UK AI Exposure · Associate professional occupations
Sales accounts and business development managers
Sales accounts and business development managers plan, organise and undertake market research to meet the requirements of an organisation’s marketing and sales policies.
- Employees (UK)
- 415k
- Median annual pay
- £56,021
- Exposure score ?
- 0.3/10 Minimal 9.2/10 Very high strict reading · with tools is 9.2/10 with-tools reading · strict is 0.3/10
- Wage exposure
- £697m £21.39bn
Higher exposure than 18% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means
Most of this role's work is still genuinely hard for AI to do. Physical presence, bodily skill, high-context judgment, direct human care - the things that don't translate to text.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
You're not in the firing line today. But the frontier moves. Build enough AI fluency now that you can direct it for the parts of your work that could benefit. People in unexposed roles who understand AI become unusually valuable inside their organisations.
Almost every routine task in this role is within reach of today's language models. Roles at this level are getting rebuilt - often not by disappearing, but by one person using AI to do three or five people's output.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
You don't need to be afraid. You need to be the person doing the rebuilding. The operators who learn to direct AI at scale in this kind of work become hugely valuable. The ones who wait to be told what to do get told what to do - and that thing is often 'we don't need as many of you anymore.'
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
This role's strict reading is low because its top tasks are judgment, not drafting. The three highest-stakes tasks below are still usually where we start — flip the toggle to 'With tools' to see what AI plus the right context can compress.
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Identify, develop, or evaluate marketing strategy, based on knowledge of establishment objectives, market characteristics, and cost and markup factors.
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Formulate, direct, or coordinate marketing activities or policies to promote products or services, working with advertising or promotion managers.
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Evaluate the financial aspects of product development, such as budgets, expenditures, research and development appropriations, or return-on-investment and profit-loss projections.
These are the highest-importance tasks AI can already handle when paired with the right tools and context. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around these — usually the difference between an LLM that can technically do the job and one that actually does it inside your business.
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Identify, develop, or evaluate marketing strategy, based on knowledge of establishment objectives, market characteristics, and cost and markup factors.
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Formulate, direct, or coordinate marketing activities or policies to promote products or services, working with advertising or promotion managers.
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Evaluate the financial aspects of product development, such as budgets, expenditures, research and development appropriations, or return-on-investment and profit-loss projections.
Every role has three or four wedges like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days. Talk to Alex about a project →
The full task breakdown
Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can already do unaided versus what still needs a human. Importance is O*NET's 1–5 rating of how central each task is to the role.
Tasks via O*NET "Marketing Managers" (11-2021.00).
What AI can already do
1 of 20 tasks · unaided
Compile lists describing product or service offerings.
Where humans still hold the line
19 of 20 tasks
Identify, develop, or evaluate marketing strategy, based on knowledge of establishment objectives, market characteristics, and cost and markup factors.
Formulate, direct, or coordinate marketing activities or policies to promote products or services, working with advertising or promotion managers.
Evaluate the financial aspects of product development, such as budgets, expenditures, research and development appropriations, or return-on-investment and profit-loss projections.
Develop pricing strategies, balancing firm objectives and customer satisfaction.
Direct the hiring, training, or performance evaluations of marketing or sales staff and oversee their daily activities.
Consult with product development personnel on product specifications, such as design, color, or packaging.
Use sales forecasting or strategic planning to ensure the sale and profitability of products, lines, or services, analyzing business developments and monitoring market trends.
Negotiate contracts with vendors or distributors to manage product distribution, establishing distribution networks or developing distribution strategies.
Coordinate or participate in promotional activities or trade shows, working with developers, advertisers, or production managers, to market products or services.
Consult with buying personnel to gain advice regarding the types of products or services expected to be in demand.
Consult with buying personnel to gain advice regarding environmentally sound or sustainable products.
Initiate market research studies, or analyze their findings.
Conduct economic or commercial surveys to identify potential markets for products or services.
Confer with legal staff to resolve problems, such as copyright infringement or royalty sharing with outside producers or distributors.
Recommend modifications to products, packaging, production processes, or other characteristics to improve the environmental soundness or sustainability of products.
Advise business or other groups on local, national, or international factors affecting the buying or selling of products or services.
Select products or accessories to be displayed at trade or special production shows.
Develop business cases for environmental marketing strategies.
Integrate environmental information into product or company marketing strategies, policies, or activities.
Tasks via O*NET "Marketing Managers" (11-2021.00).
What AI can already do
19 of 20 tasks · with tools
Identify, develop, or evaluate marketing strategy, based on knowledge of establishment objectives, market characteristics, and cost and markup factors.
Formulate, direct, or coordinate marketing activities or policies to promote products or services, working with advertising or promotion managers.
Evaluate the financial aspects of product development, such as budgets, expenditures, research and development appropriations, or return-on-investment and profit-loss projections.
Develop pricing strategies, balancing firm objectives and customer satisfaction.
Compile lists describing product or service offerings.
Consult with product development personnel on product specifications, such as design, color, or packaging.
Use sales forecasting or strategic planning to ensure the sale and profitability of products, lines, or services, analyzing business developments and monitoring market trends.
Negotiate contracts with vendors or distributors to manage product distribution, establishing distribution networks or developing distribution strategies.
Coordinate or participate in promotional activities or trade shows, working with developers, advertisers, or production managers, to market products or services.
Consult with buying personnel to gain advice regarding the types of products or services expected to be in demand.
Consult with buying personnel to gain advice regarding environmentally sound or sustainable products.
Initiate market research studies, or analyze their findings.
Conduct economic or commercial surveys to identify potential markets for products or services.
Confer with legal staff to resolve problems, such as copyright infringement or royalty sharing with outside producers or distributors.
Recommend modifications to products, packaging, production processes, or other characteristics to improve the environmental soundness or sustainability of products.
Advise business or other groups on local, national, or international factors affecting the buying or selling of products or services.
Select products or accessories to be displayed at trade or special production shows.
Develop business cases for environmental marketing strategies.
Integrate environmental information into product or company marketing strategies, policies, or activities.
Where humans still hold the line
1 of 20 tasks
Direct the hiring, training, or performance evaluations of marketing or sales staff and oversee their daily activities.
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Methodology
This role's exposure score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 GPT task labels, aggregated by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 via ISCO-08 (ONS Vol 2 coding index) and US SOC 2010 (BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional. ASHE covers employees only, so self-employed workers are not counted.
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