Market Conditions As the 2022 FY comes to a close, we've released our 2022-2023 Software Sales Salary Guide for Australia. We've found that year-on-year remuneration growth for technology sales professionals in Australia continues to far out-pace what is observed across the broader Australian labour market. According to the ABS, the full-time adult average weekly total earnings grew by 2.4% from November 2020 to November 2021. We have seen average remuneration growth between 10% to 12% in technology sales positions over the same period. This speaks not only to the continued talent squeeze in software sales (not a unique challenge in 2022), but also to technology vendors' ability and preparedness to compete on package in order to attract the best talent.
Why are technology sales packages growing at such a rate? In recent years, the technology sectors' strong customer retention rates, the SaaS recurring revenue model, venture capital funding and high revenue growth, have all enabled the sector to continue offering the remuneration carrot in order to attract the best talent. We can only speculate as to when the heat may come off this seemingly unsustainable remuneration growth, which has continued for some years now. As inflationary pressure has risen and the economic outlook has dipped, we have observed a slight cooling of the software sales jobs market in recent weeks, particularly for pre-profit start-ups and scale-ups with venture capital backing. We are seeing a small number of jobs put on hold with a 'wait and see' approach. Innovation is required in the war for talent In the past 12 months we've seen a notable rise in organisations offering shares and equity positions to their salespeople as a way to attract and retain top talent. With shares vesting over 3 to 4 years, or equity positions in pre-IPO's being offered, what was historically reserved for higher levels of management and the executive level is being offered to many salespeople who are seeking this benefit as a preference to a higher salary package. What's more, we are seeing an increase in sales professionals not willing to move where they otherwise may have, as they find themselves in the proverbial golden handcuffs. Whilst equity seems to be the most meaningful and in demand benefit to candidates right now, other impactful benefits being offered range from increased holiday leave to paid premium family health insurance and paid volunteering days. There is no limit to the creativity companies have when it comes to attracting top performers. The recruitment process is playing a significant role In such a competitive market, we are seeing most quota achieving sales professionals receiving more than one offer. While this may draw our minds eye to remuneration and visions of bidding wars, it rarely plays out this way. These conditions are shining a spotlight on the recruitment process itself. Over the past decade, in an effort to become more accurate in selection and avoid failed sales hires, many organisations have created a three to five interview recruitment process. In the wake of a pattern of losing talent to their competition mid-way through recruitment processes, many organisations are streamlining their recruitment procedure in order to remain in the race. With this change, we are now seeing companies who have not made this shift, consistently losing out to those with an eye on speed and efficiency of recruitment process.
If you'd like a copy of the 2022-23 Software Sales Salary Guide, you can download it here for free.
If you are hiring or working in software sales in Australia, this guide provides salary and OTE data gathered from clients and candidates and includes figures for senior, mid-range and junior roles:
Account Executives / BDMs / Sales Executives
Account Directors
Presales Consultants
Channel Sales / Partner Development
Customer Success / Account Managers
Sales Development Representatives
The guide is segmented on job variables including:
Enterprise Market Software Sales Jobs
Mid-Market Software Sales Jobs
SME Software Sales Jobs
You can download it here for free. Here's to your sales success in the back half of 2022.
