Base pay
The contracted salary before variable compensation. Check full-time equivalence, location and responsibilities.
GTM salaries 2026 · UK and US · every figure sourced
GTM salary guide 2026 what go-to-market roles pay
What GTM engineers, RevOps, sales and marketing roles earn in 2026, from published surveys, recruiter guides and job adverts.
The headline: in-house GTM engineers in the US earn a median base of about $135K; outside the US it is closer to $75K.
We are a go-to-market agency in London, not a recruiter.
If you are pricing a GTM hire, we can tell you whether to hire, build first, or both.
We can also build the system your hire will run.
Reviewed by Dan Keegan, GTM Quest · 28 September 2026 · 18 sources linked below
Your decisionExplore the working brief
Module 01 / 03
Base pay
The contracted salary before variable compensation. Check full-time equivalence, location and responsibilities.
Module 02 / 03
On-target earnings
Base plus variable pay at the stated target. Ask how target attainment is measured and how many comparable employees achieved it.
Module 03 / 03
Equity and contract income
Equity is uncertain future value; contract revenue has costs and unpaid time. Neither is directly comparable with salary.
$135K
median base for in-house GTM engineers in the US
01/ our service
Pricing a GTM hire? how we help before you make an offer
A salary is the smaller risk.
The bigger one is hiring the wrong level for the job, or hiring someone with nothing to build on.
01
Scope the level
The same title covers very different jobs.
The State of GTM Engineering found a $40K to $45K gap between low-code operators and high-code engineers in the US.
We help you decide which one the work needs.
02
Compare hiring with building
Sometimes the right first step is building the system, then hiring someone to run it.
Sometimes it is the opposite.
We set out both paths and the time each takes.
03
Build the first version
We build the golden list, Clay enrichment, CRM routing and outbound infrastructure, so the hire starts on a working system.
04
Hand over properly
Documentation, access to every tool, and paired sessions in the first weeks.
The accounts and data are yours.
What it costs. Every engagement is scoped and quoted in writing after the discovery call.
For the role itself, see our GTM engineer guide and GTM engineer jobs.
02/ GTM engineers
GTM engineer salary what the surveys and adverts say
Two surveys of practitioners and three analyses of job adverts.
They measure different things, so they give different numbers; read the source column.
MeasureFigureSource
Median total compensation, US$132K; 25th percentile $85K; top earners $250K+GTME Pulse summary of the same survey
By seniority, USJunior $75K to $95K; mid $110K to $140K; senior $150K to $190K; lead or staff $200K to $250K+GTME Pulse
Median of listings with salary data$166K; 25th percentile $145K; 75th $205K (89 roles, USD)RevOps Roles, checked 28 Sep 2026
Why the numbers differ. Surveys report what people are paid; adverts report what employers offer, and the roles that publish pay skew senior and American.
The spread inside one title is wide because, as the State of GTM Engineering puts it, the market has not figured out how to price this role yet.
03/ UK
GTM engineer salary UK London adverts and the nearest benchmarks
We could not find a UK-wide survey of GTM engineer pay.
These are the closest published figures.
MeasureFigureSource
Advertised: Product Engineer (GTM), incident.io, London£110K to £200K plus equityincident.io careers, checked 28 Sep 2026
Advertised: Founding GTM Engineer, White Circle, London£80K to £110K plus equityListing, checked 28 Sep 2026
Marketing automation manager, UK£37,250 / £45,000 / £59,500 (25th / 50th / 75th percentile)Robert Half 2026, default view
Reading it. A UK GTM engineer who writes code and owns pipeline systems is priced against technical RevOps and engineering, not against marketing operations.
The two London adverts above both sit well above the UK's median full-time salary of £39,039.
04/ by role
GTM salaries by role who earns what
London figures unless stated.
Each figure links to its source.
Which role are you pricing?
Technical GTM
GTM engineer
US median base about $135K in-house; London adverts we found at £80K to £110K and £110K to £200K, both with equity.
See the GTM engineer tables.
Revenue operations
RevOps, analyst to VP
BisonRS, from its own placements: analyst £45,000 to £60,000; manager £65,000 to £85,000; senior manager £80,000 to £110,000; head £100,000 to £140,000; VP £130,000 to £200,000 base.
Bonus and equity add 15 to 30% at senior levels, per the same guide.
Sales development
SDR or BDR
Live Digital puts a mid-level London SaaS SDR at £32K to £45K base and £46K to £68K OTE.
In the US, the Bridge Group's median SDR OTE is $80K ($55K base, $25K variable).
