SDR & BDR recruitment
SDRs and BDRs create the pipeline every other GTM number depends on. The best combine research discipline, resilience and the commercial curiosity to turn a cold account into a qualified first meeting.
What the job really covers
A sales development representative (SDR) or business development representative (BDR) is the person in a software sales team who creates first meetings with qualified prospects, by working inbound leads or prospecting outbound, and hands them to Account Executives who run the sales cycle and close.
- Researching and prioritising target accounts against an ICP, often using intent data from tools like 6sense or Bombora
- Running multi-channel sequences across phone, email, LinkedIn and video
- Qualifying inbound leads within minutes against BANT, a light MEDDICC or a custom framework
- Booking and handing over meetings to Account Executives with clean notes in the CRM
Titles we recruit
- SDR
- BDR
- Outbound SDR
- Inbound SDR
- Senior SDR
- SDR Team Lead
- SDR Manager
- Head of Sales Development
What we assess, and how
Every shortlist comes with notes on all four- 01
Activity with intent
We look past dial counts to conversion: meetings booked to meetings held, and held to opportunities created. - 02
Coachability
We run a live cold-call role-play, give feedback, then run it again. The second call tells us more than the first. - 03
Written craft
Candidates write a short first-touch email to a real prospect. We judge relevance and brevity, not templates. - 04
Ambition with a plan
Most SDRs want to be AEs. We ask how they're preparing for it and what they need from a manager to get there.
A question we always ask
“Walk me through the last meeting you booked that turned into a real opportunity.”
Pay benchmarks
Indicative 2026 ranges from the TRG GTM Salary Guide. Varies by company stage and city.| Role | UK | US |
|---|---|---|
| SDR / BDR (0–18 months) | £33–40k base£44–58k OTE | $55–70k base$80–100k OTE |
| Senior SDR / BDR | £40–50k base£55–70k OTE | $65–80k base$95–120k OTE |
| SDR Team Lead | £50–62k base£68–85k OTE | $80–100k base$115–145k OTE |
| SDR Manager | £60–80k base£85–110k OTE | $100–125k base$140–175k OTE |
| Head / Director of Sales Development | £85–110k base£115–150k OTE | $135–165k base$180–230k OTE |
Career path
- SDR / BDR
- Senior SDR
- SDR Team Lead or SMB AE
- SDR Manager or Mid-Market AE
- Head of Sales Development
Tools of the trade
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Outreach
- Salesloft
- Apollo
- Sales Navigator
- Gong
- ZoomInfo
Market notes
London dominates UK SDR hiring, with growing hubs in Manchester and Edinburgh. EMEA teams often need a second language for DACH, the Nordics or France.
UK sales development teams are concentrated in London, with growing hubs in Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Edinburgh and Belfast, and many EMEA SDR teams sit in London covering the UK, Ireland, the Nordics and Benelux. Hybrid working is standard, typically two to three office days a week for SDRs because coaching and call-floor energy matter. Language skills (German, French, Dutch, Nordic languages) are a common requirement for EMEA BDR roles and command a premium.
RepVue's UK medians (about £39k base, £59k OTE) sit at the senior end of our entry range because its sample skews to well-funded SaaS. Skipcall's 2026 London figures (£33k–£38k base at entry, £48k–£58k at 3+ years) anchor the lower levels. Lower-ACV verticals typically pay 15–25% less on OTE.
Hiring in the UK →Market notes
US teams split more often into inbound and outbound, and many outbound teams are now partly remote. Expect a higher base and faster promotion, typically 12 to 18 months to AE.
In the US, SDR teams are large and often split by inbound and outbound. Hubs include the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Boston, Austin, Denver, Chicago and Salt Lake City, and many companies now hire remote SDRs nationwide within US time zones. Expect clear promotion ladders and commission plans tied to qualified opportunities or pipeline rather than meetings alone.
The Bridge Group's 2025 median is $55k base and $80k OTE, unchanged since 2022 in nominal terms; RepVue's self-reported median is $55k base and $85k OTE. Our ranges sit above those national medians because they reflect tech-hub SaaS. Bridge Group puts SDR manager OTE at $146k and director at $189k.
Hiring in the US →SDR and BDR recruitment: sales development reps and leaders, UK & US
Skills in demand
- Cold calling
- Outbound prospecting
- Inbound lead qualification
- Email and LinkedIn copywriting
- Account research
- Objection handling
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Outreach
- Salesloft
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Apollo, ZoomInfo or Cognism
- Gong and call coaching
What SDRs and BDRs actually do in a software company
Sales development is the front of the revenue engine. An SDR or BDR researches target accounts, finds the people who own the problem, and starts conversations by phone, email, LinkedIn and video until a qualified meeting is booked for an Account Executive. In most SaaS companies the SDR team is measured on meetings held and, increasingly, on the pipeline those meetings create, not on activity counts alone.
