Tech

The UK could be one of the first places in the world to get Amazon's high-tech drone deliveries

By Rob Price
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Amazon drone
An Amazon delivery drone.  Amazon

The UK could be one of the first places to put Amazon's plan to deliver goods by drone into practice, CEO Jeff Bezos has suggested.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Telegraph published on Sunday, the 51-year-old entrepreneur praised the UK's regulatory approach to drones, citing it as a "very encouraging example of good regulation."

America is far stricter when it comes to regulating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) than the UK. When Amazon got FAA permission for trials in the US in March 2015, the tech it related to was already obsolete.

Bezos refused to say definitively which countries Amazon's Prime Air delivery service would launch in first. "What I would say is that in the scheme of things the UK regulatory agencies have been very advanced. The FAA [the US aviation regulator] is catching up a little here in the US, but the UK has been, I’d say, a very encouraging example of good regulation. I think we like what we see there."

We shouldn't expect to see drone deliveries in 2015 however. "Months sounds way too aggressive to me," Bezos said, "so the timescale is measured in years."

Amazon currently operates a research centre in Cambridge, England. According to a previous Telegraph report, transport minister Robert Goodwill says the company approached him "to ask about starting drone trials in the UK because regulations in the US were too restrictive. So much for land of the free."

Goodwill added that the UK is not just working with Amazon —"[the] Government is working on the whole issue of drones. We're meeting with the British Airline Pilots Association and we're both keen to innovate."

As drones rapidly move from niche hobby to consumer product and commercial opportunity, the UK is determined to carve itself out a major slice of the pie. Drone entrepreneur Giles Moore told The Guardian that "a lot of countries already use the UK's regulations on drones as a benchmark."

It's easy to see why the UK is so interested: Analysts predict that the market for drones will grow to more than $80 billion by 2025, according to CBS.

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Reporter Rob Price sitting at a table
Rob Price
Rob Price was a senior correspondent at Business Insider, based in San Francisco. He wrote investigations and long-form features about platforms, people, and power in Silicon Valley.His stories variously led to attorney general investigations, large-scale internal reviews at major tech companies, high-profile personnel departures, citation by state and federal lawmakers, and the closure of a well-funded startup. His 2022 story on the Bitfinex hack is being adapted into a feature film, and in 2024 he received an SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award for his reporting on AI and relationships.Rob's scoops and exclusive stories were cited by The New York Times, Bloomberg, the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, CNBC, Politico, The Guardian, Axios, and many other national and international publications. His writing has also been published in or syndicated by The Washington Post, The Independent, Vice, Slate, and elsewhere, and he appeared on CNN, the BBC, CBS, Reuters, ABC Australia, and other broadcast media to discuss technology, business, and culture.He worked for Business Insider from 2015 to 2025. Prior to joining the features team, Rob covered Facebook and Silicon Valley, and before that wrote about tech business, policy, and the gig economy in London. Between September and October 2019, he was acting executive editor for Business Insider's UK bureau. He also sat on the board of directors for the San Francisco Press Club, the leading non-profit media advocacy group in the Bay Area, and was a volunteer crew member at the Marine Mammal Center, the world's largest animal hospital for marine mammals. You can contact Rob Price via email at robaeprice@gmail.com, or +1 650-636-6268 (Signal / WhatsApp / Cell). Selected stories:— They spoke out against their employer. Then they were hit with trade secrets suits.— The rise of 'shadow stand-ins'— App, Lover, Muse: Inside a 47-year-old Minnesota man's three-year relationship with an AI chatbot— Deel Speed: The inside story of a $12 billion HR startup's breakneck growth— Private islands, flying cars, and psychedelic parties: Inside the wild post-Google lives of Larry Page and Sergey Brin— 'I want your Instagram account': First came the threatening texts, followed by the SWAT teams. Then someone wound up dead.— Inside Iconiq: How Mark Zuckerberg's banker built a secret Silicon Valley empire and made billions— Gaia was a wildly popular yoga brand. Now it's a publicly traded Netflix rival pushing conspiracy theories while employees fear the CEO is invading their dreams— A drunken late-night assault allegation has roiled the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg's private family office. Personal aides are speaking out about claims that household staff endured sexual harassment and racism from their colleagues.
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