SaaS Recruitment
Account Executive
recruitment.
Only 36.2% of enterprise Account Executives in the UK are currently hitting quota, according to RepVue's UK data, updated 31 July 2026. Two in three are missing.
That is the hiring problem in one number. Sourcing is the easy part. There are thousands of AEs on LinkedIn and most will take your call. The hard part is telling the ones who will hit your number from the ones who hit someone else's, once, in conditions that looked nothing like yours.
Why AE hiring goes wrong more often than SDR hiring
The same dataset puts UK SDR quota attainment at 57.9%. Enterprise AEs sit more than 20 points below that.
Most of what drives an SDR's performance is activity and coaching, and you control both after the hire. Most of what drives an AE's performance you inherit at the point of offer: whether they have sold at your deal size, into your buyer, at your stage of company, with your level of brand recognition behind them.
If you do not establish that during the screen, you find it out in quarter four.
RepVue puts median enterprise AE on-target earnings in the UK at £182,140. A hire who misses for a year costs you that, plus the ramp, plus the quarter you spend deciding whether to replace them, and the pipeline nobody built while you decided.
The screen
The eight things we ask
We ask every AE the same eight questions before we put them in front of you. They are ordinary questions. They are also the ones that separate a real closer from a good interviewer.
01
Attainment across several years, not the best one
A single strong year is usually a good territory or one large deal. We want the pattern across three or four years, flat ones included.
02
What happened in a year they missed
How a rep diagnoses their own bad year tells you more than how they describe their good ones. A candidate who cannot account for a miss will probably have another one.
03
Average deal size and cycle length
A rep closing small deals in six weeks and a rep closing large ones over nine months do different jobs under the same title. Only one of them matches the motion you run.
04
Inbound versus self-sourced pipeline
A rep who has only worked marketing-generated pipeline is untested at building their own. Most Series A to C companies need someone who can.
05
New logo versus expansion
Growing an existing account and winning a first deal are different skills. The split behind a headline number is often less flattering than the number.
06
Who they sold to
Buyer seniority and committee size. A Head of Operations signs differently from a CFO with procurement, security and legal in the room.
07
Territory or named accounts
This changes how much of the outcome the rep controlled. A great number on a great patch tells you less than a decent number on a hard one.
08
What stage of company they sold at
The most common reason a strong hire underperforms after moving, and the least discussed in interviews. See below.
On evidence: we ask candidates to substantiate their attainment claims and we tell you what they've given us. We don't independently verify figures against documentation, and we would be sceptical of any recruiter who says they do. Reference checks at offer stage are where that gets tested.
The one that catches people out
Stage is the most common reason a strong hire underperforms after moving, and it's the least discussed in interviews.
A rep carrying a recognised logo is selling a different product from the same deck. Meetings get accepted, procurement has heard of the company, and reference customers already exist. The rep is good. The brand is also doing work they may not be able to name.
Move that rep to a Series A company nobody has heard of and the job changes. Every conversation now starts by explaining who you are. Some reps have done that before. Some have never had to.
It cuts both ways, and founders more often make the reverse mistake. A rep who closed hard deals at an unknown Series B is often a better hire than someone with a bigger logo and a bigger number, because the conditions they performed in look like yours.
We ask where the brand sat in every deal a candidate describes. It changes our recommendation more often than anything else on the list.
Two different hires
Mid-market and enterprise are different hires
Both sit on this desk. The screen changes between them. A rep who is excellent at one is often mediocre at the other. The mistake we see most is hiring an enterprise CV for a mid-market motion because it looks like an upgrade. It usually slows you down.
| Mid-market AE | Enterprise AE | |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | Department head or VP, small committee | C-suite, with procurement, security and legal involved |
| What we probe hardest | Velocity, volume, consistency quarter to quarter | Navigating a committee, multi-threading, deal governance |
| Pipeline question | Can they self-source at volume | Can they build a case internally for a buyer they rarely meet |
| Typical structure | Territory, higher deal count | Named accounts, lower deal count, higher stakes per deal |
| Failure mode | Enough activity, deals stall at the same stage | Deals progress, then die in procurement or at the board |
What AEs cost in London
Public market data, London-anchored
RepVue's UK enterprise AE data puts the median base at £98,421 and median OTE at £182,140, with the middle half of the market between £79,138 and £111,308 on base. Sources disagree at the edges, because self-reported datasets skew differently to platform-verified ones. Treat any single figure as a range. Germany and the Nordics run differently on both base and split, and a London number converted at spot rate will misprice a Munich or Stockholm hire. Ask us before you budget one. Last checked September 2026.
| Segment | Base | OTE |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-market AE | £50,000 – £70,000 | £90,000 – £130,000 |
| Enterprise AE | £70,000 – £110,000 | £130,000 – £220,000 |
How we work
Brief properly, work the network, see it through
The process is the same one we run across how we run a SaaS search: three CVs per placement, see it through to start date. What changes at AE level is depth. The eight questions above take an hour per candidate, and they're the reason a shortlist of three is enough.
Hiring a sales leader alongside your next AE? We run that search too.
Hiring an AE?
Tell us the motion, deal size and stage
We'll tell you what your seat should pay and who's available. Back within 24 hours.
If you're an AE rather than hiring one, our current roles are here.
FAQ
Common questions
Hiring your next AE?
Tell us the motion, the deal size and the stage you're at. We'll tell you what your seat should pay and who's available.