This is for recruiters, hiring managers and talent acquisition leads who are being asked to build or sell a sales pay package that actually keeps people. By the end you'll have a plan you can walk a sales director through: a base-to-variable split that fits the role, a commission structure that won't backfire, and a way to handle the different things a 24-year-old SDR and a 45-year-old enterprise AE want from the same plan. Sales compensation models in the UK are shifting towards higher guaranteed pay and shorter feedback loops, and the steps below follow that shift.
One caveat before you start. I'm a personal branding and visibility specialist, not a comp consultant or an employment lawyer. My angle is how pay is presented, understood and talked about, because that decides whether strong sellers apply, accept and stay. Check the legal and tax detail with someone qualified.
Step 1: Decide what the role is actually paid to do
Most broken plans start here. Someone copies a ratio from a competitor's job advert and nobody asks what the seat is for.
Sort the role into one of three buckets. Hunters open new logos and carry long cycles. Farmers grow existing accounts. Hybrids do both, which usually means the plan will be argued about for years. Write one sentence per role: "This person is paid to bring in net new revenue from mid-market firms in the North West." If you can't write that sentence, stop.
How you'll know it worked: the sales director reads your sentence and doesn't correct it. If they add three caveats, you've found a hybrid role and you should price it as one.
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Step 2: Set the base-to-variable split by cycle length
The split should follow how long it takes a deal to close and how much of the outcome the seller controls. A transactional SMB role with a two-week cycle can carry a heavier variable portion, because effort turns into revenue quickly. An enterprise AE selling into the NHS or a bank, with a nine-month cycle, needs a bigger base, because half the outcome sits with procurement.
The market has drifted towards more guaranteed pay in the last couple of years, partly because candidates have got sharper about asking. Many sellers now ask for the on-target earnings (OTE) split in the first call. If your client won't share it, expect to lose the best people to firms that will.
Example wording for a job advert: "OTE £85,000, made up of £55,000 base and £30,000 variable." If you have real attainment data you can evidence, add it. If not, leave it out.
How you'll know it worked: a candidate can repeat the structure back to you accurately after one read.
Step 3: Pick a commission structure you can explain in two sentences
Flat percentage on closed revenue. Tiered accelerators once quota is passed. Margin-based payouts. Team pools on top. Each has a place, and each fails in a predictable way.
Flat rates are easy to understand but give a seller who's already hit target no reason to push. Accelerators fix that, until a quota is set so high that nobody reaches the accelerator and the whole thing becomes decoration. Margin-based plans protect profitability and also confuse people, because a seller can't always see the margin on their own deal.
My view: if you can't explain the plan in two sentences, sellers will assume it's designed against them. They'll be right more often than anyone admits.
For more depth on structures, this earlier guide to sales team compensation models covers the mechanics, and why UK firms are scrapping traditional sales compensation covers what's replacing the old model.
How you'll know it worked: a candidate can work out their own payout on a made-up £100,000 deal without asking you.
Step 4: Plan for the generations in the room
Be careful here. Generational labels are blunt tools and individuals vary wildly. But patterns show up in the conversations I have with sales candidates and hiring managers.
If you're hiring early-career sellers (SDRs, BDRs): many want faster feedback and visible progression more than a big upside. Monthly or quarterly payouts, a clear route to AE, and a manager who gives coaching rather than just numbers. A plan that pays annually will lose them to someone who pays quarterly.
If you're hiring mid-career AEs: they've been burned by quota changes mid-year. Put the clawback terms, quota-setting process and territory rules in writing early. Trust is the thing they're buying.
If you're hiring senior or enterprise sellers: they're often weighing a bigger base, equity or flexibility against uncapped commission. Some will take a lower OTE for a four-day week or remote-first arrangement. Ask rather than assume.
I've seen firms treat "what motivates them" as a guess. Ask in the first screening call: "What did your last plan reward that you liked, and what did it reward that you didn't?" The answer tells you more than a salary expectation.
How you'll know it worked: you can tell the client, for each seniority band, what the plan offers that a competitor's doesn't.
Step 5: Make the plan visible before the offer stage
This is where my own field matters. Pay plans are a brand asset. Firms that publish pay bands and talk openly about how top sellers earn their money attract better applicants, because strong sellers read the signal: this company isn't hiding anything.
The UK has moved towards pay transparency, and the government's guidance on pay and employment is on gov.uk. Even where the rules don't force it, advertising a salary range pulls in more serious applicants than "competitive".
Your own profile matters too. A talent partner who posts clear, specific breakdowns of how a plan works gets inbound from sellers who'd never answer a cold message. If you're building that kind of presence, OHUB's HubFluencer programme is one route, and the platform's employer tools let you put the pay structure in front of candidates early rather than at the end.
Example LinkedIn line: "We've rewritten our AE plan. Higher base, quarterly accelerators, no cap. Here's how it works." Specific beats clever.
How you'll know it worked: candidates arrive already understanding the plan, and offer-stage negotiations shrink.
Step 6: Review it on a fixed date
Set a review for six months after launch and put it in the diary now. Check attainment spread (are a few people carrying everyone, or is it even?), regretted leavers, and how long offers take to land. The CIPD publishes general guidance on reward and retention if you need a framework for the review.
How you'll know it worked: you can say which element you'd change and why, with evidence from the team's actual earnings.
When a step goes wrong
The client won't share the split. Tell them plainly that strong candidates will walk, and offer to present a range instead. If they still refuse, you're recruiting with one hand tied.
Attainment is bunched well below target. The quota is probably too high or territories are uneven. Don't recruit into that plan until someone fixes it, or you'll be back in four months replacing the same seat.
A star seller leaves anyway. Ask what the plan rewarded that they disliked. Often it's a mid-year quota change or a split deal that went against them.
Candidates keep asking about clawbacks. That's a trust problem. Put the terms in the advert.
What would your best seller say if you asked them to rewrite their own plan tomorrow?
Do this week
Pick one live sales vacancy and write the one-sentence role description from Step 1, then the two-sentence explanation of the commission plan from Step 3. If either takes more than ten minutes, take that to your client before you post the role.
