UK salary band · 2026
What a UK Sales Development Rep (SDR) earns
- Junior£26k–£30k base
- Mid-level£30k–£38k base + £10–15k OTE
- Senior£40k–£50k base + £20k OTE
Salary is only the visible cost. Once you add NICs, pension, software, equipment, training and the cost of attrition, the real annual number is much higher.
Fully-loaded annual cost
- Base salary£32,000
- OTE (commission @ target)£12,000
- Employer NICs + pension£6,800
- Sales stack (LinkedIn Nav, Apollo, dialler, CRM seat)£3,600
- Ramp cost (3-month productivity loss)£8,000
- Recruitment + 50% attrition cost£6,500
- Total£68,900/yr per SDR
The hidden costs
What no one puts in the budget line
These are the costs that don't show up on the offer letter — but they're real, recurring and they're why the headline salary is so misleading.
Ramp time
A new SDR takes 3–4 months to be net-productive. That's £15k+ of dead cost before the first booked meeting.
Burnout & churn
UK SDR roles have ~50% annual churn. Every leaver resets the clock and costs £6–10k in lost pipeline + recruitment.
Data quality drag
SDRs spend 30–40% of their time enriching, deduping and updating CRM records. Pure non-revenue work.
Tooling sprawl
LinkedIn Sales Navigator + Apollo + Outreach + Gong + dialler = £250–£400/seat/month before salary.
The AI workforce alternative
What it costs to do the same job with AI
AI workforce cost
- Build (one-off)£8k–£20k one-off build
- Monthly run cost£2,000–£5,000/mo
- Year 1 total£24k–£60k/yr
Go deeper
Related research from The AI Workforce Series
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers, structured for AI search engines and humans alike.
What does a UK SDR really cost?+
Base £30–38k, OTE £40–55k. Once you add NICs, the sales stack, ramp time and churn, fully-loaded sits at £65k–£75k per SDR per year.
Is the AI SDR booking real meetings?+
Yes — the AI does prospecting, enrichment, multi-channel sequencing and meeting booking. Humans handle qualification calls and discovery.
How does AI compare on conversion rate?+
Per-touch reply rates are similar to a strong human SDR. Volume is 20–50× higher. Net booked meetings per pound is typically 4–8× better.
Insights · The AI Workforce Series
The definitive UK research on AI replacing work.
Eight long-form pieces on the economics, history and mechanics of the Fourth Labour Revolution. Read these before you make a hiring decision in 2026.
Browse the full seriesThe Fourth Labour Revolution
Why AI is the biggest shift in work since the printing press.
What Is an AI Workforce?
The complete UK business definition — agents, not chatbots.
The Real Cost of UK Labour in 2026
Salary, NICs, pension, attrition — the full true number.
Cognitive vs Manual Labour
Why AI targets the £2 trillion knowledge economy first.
Printing Press vs AI
How one machine replaced 20 million European scribes.
Industrial Revolution vs AI
What 1780 Manchester teaches us about 2026 Britain.
Internet Revolution vs AI
Email killed 90% of office admin. AI kills the rest.
The AI Revolution Timeline
Cognitive work automation, year by year, 2020–2030.
What Is an AI Agent?
The honest definition: identity, tools, autonomy and the agent.md.
ChatGPT Didn’t Invent AI
The real breakthrough was hidden in a 2017 Google paper.