Many companies use the titles loosely, but there is a common split. SDRs often work inbound: they respond quickly to demo requests, trial sign-ups and content leads, and qualify them before passing them on. BDRs usually work outbound: they build lists against an ideal customer profile and prospect into accounts that have shown no interest yet. In smaller teams one person does both, and in enterprise teams BDRs are often aligned to named accounts and to specific AEs.
The job has changed a lot since 2023. Intent data, enrichment tools and AI writing assistants have made generic volume outreach cheap and less effective, so the reps who succeed now are the ones who research properly, write short relevant messages, and are good live on the phone. Hiring managers who still judge SDRs by dials per day are often measuring the wrong thing.
- Prospect into target accounts by phone, email, LinkedIn and video
- Qualify inbound leads quickly against agreed criteria (BANT, MEDDICC-lite or the company’s own)
- Book and confirm meetings for Account Executives, with notes on pain and context
- Keep CRM records clean so pipeline and attribution data can be trusted
- Feed back to marketing on which messages, segments and channels convert
Roles we recruit and how titles differ in the UK and US
We recruit across the whole sales development function: entry-level SDRs and BDRs, senior and enterprise BDRs, SDR team leads, SDR managers, and heads or directors of sales development who build the function from scratch or rebuild it after a change in strategy.
Titles vary by market. In the UK, “BDR” and “SDR” are used almost interchangeably, and “Business Development Executive” or “New Business Executive” are still common in smaller tech companies. In the US the split between inbound SDR and outbound BDR is more consistent, and “Account Development Representative” or “Market Development Representative” appear at larger vendors. Enterprise BDR, Strategic BDR and Partner BDR roles have grown in both markets as companies move upmarket.
Pay structures also differ. Sales development roles carry a variable element tied to meetings or pipeline, and the split between base and variable, and how the variable is paid, varies more between companies than between countries. For current indicative ranges by level and market, see our 2026 salary guide.
- SDR / BDR (inbound, outbound or blended)
- Senior, enterprise or strategic BDR aligned to named accounts
- Partner or channel BDR working through resellers and alliances
- SDR team lead and SDR manager
- Head or Director of Sales Development, and Global SDR leader
The metrics that matter for sales development
Good sales development hiring starts with knowing which numbers the role will be held to. The most useful are meetings held (not just booked), the percentage of those meetings that the AE accepts as a qualified opportunity, and the pipeline value created per rep per month or quarter. Show rate, conversion from meeting to opportunity and conversion from opportunity to closed-won tell you whether reps are booking real interest or just filling calendars.
Activity data still matters for coaching, but it is a means, not the goal. A rep making fewer calls with a strong connect-to-meeting rate is usually more valuable than one making many more calls with a weak one. We ask candidates for their numbers in context: the size of their territory, the average contract value they were booking for, whether leads were inbound or outbound, and how the target was set.
Ramp time matters too. Most SDRs take two to three months to reach full productivity, longer in complex enterprise or technical markets. When we brief a role we agree what success looks like at 30, 60 and 90 days, so the shortlist is assessed against a realistic plan rather than a target nobody could hit in week one.
- Meetings held per month and show rate
- Meeting-to-opportunity acceptance rate
- Pipeline created (value and count) per rep
- Connect and reply rates by channel
- Ramp time to full target, and attainment against quota over several quarters
Skills employers are hiring for in 2026
The best SDRs combine curiosity, resilience and structure. They are curious enough to research an account properly and ask a second question when a prospect gives a vague answer; resilient enough to handle rejection every day without losing energy; and structured enough to manage a sequence, a calendar and a CRM without things slipping.
Tooling fluency is now expected. Most teams run Salesforce or HubSpot as the CRM, a sales engagement platform such as Outreach, Salesloft or HubSpot Sequences, a data tool such as Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism or Lusha, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Increasingly they also use AI research and writing assistants and conversation intelligence such as Gong. Candidates do not need to know every tool, but they should show they can learn one quickly and use it well.
Employers are also paying more attention to written communication and to business acumen. As buyers ignore generic outreach, the reps who can explain a problem in the prospect’s terms, in three sentences, stand out. For enterprise BDR roles we look for people who can map an account, understand the buying committee and work alongside an AE on a multi-threaded plan.
- Cold calling and live objection handling
- Short, researched, relevant written outreach
- Account research and buying-committee mapping
- Sequence and CRM discipline (Outreach, Salesloft, Salesforce, HubSpot)
- Coachability: acts on feedback within days, not months
How we run an SDR and BDR search
We start with a 30-minute discovery call to pin down the role, the target, the territory and the team it joins. We ask who the SDR will support, what a good meeting looks like, how leads are routed, what the onboarding plan is and who will coach them day to day. That last question matters: most SDR hires that fail do so because of weak management and onboarding, not weak candidates.
We then map the market and approach people directly, including those who are not looking. For volume SDR hiring we also run structured campaigns to find career changers from hospitality, retail and other customer-facing jobs, because some of the best SDRs come from outside software. Every candidate is screened against the four things we assess, described below.
