Sales Representative

A sales representative sells a company's products or services to other businesses or to consumers, usually working to a target for how much they need to sell over a month, quarter or year. The work involves finding potential customers, contacting them, understanding what they need, explaining how the product helps, negotiating terms and closing the deal. Graduates do this across almost every sector - software, recruitment, medical devices, manufacturing, media, financial services, logistics - and the day-to-day looks quite different depending on whether you are selling a £200 subscription or a £2m contract.

Starting salary: £24k–£32k
Live graduate jobs: 109 open now
Main way in: Direct application to an entry-level sales job
They usually ask for: Degree subject usually does not matter for general sales roles

Approximate graduate salary

Roughly £24,000–£32,000 basic to start is typical, though this varies widely by sector and location. Most sales roles quote OTE (on-target earnings), which is basic plus the commission you would earn by exactly hitting target - entry-level OTEs are often somewhere around £30,000–£45,000, with technology sales in London at the higher end and smaller regional employers lower. Treat any advertised OTE as a figure you have to earn, not a guaranteed salary.

What you'd actually do

Prospecting - building a list of people or companies who might buy, using LinkedIn, company databases, industry news and the firm's own CRM system (CRM means 'customer relationship management' software, the database where every customer contact is logged)
Cold outreach: a run of phone calls, emails and LinkedIn messages to people who have not asked to hear from you, most of which go nowhere. In high-volume roles this can be a large chunk of the week
Running discovery calls or meetings - asking a prospective customer about their current setup, problems and budget, before pitching anything
Giving demonstrations or presentations of the product, either on video call or in person at the customer's site, sometimes alongside a technical colleague

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Writing and sending quotes, proposals and follow-up emails, and chasing people who have gone quiet
Updating the CRM after every interaction and reporting on your pipeline (the list of live deals and how likely each is to close) in a weekly team meeting with your manager
Negotiating price, contract length and terms, then handing the signed customer over to an account management or onboarding team - or keeping them yourself, depending on the employer

How graduates get in

Direct application to an entry-level sales job - by far the most common route. Many employers hire year-round rather than on a graduate-scheme timetable, and vacancies are often titled Sales Development Representative (SDR), Business Development Representative (BDR), Graduate Sales Executive or Trainee Sales Consultant
Formal graduate sales schemes, which exist at larger corporates - particularly in technology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods, meaning everyday products like food and household goods) and business services. These are structured, usually have autumn deadlines and are more competitive than direct-entry roles
Starting as an SDR/BDR - a junior role focused purely on generating leads and booking meetings for senior salespeople - then being promoted into a closing role. This is the standard pathway in software sales
Sales academies or bootcamps run by training providers, which place graduates into tech sales roles after a short training programme. Useful for some, but check what the placement actually involves and whether there is any cost or clawback

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Converting a placement year, internship or part-time job in retail, hospitality or call-centre work. Employers take customer-facing experience seriously, and it is one of the few areas where non-graduate work history genuinely helps an application
Apprenticeship routes exist too, and some graduates enter via a degree apprenticeship-style sales programme, though this is less common than direct entry

What employers ask for

Degree subject usually does not matter for general sales roles - employers care more about how you come across and whether you are resilient. A 2:2 is often acceptable and some employers do not filter on classification at all
Exceptions where subject does matter: medical device, pharmaceutical and scientific sales often want a life sciences or related degree; some technical/engineering sales roles want an engineering or computer science background. Pharmaceutical sales to healthcare professionals also typically requires the ABPI examination, which employers usually fund and you take after joining
Evidence of being comfortable with rejection and with talking to strangers - part-time retail, call-centre, fundraising, bar work, student ambassador roles, or running a society or sports club all count
A full UK driving licence for field sales roles where you travel to customer sites. Not needed for desk-based or inside sales

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Any commercial awareness you can show - understanding how a business makes money and what pressures a customer's industry is under. This matters more in B2B (business-to-business) sales than in consumer sales
Assessment usually includes a role-play pitch, sometimes a mock cold call, and competency questions about times you have persuaded someone or handled a setback

Skills that matter

Resilience and handling rejection

Most outreach is ignored or refused, and you have to make the next call with the same energy as the first - this is the single biggest reason people leave sales early.