Only about 66% of UK SDRs hit quota, per Sales Recruit UK citing RepVue.
Closing
Account executive
London SaaS, from Live Digital: SMB £40K to £60K base, £70K to £110K OTE; mid-market £55K to £85K base, £100K to £170K OTE; enterprise £70K to £120K base, £130K to £240K OTE.
OTE assumes 100% of quota.
Leadership
Head of sales to CRO
London SaaS, from Live Digital: head of sales £90K to £130K base, £148K to £230K OTE; VP sales £110K to £170K base; CRO £160K to £280K base, £270K to £530K OTE.
Equity excluded.
Technical and post-sale
Sales engineer and customer success
London SaaS, from Live Digital: sales engineer or solutions consultant £65K to £100K base; customer success manager £40K to £65K base.
Sales engineer pay is usually 70/30 or 75/25 base to variable.
Marketing
Marketing, manager to CMO
Ashdown Group's London medians: marketing manager £65,000; senior marketing manager £70,000; head of marketing £100,000; marketing director £115,000; CMO £140,000.
Marketing Week's 2026 survey found average pay down at every level.
05/ RevOps
RevOps salary London, from placement data
BisonRS reports these bands from 200+ RevOps placements since 2021.
RevOps is the closest UK benchmark for GTM engineering.
LevelBaseTotal with bonusSource
BisonRS also reports a 40% counter-offer rate for senior RevOps people in 2026, up from 25% in 2024.
Move quickly once you make an offer.
06/ sales
Sales salaries in UK SaaS base and OTE, London
Live Digital's 2026 benchmark for London.
OTE assumes 100% of quota; top performers can earn 130 to 200% of OTE.
RoleLondon baseLondon OTESource
A caution on OTE. Sales Recruit UK, citing RepVue, reports only about 66% of UK SDRs hit quota.
So on-target earnings are a target, not a forecast.
07/ marketing
Marketing salaries from the managers to the CMO
Two recruiter guides and one survey.
Ashdown reports London by quartile; Marketing Week reports UK averages from its survey of 2,350 marketers.
RoleFigureSource
Marketing automation specialist, UK£31,500 / £35,500 / £40,500 (25th / 50th / 75th)Robert Half 2026, default view
Marketing Week also found 51.2% of respondents have seen roles grow without a pay rise.
A full-time CMO at these rates is not always the right call: see our fractional CMO guide to the cost and the role when you need a part-time hire, or fractional GTM on our sister site for the wider leadership picture.
08/ US
US sales development pay the Bridge Group benchmark
The Bridge Group's 2025 report surveyed 351 B2B companies, 78% in North America and 83% SaaS.
RoleMedian OTESource
09/ drivers
What drives GTM pay up or down five factors
Code. The clearest premium in the data.
High-code GTM engineers earn about $40K to $45K more than low-code operators in the US, and BisonRS sees a 20 to 30% premium in RevOps for SQL, Python and AI workflows.
Company stage. In the US, pre-seed and seed companies pay GTM engineers an average closer to $85K, while Series B and Series D companies lead at about $145K median base.
Mid-size companies with 201 to 1,000 employees pay the highest medians.
Geography. US-based GTM engineers report a median base of $135K against closer to $75K elsewhere.
In UK sales, London pays more than the regions, and Sales Recruit UK puts the London SDR base about 19% above non-London.
Equity and bonus. Often missing.
GTME Pulse reports 68% of GTM engineers have no meaningful equity and 51% receive a bonus.
Ask for both in writing.
Title. The same title covers different jobs.
Bloomberry found GTM engineer and RevOps postings share nine of their ten most common responsibilities, yet the GTM engineer title is often paid more.
Price the work, not the label.
10/ build or buy
Hire a GTM engineer or use an agency? what each costs you
Two ways to get the same system built.
Salary is only part of the comparison.
In-house hireAgency
Cost shapeSalary, equity, tools, management timeMonthly retainer plus tools
Time to startWeeks to months of recruitingDays to weeks
KnowledgeStays in the companyLeaves unless documented
Best forPermanent, ongoing systems workA first build, or work before you can hire
→ The State of GTM Engineering found agency retainers from $1K to $33K a month, median minimum around $5K. Our default: build it, prove it, hand it to your hire.
High-code engineerLow-code operator
BuildsPipelines, scripts, internal toolsWorkflows in existing tools
HandlesData architecture and integrationsEnrichment, lists, outbound
NeedsClear problems and accessA working system to operate
→ US medians: about $135K versus about $90K. Hire the level the problem needs.
