Sales Associate

A Sales Associate sells a company's products or services to customers, either face-to-face in a shop, over the phone and video calls, or by email to business buyers. In retail the job is mostly serving customers on the shop floor; in business-to-business companies (software, recruitment, financial services, manufacturing) it usually means finding potential buyers, qualifying whether they're a real prospect, and either closing smaller deals yourself or passing larger ones to a senior salesperson. The title is used very loosely across UK employers, so the same words can describe a part-time till job or a structured graduate sales role with a commission scheme.

Starting salary: £24k–£32k
Live graduate jobs: 37 open now
Main way in: Direct application to graduate sales or 'commercial' schemes
They usually ask for: Degree subject almost never matters for B2B or retail sales

Approximate graduate salary

Base salaries for graduate sales roles are typically somewhere around £24,000–£32,000 to start, with commission often quoted on top as on-target earnings in the region of £35,000–£50,000. This varies enormously - London tech sales sits at the higher end, retail and smaller regional employers considerably lower, and commission is not guaranteed income.

What you'd actually do

Contacting potential customers who have shown interest (inbound leads from the website, events or marketing campaigns) and working out whether they have a genuine need, budget and timeline - this is called 'qualifying'
Cold outreach: working through a list of target companies by phone, email and LinkedIn to book meetings for yourself or a senior colleague, often with a daily or weekly activity target
Running or sitting in on product demonstrations and discovery calls, asking questions about the customer's problem and explaining how the product fits
Logging every call, email and meeting in a CRM (customer relationship management system - software like Salesforce or HubSpot that tracks each deal through its stages)

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Preparing quotes, proposals and order paperwork, and chasing customers for sign-off, purchase order numbers or payment details
In retail or showroom settings: serving customers, advising on products, handling transactions and returns, merchandising stock and hitting store or personal sales targets
Attending a weekly pipeline review where you talk your manager through each live deal, what's blocking it and when you expect it to close

How graduates get in

Direct application to graduate sales or 'commercial' schemes - common in technology, SaaS (software sold on subscription), recruitment, medical devices, FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods, i.e. food, drink and household products) and financial services. These are usually advertised year-round rather than on a strict autumn cycle.
Applying straight to an advertised Sales Associate, Sales Development Representative (SDR) or Business Development Representative (BDR) vacancy. This is the most common route into B2B sales and often needs no specific degree - many employers interview on attitude and a short role-play rather than academics.
Starting part-time or seasonally in retail during university and converting to a full-time role or a retail management scheme after graduating. Very common and genuinely a route in, not a dead end.
Internships or placement years in sales, account management or marketing, which often lead to a graduate offer with the same employer.

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Sales recruitment agencies that specialise in placing graduates into entry-level sales jobs - widely used, though quality varies, so check whether the employer pays the fee (it should) and what the commission scheme actually pays out.
A Level 4 Sales Executive apprenticeship or similar - less common for graduates but available, and some employers run degree-level or post-graduate apprenticeship routes in commercial roles.

What employers ask for

Degree subject almost never matters for B2B or retail sales. Exceptions exist where product knowledge is essential: medical and scientific sales often want a life sciences degree, and technical engineering sales may want an engineering or physics background.
Grade requirements are usually looser than in professional services. Many employers ask only for a degree or equivalent; some larger graduate schemes ask for a 2:1 and a set number of UCAS points. Plenty of sales employers set no academic bar at all.
Evidence of being comfortable talking to strangers and handling rejection - part-time retail, hospitality, call centre, charity fundraising, student union roles or running a society all count and are taken seriously.
A driving licence is often required for field sales, territory roles and anything involving visiting customer sites. Not needed for office-based or inside sales.

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No mandatory professional qualification. Optional credentials exist (for example membership of the Institute of Sales Professionals), and regulated sectors have their own requirements - selling financial products, for instance, can require specific regulatory qualifications and supervision.
Most employers run a role-play or mock sales call at interview, and many ask you to sell something on the spot or present back after a short preparation task.

Skills that matter

Questioning and listening

Good salespeople spend more time finding out what the customer's actual problem is than talking about the product, because you cannot position something you don't understand the need for.

Resilience to rejection

Most outreach is ignored or declined, and you need to make the next call at the same energy as the first without taking it personally.

Organisation and CRM discipline

You may be juggling dozens of live conversations at different stages, and deals are routinely lost simply because nobody followed up when they said they would.

Commercial awareness

Understanding how your customer's business makes money lets you frame the product in terms of their cost, risk or revenue rather than its features.

Written outreach that gets replies

Much of modern sales is short, specific emails and messages, and the ability to write three sentences that earn a meeting is a measurable advantage.

Numeracy around pricing and targets

You need to work out discounts, margins, contract values and your own commission accurately, often under time pressure in front of a customer.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Entry level (commonly 6-18 months, but it varies a lot): Sales Associate, SDR or BDR, focused on generating and qualifying leads and hitting activity targets rather than owning revenue outright.
Account Executive or Sales Executive: you own deals end to end and carry a quota - a revenue number you're expected to deliver each quarter or year. This is where earnings typically step up significantly through commission.
Account Manager or Senior Account Executive: either larger, more complex new deals, or responsibility for growing and retaining a set of existing customers.
Team Lead or Sales Manager: managing and coaching a team of reps, forecasting the team's numbers. Some people deliberately stay as individual contributors because top performers can out-earn their managers.
Senior routes diverge: Head of Sales, Sales Director or Chief Revenue Officer; or sideways into sales enablement, revenue operations, partnerships, customer success, product marketing or starting your own business. Timelines vary enormously - fast-growing companies promote in a couple of years, established ones take considerably longer.

What people get wrong

“Sales is about being a smooth talker and persuading people into things they don't want.”

In most B2B sales the deal is signed off by several people and reviewed against a budget, so pushy tactics fail. The job is closer to diagnosis - asking enough questions to work out whether there's a real fit, and disqualifying bad prospects early so you don't waste a quarter on them.

“'Sales Associate' means a shop floor job with no graduate prospects.”

The title is used for both retail positions and entry-level B2B tech and services roles with commission, structured training and a clear path to account management. Always read the advert for whether it mentions quota, pipeline, CRM or outbound - those signal a B2B role.

“The advertised salary is what you'll earn.”

Sales pay is usually split into base salary and commission, quoted together as OTE (on-target earnings) - what you'd earn if you hit 100% of target. OTE is not guaranteed, and some schemes are capped, have accelerators above target, or claw back commission if a customer cancels. Ask how many people on the team actually hit target before judging an offer.

“You need to be a confident extrovert to succeed.”

Preparation, follow-up discipline and genuine curiosity tend to matter more than natural charisma, and plenty of effective salespeople are quiet and methodical. What's non-negotiable is being willing to start conversations with people who didn't ask to hear from you.

Where this varies

The biggest split is retail versus business-to-business. Retail sales associate roles are shift-based, customer-facing on a shop floor, often part-time or hourly paid, with bonuses tied to store or personal targets. B2B roles are office or hybrid, target-driven on a quarterly quota, and lead towards account management. Within B2B, sectors feel very different: technology and recruitment are high-volume, fast-feedback and heavily commission-weighted; medical, scientific and capital equipment sales involve long sales cycles, technical knowledge and far fewer, larger deals. Regulated sales (financial products, insurance) carries compliance training and restrictions on what you can say. Geographically, London and the major tech hubs have the most structured graduate sales schemes and the highest OTEs, while elsewhere entry is more often through direct application to individual vacancies.

See all 37 live Sales Associate jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.