Questioning and listening

Good salespeople spend discovery calls drawing out what the customer's actual problem is rather than reciting product features, because you cannot sell a solution you have not diagnosed.

Written outreach that gets opened

Much of modern sales is short, specific, personalised emails and LinkedIn messages; generic templates get deleted and your reply rate is visible to your manager.

Organisation and CRM discipline

You may be juggling dozens of live conversations at different stages, and a deal lost because you forgot to follow up is a deal lost off your commission.

Working to numbers

You will be measured on calls made, meetings booked, pipeline value and revenue closed, so you need to be able to work backwards from a target to a weekly activity plan without being told.

Product and sector knowledge

In technical or specialist sales, customers are experts in their own field and will stop taking you seriously if you cannot discuss their world credibly.

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

Sales Development Representative or junior sales executive - generating leads, booking meetings, learning the product. Typically a year or so in software sales, though some employers promote faster or slower and in other sectors you may close your own deals from the start
Account Executive, Sales Executive or Territory Manager - owning deals end to end and carrying your own revenue target. This is where earnings start to rise significantly if you hit target
Senior Account Executive, Key Account Manager or Enterprise Sales - handling larger, longer, more complex deals with bigger organisations, often with longer sales cycles and multiple decision-makers
A fork in the road: stay as an individual seller (senior/enterprise roles can pay very well without managing anyone) or move into Sales Manager / Team Leader, running and coaching a team to a collective target
Beyond that: Head of Sales, Sales Director or Chief Revenue Officer, or a sideways move into related commercial functions such as marketing, partnerships, customer success, revenue operations or recruitment. Timelines vary enormously - fast-growing companies promote quickly, established corporates much more slowly

What people get wrong

“You need to be a loud, naturally confident extrovert.”

Plenty of effective salespeople are quiet and methodical. Preparation, good questions and consistent follow-up usually beat charisma, particularly in B2B sales where the customer is making a considered purchase rather than an impulsive one.

“It is all persuading people to buy things they do not need.”

In most business sales the customer has a budget and a problem and is already looking. A lot of the job is qualification - working out quickly who is not going to buy so you can stop spending time on them - and deals can involve months of technical discussion and procurement paperwork.

“Sales is a fallback for graduates who could not get anything else.”

It is one of the clearest routes to senior commercial roles and to high earnings early, and specialist areas like enterprise software, medical devices and pharmaceuticals are genuinely competitive to get into. It is also closely tracked - your performance is visible in a way that few other graduate jobs are, which suits some people and not others.

“The commission makes everyone rich quickly.”

Pay is usually split into a basic salary and variable commission or bonus, and the commission only pays out if you hit targets. Some roles have a guaranteed commission period for new starters; some have heavily uncapped upside; some have modest, capped bonuses. Always ask what proportion of the team hit target last year before accepting an offer based on the headline figure.

Where this varies

This role varies more between employers than almost any other graduate job. Inside sales (desk-based, phone and video, high volume, smaller deals) feels very different from field sales (driving to customer sites, fewer but larger deals). B2B sales to businesses involves long cycles, procurement processes and several decision-makers; B2C sales to consumers is faster and more transactional. Sector matters too: software sales tends to have the structured SDR-to-Account-Executive ladder and the highest commission upside; medical and pharmaceutical sales require specific qualifications and are tightly regulated in how you can promote products; recruitment is sold as sales but also involves sourcing and managing candidates; FMCG and industrial sales often centre on managing existing accounts and distributors rather than constant cold outreach. Commission structures, how aggressive the targets are, and how much training you get differ hugely - a small company may hand you a phone and a list on day one, while a large corporate may run weeks of structured product training first.

See all 109 live Sales Representative 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.