11/ the real risk
What a GTM mis-hire costs more than the salary
SalesFuel's 2026 Voice of the Sales Manager research puts the average cost of a bad B2B sales hire at $177,171.
It also found companies spend nearly three months hiring a rep before their first sales call, then another five and a half months before they reach peer-level productivity.
The Bridge Group puts average SDR ramp at 3.0 months and annual attrition at 40%.
Every departure restarts that clock.
That is why we push clients to scope the level and build the system before they hire.
Our GTM recruitment guide covers the search itself, and the GTM readiness scorecard is a quick check on whether you are ready for the hire at all.
12/ method
How we built this guide and what we left out
Every figure links to the page it came from, and we opened each one on 28 September 2026.
Sources are practitioner surveys, recruiter guides that publish their bands, analyses of job adverts, employers' own adverts and the ONS.
We removed every figure from the previous version of this page that we could not trace to a source showing it.
That includes UK bands for GTM engineers, consultants' day rates and heads of GTM.
Where no reliable UK figure exists, we say so rather than estimate one.
Recruiter guides reflect each firm's own placements and sampling; surveys reflect who answered.
Treat all of them as ranges, not prices.
GTM Quest editorial guide · Updated 10 October 2026
Understand UK GTM engineer salary and comparable compensation
Practical guide · 01
Compare the package before comparing the number
Base salary, on-target earnings, equity and contract revenue are different quantities. Use the same basis, currency and working arrangement before judging an offer.
Your decision
On-target earnings
Base plus variable pay at the stated target. Ask how target attainment is measured and how many comparable employees achieved it.
Equity and contract income
Equity is uncertain future value; contract revenue has costs and unpaid time. Neither is directly comparable with salary.
Practical guide · 02
A salary range needs a sample
An advertised figure is evidence about a vacancy, not a universal market rate. IT Jobs Watch reports advertised jobs and explains its period and sample; those limits matter for emerging GTM titles.
IT Jobs Watch: UK advertised GTM strategy roles ↗
Source checked 10 October 2026
- 1
Match the scope
Compare engineering with engineering, management with management and quota-bearing work with equivalent quota responsibility.
- 2
Check the sample
Record the source date, geography, number of advertised roles and whether pay was disclosed. A missing salary is unknown.
- 3
Validate locally
Compare current employer adverts and discuss the package with a relevant recruiter. Do not import a US dollar range into a UK offer.
Practical guide · 03
Worked example: two offers with different risk
Fictional example: one offer is fixed salary and another includes commission. No pay amounts are invented here; the comparison is about certainty and responsibility.
- Stage 101
Normalise
Put both base salaries on the same annual and working-time basis. List benefits and variable pay separately. - Stage 202
Test the target
For the commission role, ask about territory, ramp, quota changes, attribution and the payment trigger. - Stage 303
Decide
Compare guaranteed income, achievable upside and your control over the result. Keep equity outside cash available to spend.
Practical guide · 04
Location changes the comparison
Compare roles in equivalent labour markets and arrangements.
Compare
Local employment
Match location, work pattern and employer responsibility.
International remote
Check contracting entity, currency and benefits before normalising pay.
Practical guide · 05
Read the commission plan
Variable pay depends on definitions you should understand.
Compare
Earning
Clarify quota, attribution, ramp and which events create commission.
Payment
Clarify payment timing, cancellations, clawbacks and plan changes.
Practical guide · 06
Keep equity separate from spendable pay
An equity offer involves uncertainty and conditions.
Compare
Documents
Ask about instrument, vesting, exercise and relevant restrictions.
Decision
Compare cash independently and obtain advice on your own circumstances.
Practical guide · 07
Negotiate from role scope
Use a comparable brief rather than an unrelated salary screenshot.
Compare
Evidence
Bring relevant responsibilities, experience and current comparable vacancies.
Trade-offs
Discuss base, variable pay, development and working arrangement separately.
Practical guide · 08
An employer budget exceeds salary
Build a transparent hiring cost model from actual inputs.
Compare
Recurring
Include employer costs, tools, benefits and operational support.
Transition
Include search, onboarding and the cover needed during ramp.
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes on your GTM hire
Tell us the role you are pricing and what you want it to deliver. We come back with the level we would hire at, whether to build first, and what the first 90 days should produce, whether or not you work with us.
- 0115 minutes, video or phone
- 02Role scope and level
- 03Hire, build or both
- 04A written next step after the call
Pick a day that suits · live availability
13/ questions
GTM salaries FAQ
The pay questions people search for, answered only where a published source gives a figure.