Shortlists are usually three to five candidates for an individual role, with written notes on each. For team builds we agree a hiring plan, interview slots and a scorecard up front so you can run several hires through the same process quickly and consistently.
- Discovery call: role, target, territory, team and onboarding plan
- Market map and direct approach, including passive candidates
- Structured screen against the four areas we assess
- Shortlist of three to five, with notes on every candidate
- Offer management, notice periods and a check-in through the first 90 days
Interviewing SDRs: questions and exercises that work
A good SDR interview tests the job, not just the personality. We recommend a short cold-call role-play using a realistic persona from your ICP, a written exercise where the candidate drafts a first email to a real target account after ten minutes of research, and a structured conversation about their numbers.
Useful questions include: “Walk me through your last month: how many meetings did you book, how many held, how many turned into opportunities?”; “Tell me about an account you broke into after several attempts: what changed?”; “How do you decide who to call first each morning?”; and “What feedback have you had from a manager recently, and what did you do with it?” The answers show structure, honesty about numbers and coachability.
Avoid over-weighting confidence and charm. They help on the phone, but they are easy to show in an interview and hard to sustain on a Tuesday afternoon of rejections. Evidence of consistent activity, learning and improvement over several months is a better predictor of success.
- Cold-call role-play with a realistic buyer persona
- Ten-minute research and first-email exercise
- Numbers walk-through: meetings, show rate, opportunities, pipeline
- Coachability question with a specific recent example
- Questions about why software, why this market, and where they want to be in two years
Career paths in sales development
Sales development is the most common entry route into software sales. A typical path is SDR to senior or enterprise BDR, then promotion to a commercial or mid-market Account Executive after 12 to 24 months. Companies that promote well from their SDR team tend to keep good people longer and fill AE roles faster.
Not everyone wants to close. Some strong SDRs move into SDR leadership, running a team of six to ten reps, then into head of sales development. Others move into marketing operations, demand generation, partnerships or revenue operations, where their understanding of how pipeline is created is valuable.
When we recruit SDRs we are clear with candidates about the promotion path, the criteria and the typical timeline. It is one of the questions they ask most, and a vague answer is one of the main reasons good SDR candidates turn down offers.
- SDR / BDR → Senior or Enterprise BDR
- BDR → Commercial or Mid-market Account Executive
- BDR → SDR Team Lead → SDR Manager → Head of Sales Development
- BDR → Demand generation, marketing operations or RevOps
- BDR → Partner or channel sales
Sales development terms explained
Sales development has its own vocabulary, and job descriptions often assume candidates and hiring managers share it. These are the terms we use most when we brief and assess SDR and BDR roles.
Agreeing definitions early avoids a common problem: a hiring manager who expects pipeline generation and a candidate who has only ever been measured on activity. When we take a brief we write down how each metric is defined in your CRM, so candidates are compared on the same basis.
If you are building a sales development function for the first time, these definitions are also a useful starting point for your own reporting.
- Meeting held: a first meeting that actually took place, not just one that was booked
- Sales accepted opportunity (SAO): a meeting the AE agrees is a real opportunity worth pursuing
- ICP (ideal customer profile): the type of company most likely to buy and succeed with the product
- Sequence or cadence: a planned series of calls, emails and social touches to one prospect
- Ramp: the period before a new rep is expected to hit full target
Our advice before you hire
Hire SDRs in pairs or cohorts where you can. A lone SDR without a peer or a dedicated manager is the most common reason ramp stalls.
Brief us on a SDR & BDR role →SDR & BDR recruitment FAQs
Both create first meetings for Account Executives. Most companies use SDR for reps who qualify inbound leads and BDR for reps who prospect outbound into accounts that have not shown interest. In many UK companies the titles are used interchangeably, so check the job description rather than the title.
For a single SDR role we typically present a shortlist within one to two weeks and most hires complete within four to six weeks, depending on notice periods. Team builds of several SDRs are run as one campaign with shared interview slots to keep the timeline short.
We look at four things: prospecting skill (research and messaging), live phone ability, discipline with process and CRM, and coachability. Every shortlisted candidate comes with notes on all four, and we recommend a short role-play and a written outreach exercise at interview.
Most SDRs reach full productivity in two to three months. Enterprise or highly technical markets can take longer. The biggest factors are the quality of onboarding, how well the ICP and messaging are documented, and how much live coaching the rep gets in the first weeks.
Usually an Account Executive, or a founder-led sales process with an AE. An SDR needs someone to hand meetings to and a manager to coach them. Hiring SDRs before you have a repeatable sales motion often wastes good people and good pipeline.
Pay depends on market, level, company stage and how the variable is structured. See our 2026 salary guide for indicative base and on-target earnings ranges for SDRs, senior BDRs and SDR leaders in the UK and US.
Most SDRs are promoted to Account Executive within 12 to 24 months. Others move into SDR leadership, or into demand generation, partnerships or revenue operations. A clear, written promotion path is one of the biggest factors in attracting good SDR candidates.