The answer simply is yes! Surface marker buoys should be a general part of your safety equipment. Whether it be for recreational divers, professional divers or technical divers, surface accidents involving boats are regrettably common problems.
Moreover, should a fellow diver need help, by being able to locate their “safety sausage” or dive foot, they will be far easier to find. Furthermore, they provide spots for you and your dive buddy to reconvene and a perfect place to have your safety stop before regaining the surface.
Really, there is no downside to using a surface marker buoy, whether you are in a dive group of inexperienced divers or are a dive professional yourself. SMBs may not seem to be particularly sophisticated, but you will have a poorly controlled environment during your entire dive if you do not have one in place ready for deployment.
A lot of our coastal shore dives here in the UK require the use of a SMB as they are often shallow dives and we can encounter a lot of boat traffic.
Lost divers are often only found so easily when they have a surface marker buoy up above the surface. They can be deployed underwater, too, meaning there’s little to no excuse to deploy dive floats once you reach your safety stop. Think of it as one of your vital scuba safety skills.