London's sales talent market is competitive and fast, which also requires a quick hiring process. If you are building a new business development team or are replacing a high performing account executive, things have changed considerably over the past few years, meaning what worked a few years ago is now unlikely to produce the same results.
This guide covers the practical realities of hiring sales professionals in London, which includes salary benchmarks, candidate expectations and where most employers go wrong during the process.
Understanding The London Sales Talent Market
London is one of the most active hiring markets in Europe for sales professionals, which covers sectors such as SaaS, fintech, professional services, media and FMCG. The demand for strong commercial staff has stayed high even when hiring has slowed down in parts of the economy, which means the best candidates are rarely left without employment for long.
The profile of a top performing sales candidate has also changed. Technical literacy, the ability to work in different digital sales tools and CRM platforms, as well as a better understanding of data driven pipeline management, are now an expectation in many sectors.
Having this market understanding is important when writing job descriptions. Generalised specifications that list soft skills and no further detail will not attract the calibre of candidates you're looking for.
What Sales Candidates Expect From London Employers
Salary is important, but other areas are important to candidates too. Candidates considering roles in London's sales market are looking at what a role offers.
For instance, are the roles’ on-target earnings (OTE) realistic and achievable? Experienced candidates will ask questions about the average attainment across the current sales team. It is also worth thinking about London's cost of living, which means that a low base salary with a high OTE ceiling is becoming increasingly unpopular, especially at mid to senior role levels.
High performers also want to know if there is future career progression with a clear path. Even sharing future career options at the early stage pitch shows that the business values its sales team.
Take into consideration that sales professionals spend a large amount of time with their direct manager and so company culture is important to candidates. Low levels of leadership retention are a red flag for candidates who are doing their research. Finally, hybrid and flexible working is now a standard expectation across most of London’s sales roles. Fully office based vacancies narrow the candidate pool considerably.
Getting these fundamentals right before putting a role on the market will save time and reduce the risk of losing strong candidates at the offer stage.
Where Employers Lose Good Candidates
The most common reason London employers miss out on strong sales hires is speed. The average time to offer for strong candidates in London is short and it can often be under two weeks from the first conversation. A three stage interview process across six weeks isn’t always feasible when different businesses are also competing for the same person. Here are some other common reasons for hires falling through:
- Vague or inconsistent job briefs that change during the process
- Panels that haven't agreed on what a good candidate looks like before the interview
- Salaries that haven't been reviewed against current market rates
- Counter offers that were not anticipated or planned for
None of these challenges are impossible to overcome, but they do require some preparation before the hiring process begins.
How To Get The Job Brief Right
A well constructed job brief does a lot of the work before a CV arrives in your inbox. Outside of the basics of the role title and responsibilities, a strong brief should include:
- The sales sector or vertical
- Average deal size & sales cycle length
- If the role is new business, account management or both
- The tools & tech stack in use (CRM, outreach platforms, BI tools)
- What the first 90 days look like
This level of detail helps to attract candidates who are suited to the role, rather than those who are broadly available. It can also shorten the screening process.
Working With A Specialist Sales Recruiter In London
If you know the London market well, sales hire results will be more successful. A generalist recruiter working in multiple areas won’t always have the deeper candidate relationships or sales sector insight that a specialist brings to IT sales recruitment.
At Apache Associates we work with employers in London to place sales professionals at all levels, for example, business development managers, account executives, head of sales and commercial directors. Our recruitment approach focuses on understanding what a strong candidate looks like for your individual business before we begin. This means that the candidates we put forward are a real match.
We also give advice to employers on market positioning, salary benchmarking and interview design. Our expert team offer practical support that reduces the time to hire and improves offer acceptance rates.
If you are planning a new sales hire in London and want a conversation about the market as well as how we can support you in the process, simply get in touch and we can run through how we can help.