In the US, the State of GTM Engineering puts median in-house base at about $135K; GTME Pulse reports $132K median total compensation; Bloomberry's analysis of adverts found a $127,500 median.
No UK-wide survey exists yet.
London adverts we found ranged from £80K to £110K to £110K to £200K, both with equity, and the non-US median in the State of GTM Engineering is closer to $75K.
In US adverts, Bloomberry found Vercel at $252,000 and OpenAI at $250,000; GTME Pulse puts lead and staff GTM engineers at $200K to $250K+.
Clay skills alone sit at the lower end: low-code operators, who build mainly in tools such as Clay, report a US median of about $90K.
Adding code moves people towards about $135K.
"GTM manager" is not a standard title, so there is no clean benchmark.
The nearest is RevOps: BisonRS puts a London RevOps manager at £65,000 to £85,000 base.
There is no survey for the title itself.
Comparable London roles: head of RevOps £100,000 to £140,000 base; head of sales £90K to £130K base; head of marketing £100,000 median.
Nearest benchmarks in London: marketing director £115,000 median; VP revenue operations £130,000 to £200,000 base; in the US, a sales development director's median OTE is $189K.
We could not find a published survey of GTM consultant pay or day rates that we trust, so we do not quote one.
Fees depend on scope; ours are quoted in writing after a discovery call.
For senior advice without a hire, see what a go-to-market advisor does.
Robert Half puts a UK marketing automation specialist at £31,500 / £35,500 / £40,500 (25th / 50th / 75th percentile), and a marketing automation manager at a £45,000 median.
Live Digital puts a mid-level London SaaS SDR at £32K to £45K base and £46K to £68K OTE; Sales Recruit UK puts the UK-average SaaS SDR at £33K base and £49K OTE.
Often not much: GTME Pulse reports 68% have no meaningful equity, including at early-stage companies.
Ask for it, and for the vesting terms, in writing.
In the US, GTM engineer medians run from $127,500 in adverts to about $135K in the survey.
Apollo cites an average for US RevOps of $108,998.
In the UK, technical RevOps people earn a 20 to 30% premium.
The ONS put median gross annual earnings for full-time employees at £39,039 in April 2025, up 4.3% on the year.
It depends on how long you need the work done.
Agency retainers in the State of GTM Engineering ran from $1K to $33K a month.
For ongoing work a hire usually wins; for a first build, an agency is faster.
See hire or build.
For what the agency route includes, see what a go-to-market agency does.
Book 15 minutes · London · UK and Europe
Pricing a GTM hire? Get the level right first.
A 15-minute call, a written next step, and, if it helps, the first version of the system built before your hire arrives.
15/ sources
Every source on this page
Each figure links to its source. Original source checks: 28 September 2026. The practical guide was updated on 10 October 2026.
- GTM Strategist (Maja Voje), The 2026 State of GTM Engineering (228 respondents, Mar 2026)knowledge.gtmstrategist.com
- BisonRS, RevOps salary guide Europe 2026 (Apr 2026, updated Aug 2026)bisonrs.com
- ONS, Employee earnings in the UK: 2025 (ASHE, Oct 2025)ons.gov.uk
- SalesFuel: A bad sales hire costs $177,171 (Voice of the Sales Manager, 2026)salesfuel.com
- GTME Pulse, State of GTM Engineering 2026: key findings (Mar 2026)gtmepulse.com
- Bloomberry, I analyzed 1,000 GTM engineering jobs (Oct 2025, updated Jan 2026)bloomberry.com
- RevOps Roles, GTM engineering jobs and salary insights (checked 28 Sep 2026)revopsroles.com
- Apollo, GTM engineer salary: 2026 compensation guide (Feb 2026)apollo.io
- incident.io: Product Engineer, GTM, London (Ashby)jobs.ashbyhq.com
- White Circle: Founding GTM Engineer, London (via Arbeitnow)arbeitnow.co.uk
- Robert Half, 2026 UK marketing and creative salary guideroberthalf.com
- Live Digital, SaaS sales salaries UK 2026 (Apr 2026)live-digital.co.uk
- The Bridge Group, SDR models, motions and metrics 2025 (Feb 2025)bridgegroupinc.com
- Sales Recruit UK, UK SDR & BDR salary benchmarks 2026salesrecruituk.com
- Ashdown Group, Marketing salary guide 2026ashdowngroup.com
- Marketing Week, Average marketing salaries dip in 2026 (Apr 2026)marketingweek.com
- Fractional Quest, Fractional GTMfractional.quest
- IT Jobs Watch: UK advertised GTM strategy rolesitjobswatch.co.uk