How UK Publics View Trade-Offs in BVLOS Drone Use

BVLOS drone operations are already underway in the UK and are set to become routine across aspects of public sector and commercial services delivery by 2027-28. This report presents findings from six focus groups exploring how UK publics reason about three BVLOS public sector and commercial use cases (medical deliveries, police operations, and commercial package delivery). This research allowed us to explore how publics view the trade-offs between use cases as BVLOS drone use is scaled up in the UK as part of an emerging drone system rather than as isolated use cases.

Within the focus groups, participants produced a medical > police > commercial use hierarchy that was relatively stable across all six groups, driven by an underlying logic: participants assessed whether a use case met a genuine social need, whether the benefits outweighed the disbenefits, and whether the institution using the drones was both trustworthy and subject to oversight. When asked to reason about the use cases as a system, three distinct positions emerged: refusal, conditional acceptance, and inevitability.

Four recommendations follow:

1. Do not assume the ‘drones for good’ narrative will support communications campaign agendas or result in a positive public reception. When people consider drone uses as a system, rather than by individual use case, association with the less desirable uses can undermine acceptance of more beneficial ones rather than vice versa. Communications strategies should reflect the full system, honestly explaining both positive and negative potential impacts (along with suggested mitigations for any negative impacts), not just highlight what might be perceived to be the most popular use cases.
2. Seek to address perceived democratic deficits. Participants across all six groups mentioned the absence of public consultation as being a real concern. Accordingly, there is a clear need for genuine structures for community engagement prior to and during BVLOS drone use being scaled up.
3. Act before the window closes. The currently planned timelines for rollout of BVLOS drones means the opportunity for engagement is open but quickly closing. The public clearly has an appetite for engagement and participation, and this needs to be met while there is still time.
4. Be sensitive to different communities’ needs without treating them as a monolith. Geography shapes attitudes but it does not determine them. For example, there may be more support for specific use cases in rural communities than urban, but this will still be nuanced and in places contingent. Engagement strategies must be locally sensitive while avoiding treating any community as a single homogeneous group.