Business Development Manager vs Sales Representative

On pay, business development managers come out ahead by about $48k a year at the midpoint of posted bands: $62k–$165k against $37k–$95k for sales representatives. These are advertised figures from postings that state a salary, not estimates. By seniority and country: business development manager salary and sales representative salary.

On skills, they are close to the same job under two titles. Postings ask for largely the same things, and the difference is mostly emphasis. The skills both sets of postings want most are Sales, CRM, B2B, Business Development, SaaS.

Yes, and the numbers say how far along you already are: a typical business development manager profile covers 83% of what sales representative postings ask for. Our estimate for the move is 6–12 mo. The route page lists the exact skills that make up the rest.

Going the other way, a typical sales representative profile covers 36% of what business development manager postings ask for. The two directions are not symmetric: business development manager to sales representative is the easier move, 83% against 36%.

Right now our board has 560 business development manager openings and 2,971 sales representative openings, each linking to the original posting. The board refreshes every night, so the counts move with the market. Hiring the most business development managers at the moment: Ebury (12), OpenAI (8), Shieldai (8). For sales representatives: Jobup (145), Halter (92), Michael Page (20).