around engineer."

In addition to the WorldSkills Competition, Shanghai has many other recent events worth learning about.