New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment reviews over 780,000 sales job adverts across the top 5 UK job boards to find the roles embracing hybrid and remote work – and the sales roles that are not.
The data suggests senior sales roles offer the most hybrid working options. 46.6% of Business Development Director job adverts are described as hybrid, and 45.6% of Chief Revenue Officers job adverts provide a mix of home and office work.
In contrast, junior sales roles offer less flexibility in work. Sales Administrator job listings detailed hybrid working only 19.1% of the time, and fully remote working was permitted in just 2.3% of job adverts.
Digital sales roles are far more likely to adopt modern work patterns, with 50.3% of adverts listed as hybrid work and 28.1% labelled as allowing remote work. The least flexible sales sector is industrial, with 23.8% hybrid and 14.3% remote.
Customer Success Managers are the role most afforded the possibility of remote work (17.3%), with this job title correlating with the digital sales sector.
The growth of remote work with the pandemic and digitisation
This research has come with the progression of communication tools that allow sales teams to work remotely. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the implementation of remote work in sales, emphasising digital marketing and virtual sales calls.
Companies are beginning to acknowledge the advantages of remote work. They are adopting permanent remote work policies or hybrid models, granting access to a broader talent pool, reducing office-related expenses, and increasing employee flexibility.
Robert Scott, Managing Director at Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, said: “Increasingly, we are seeing a candidate-driven market pushing employers to advertise roles with flexible working patterns that attract the best talent.
Hybrid or remote work patterns usually allow you to consider a broader candidate pool based on location, which always helps find the best candidates for a role.”