UK · updated 8 September 2026
The same drone qualification costs £418 or £1,434
Depending only on where you buy it. Same CAA certificate, same legal privileges, 3.4 times the price. We read every approved provider's own website and put the numbers side by side.
Not flying in the UK? We now cover six regimes, read at each regulator rather than summarised from someone else's blog. See what a drone qualification costs worldwide →
GVC + A2 CofC, bought together
The usual purchase for anyone going commercial, and where the spread is widest. Prices are shown as the seller displays them; where a site quotes ex-VAT we convert at 20% and say so in the VAT column.
| Provider | Course | Price | VAT basis | Delivery | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spectrum Drone Services | A2 CofC + GVC (online) | £418 | not stated | Online | not on register | View course → |
| iRed | A2 CofC + GVC bundle | £549 | not stated | E-learning | CAA approved | View course → |
| Spectrum Drone Services | A2 CofC + GVC (instructor-led) | £549 | not stated | Instructor-led | not on register | View course → |
| UAVHub | GVC + A2 CofC bundle | £599 | not stated | E-learning | not on register | View course → |
| Coptrz | GVC + A2 CofC bundle | £696 | not stated | Online | CAA approved | View course → |
| The UAV Academy | Combined A2 CofC + GVC | £885 | inc VAT | Online + in-person flight assessment | CAA approved | View course → |
| Consortiq | GVC + A2 CofC | £1,078.80 | £899 + VAT | Blended — remote ground school, in-person assessment | CAA approved | View course → |
| Drone Pilot Academy | GVC incl. practical and A2 CofC | £1,434 | £1,195 + VAT | 3 days in person — Barnsley, Swindon, Milton Keynes, Motherwell | CAA approved | View course → |
| Drone Pilot Academy | Residential (incl. accommodation) | £1,674 | £1,395 + VAT | 3 days residential, 2 nights and meals | CAA approved | View course → |
Read this before you buy on price alone. £418 and £1,434 do not buy the same experience. The cheapest are self-paced e-learning; the dearest are several days in a room with an instructor and a drone in your hands. The certificate at the end is identical. What you are choosing is how much help you get reaching it — and, in two cases below, whether the seller will tell you who awards it at all.
Britain is the outlier
The UK is the only one of the six regimes we have read that requires you to buy training from an approved provider before you can hold the commercial qualification. Everywhere else, the regulator sets an exam and does not care how you prepared for it. That is the single biggest reason a British certificate costs what it does — and it is worth knowing before you decide £418 is expensive or cheap.
| Country | Regulator | What it's called | Cheapest route | Training compulsory? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | CAA | A2 CofC · GVC, becoming RPC-L1 | £418 | Yes |
| Ireland | IAA | Online training proof · A2 certificate | €220 in fees | Yes |
| United States | FAA | Remote Pilot Certificate (Part 107) | $180 | No |
| European Union | EASA, issued nationally | A1/A3 test · A2 certificate | Set nationally | No |
| Canada | Transport Canada | Pilot Certificate, Basic to Level 1 Complex | $10.17 | No |
| Australia | CASA | Operator accreditation · RePL | Free | No |
| New Zealand | CAA NZ | No certificate under Part 101 | Nothing | No |
Every figure above was read at the national regulator on the date shown on that country's page, not taken from a summary. The full country guides →
The thing nobody else will tell you
The cheapest sellers are not approved providers
2 of the sellers with the lowest prices do not appear on the CAA's register of approved training providers, and neither names the entity that actually awards the certificate. They may be perfectly legitimate resellers. Their pages do not say.
The register lists legal names, not trading names
Heliguy appears on the CAA register as Colena Ltd. If you searched the register for "Heliguy" you would conclude they were not approved. We reconcile every trading name to its registered entity.
16 of 24 will not quote publicly
Two-thirds of approved providers publish no price at all. We are working through them. Where a price arrives, it goes in the table with the date we got it.
Your certificate expires. We will remind you.
A GVC does not last forever, and renewal prices range from £75 to £399. Tell us the month yours runs out and we will email you three months before, with what renewal costs at every provider that publishes a price.
We ask for your email so we can send the reminder, and nothing else. You will get a confirmation email first — if you never click it, we never contact you again. Every email carries an unsubscribe link. Providers are shown aggregate numbers — how many people compared their course — never individual details, unless you tick the box above. How we handle your data.