Telephone salespersons
Telephone salespersons obtain, receive, process and record telephone orders for goods and services.
- Employees (UK)
- 9k
- Median annual pay
- £26,944
- Exposure score ?
- 6.0/10 High 10.0/10 Very high strict reading, with tools is 10.0/10 with-tools reading, strict is 6.0/10
- Wage exposure
- £145m £242m
Higher exposure than 97% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means.
Most of the routine work in this role can already be done by a capable model. The role does not disappear, but its shape changes, and one person can credibly cover the work of several.
If you are in this role
Stop spending time on what a model can do well. Your value is judgement, relationships and the parts of the work that need you in the room. Redesign the workflow around that before someone else does it for you.
Almost every routine task in this role is within reach of today's models. Roles like this are being rebuilt, usually not by disappearing but by one person using AI to produce what several did.
If you are in this role
Be the person doing the rebuilding. People who learn to run this kind of work with AI become very valuable, and the ones who wait tend to have the change made for them.
Where the work usually starts.
These are the most important tasks a language model can already handle directly. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around them, so they stop eating the team's time.
-
Obtain customer information such as name, address, and payment method, and enter orders into computers.
-
Record names, addresses, purchases, and reactions of prospects contacted.
-
Maintain records of contacts, accounts, and orders.
These are the most important tasks AI can already handle when paired with the right tools and context. The first wins usually come from building workflows around them. That is the difference between a model that could do the job and one that actually does it inside your business.
-
Contact businesses or private individuals by telephone to solicit sales for goods or services, or to request donations for charitable causes.
-
Obtain customer information such as name, address, and payment method, and enter orders into computers.
-
Explain products or services and prices, and answer questions from customers.
Every role has three or four places like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days.
Every task in the role.
Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can do unaided and what still needs a person. Importance is O*NET's 1 to 5 rating of how central each task is.
Tasks via O*NET "Telemarketers" (41-9041.00).
What AI can already do
7 of 12 tasks, unaided
Obtain customer information such as name, address, and payment method, and enter orders into computers.
Record names, addresses, purchases, and reactions of prospects contacted.
Maintain records of contacts, accounts, and orders.
Adjust sales scripts to better target the needs and interests of specific individuals.
Answer telephone calls from potential customers who have been solicited through advertisements.
Deliver prepared sales talks, reading from scripts that describe products or services, to persuade potential customers to purchase a product or service or to make a donation.
Telephone or write letters to respond to correspondence from customers or to follow up initial sales contacts.
What still needs a person
5 of 12 tasks
Contact businesses or private individuals by telephone to solicit sales for goods or services, or to request donations for charitable causes.
Explain products or services and prices, and answer questions from customers.
Obtain names and telephone numbers of potential customers from sources such as telephone directories, magazine reply cards, and lists purchased from other organizations.
Schedule appointments for sales representatives to meet with prospective customers or for customers to attend sales presentations.
Conduct client or market surveys to obtain information about potential customers.
Tasks via O*NET "Telemarketers" (41-9041.00).
What AI can already do
12 of 12 tasks, with tools
Contact businesses or private individuals by telephone to solicit sales for goods or services, or to request donations for charitable causes.
Obtain customer information such as name, address, and payment method, and enter orders into computers.
Explain products or services and prices, and answer questions from customers.
Record names, addresses, purchases, and reactions of prospects contacted.
Maintain records of contacts, accounts, and orders.
Adjust sales scripts to better target the needs and interests of specific individuals.
Answer telephone calls from potential customers who have been solicited through advertisements.
Deliver prepared sales talks, reading from scripts that describe products or services, to persuade potential customers to purchase a product or service or to make a donation.
Telephone or write letters to respond to correspondence from customers or to follow up initial sales contacts.
Obtain names and telephone numbers of potential customers from sources such as telephone directories, magazine reply cards, and lists purchased from other organizations.
Schedule appointments for sales representatives to meet with prospective customers or for customers to attend sales presentations.
Conduct client or market surveys to obtain information about potential customers.
What still needs a person
0 of 12 tasks
When AI is paired with workflow tools, every task in this role is reachable. That doesn't mean the role disappears, it means almost all the routine surface area can be compressed.
Stay on top of this.
An email when there is something worth reading: what is real in AI at work, what is noise, and what operators are doing about it.
Free. Unsubscribe any time.
Related occupations.
Other roles in Sales and customer service occupations, and roles close by exposure.
What it means for your sector.
This role's score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 task labels, weighted by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 through ISCO-08 (the ONS coding index) and US SOC 2010 (the BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional, which covers employees only.
Back to the mapMethodologySources (PDF)Built 29 April 2026
Pictures
- "Census pantograph and 1930s keypunches" by U.S. Census Bureau employees, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Shepard Barclay, St. Louis lawyer, in his office" by Missouri Historical Society via DPLA, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Accountant's Office LCCN2016824374" by National Photo Company Collection, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Employment service in Oulu in the spring 1931" by Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons