Insights
Longer analytical piece that takes a position. 1500-3000 words. Public by default; gated only when commercially required.
Insight / Other / 7 September 2026
UK sales hiring 2024-2025: structural retrospective on roles, regions, and comp
Through 2024-2025 the UK sales hiring market showed several structural patterns visible across multiple data sources: the AE-to-BDR ratio shifted modestly upward at scale-ups, hybrid posture stabilised at three days a week as the modal pattern, regional hiring outside London and the South East rose at SaaS scale-ups in particular, and OTE inflation moderated after the 2022-2023 surge.
The retrospective view supports continued planning around hybrid-default, regional-distribution-feasible, and OTE-stabilised hiring. Vendors planning UK sales build-out for 2026-2027 should treat these patterns as the planning baseline rather than reverting to pre-2022 assumptions.
Insight / Other / 3 September 2026
ICO enforcement themes 2024-2025: structural retrospective for sales leaders
A structural read of publicly visible ICO enforcement themes through 2024 and 2025: cookie consent and consent management platform compliance, PECR direct marketing and unsolicited contact, Children's Code adherence by online services, subject access request response timeliness, large-scale data breach response. Sales-leader implications for each theme.
The themes the ICO has been visibly active on in 2024-2025 are the themes sales teams should expect continued attention on through 2026. Cookie consent and PECR direct marketing remain the most directly relevant to UK B2B sales motion design.
Insight / SaaS / 23 July 2026
The case for editorial-led job boards in UK B2B sales
Job boards in UK B2B sales are dominated by vendor-led aggregators that monetise listing volume over listing quality. The result: high listing volumes, low candidate-to-fit conversion, recruiter-saturated fields, and broken trust on both sides. This Insight argues that editorial-led job boards - moderated by a publication with brand standards rather than by an aggregator chasing listing fees - are the structural fix.
Editorial-led job boards solve three problems vendor-led aggregators don't: listing-quality moderation, role-scope discipline, and editorial alignment between hiring brand and reader trust. The model isn't proven at scale yet but the structural argument holds; salespeople.co.uk's job board is one application of the thesis.
Insight / SaaS / 22 July 2026
UK SaaS sales is over-tooled, and what should come out of the stack
The 2018-2024 UK SaaS sales tech stack accreted tooling at a rate that exceeded the value the tooling produced. Stacks of 12-20 tools at 100-300 person scale are common; per-tool usage rates of 20-40 percent are common; the per-tool cost compounds. This Insight argues for a structural rebalancing: most UK SaaS sales operations should be running 5-7 tools, not 12-20, and the tools that come out are predictable.
Three categories should come out of most UK SaaS sales tech stacks in 2026: redundant prospecting data tools (one is enough); standalone sequence-management tools where the CRM has caught up; and forecast-tooling overlap where one tool serves the function. The 5-7 tool stack is achievable and produces no measurable degradation in sales outcomes.
Insight / SaaS / 13 July 2026
The end of the SDR factory: how UK B2B outbound is reorganising
The 2018-2024 UK SaaS playbook scaled SDR factories: 30, 50, 80 SDRs running high-volume cadences against pre-built lists, paired loosely with AEs. By 2026 most UK SaaS teams over 100 staff have either dismantled the factory or are dismantling it. This Insight argues the SDR-factory model is structurally obsolete, walks through the four reasons, and describes the converging replacement organisational shape.
The SDR factory is being replaced by a tighter SDR-AE pair structure (1:1 or 1:2 ratios), with SDRs running lower-volume per-prospect-personalised outbound and shifting their metric from meetings-booked to qualified-pipeline-passed. AEs are absorbing 30-50 percent of their own outbound on key target accounts. Teams that haven't restructured are losing ground each quarter to teams that have.
Insight / SaaS / 12 July 2026
The structural shift in UK B2B outbound, 2022 to 2026
UK B2B outbound has changed permanently between 2022 and 2026. The volume-cadence playbook that defined the era is structurally broken: deliverability tightening, buyer fatigue, and PECR/CTPS enforcement have ended its economics. The replacement motion is converging across UK SaaS but is being adopted unevenly. This Insight makes the case that the shift is permanent, not cyclical, and that teams clinging to the old playbook face deteriorating economics for as long as they hold on.
The 2022-vintage volume-cadence outbound playbook is structurally dead, not cyclically depressed. The replacement is fewer touches, more research per prospect, multi-channel mix with LinkedIn-first ordering, and explicit critical-event qualification. Teams that have made the transition are reporting flat-to-up qualified-meeting volumes despite 80 percent volume reductions; teams that haven't are reporting deteriorating results.