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SOC Code 3552 covers business sales executives — professionals who sell goods, services or contracts on behalf of an employer, distinct from retail sales assistants or telesales staff. Sponsoring the role under Skilled Worker means treating it as a genuine sales or account-management position, not a job title applied to a lower-skilled post.
Commission doesn't count toward the salary threshold
Sales roles are frequently structured with a low guaranteed basic salary plus commission or bonus. For sponsorship purposes, only pay that is guaranteed, contractual and not conditional on performance counts toward meeting the salary threshold — commission, discretionary bonus and on-target earnings are excluded. This trips up more sales-heavy employers than almost any other requirement. Our salary floor guide sets out exactly what counts as guaranteed pay.
Which threshold applies
3552 has its own going rate under the going-rates table, and the worker must be paid at least the higher of that figure and the general threshold, with a possible reduction for new entrants to the labour market. See our breakdown of going rates by occupation code for how this is calculated. The Home Office's own position on how pay must be structured to satisfy sponsor duties sits in Part 3: sponsor duties and compliance.
The new entrant reduction is usually available to workers under a certain age, those still completing recognised professional training, or those switching from a Student or Graduate visa — but it doesn't apply indefinitely, and a worker can age out of it partway through a certificate, so it's worth confirming eligibility rather than assuming it carries forward automatically.
Getting the SOC code right: sales executive vs. related roles
3552 sits alongside several similarly-titled occupations that are easy to mix up when drafting a Certificate of Sponsorship. Telesales and call-centre sales staff working from a script with limited discretion over pricing or terms usually belong under a lower-skilled sales occupation, not 3552. Retail sales staff, even senior ones, are assessed under retail codes. And a sales executive who has been promoted into managing a team, setting targets or owning a budget has effectively moved into a sales management occupation with its own, higher going rate — carrying on using 3552 after that promotion understates the role and risks a mismatch if it's ever checked. The safest test is what the person actually does day to day: negotiating deals, managing named accounts or developing new business with real discretion over pricing and terms, rather than following a fixed script or process.
Self-employed commission agents don't qualify
Some businesses build their sales function around self-employed commission agents rather than employees — a common structure in sectors like insurance broking or high-value goods sales. That arrangement, however it's badged, generally can't be sponsored under Skilled Worker: sponsorship requires a genuine employer-employee relationship, with the sponsor controlling how, when and where the work is done, not an independent agent invoicing for commission earned. If a business wants to sponsor a sales executive who has previously worked on a self-employed basis, the new role needs to be restructured as genuine employment — a contract of employment, PAYE, a guaranteed salary — before it can support a certificate.
Reporting changes to pay structure or duties
Sponsor duties don't stop once the certificate is assigned. If a sales executive's pay structure changes — for example, the guaranteed basic is reduced and more of the package is shifted into commission — the sponsor needs to check the new guaranteed salary still clears the threshold, and report material changes through the sponsor management system where required. The same applies if the role's duties change substantially, such as a move from field sales to a purely account-management function, or vice versa. Treating the original Certificate of Sponsorship as fixed for the life of the visa, regardless of what actually happens to the job, is one of the more common ways a genuine sponsorship drifts out of compliance without anyone noticing until an audit.
A quick check before you assign the certificate
- Confirm the base salary alone, excluding commission, meets the relevant threshold
- Confirm the job description reflects genuine business development, account management or contract sales duties
- Confirm the salary is tracked against the threshold on an ongoing basis, not just at the point of assignment
- Confirm the SOC code still matches the role if the worker has been promoted or moved teams since being sponsored
Ongoing salary monitoring is easier with automated checks than a spreadsheet review once a quarter — the kind of thing alert-based compliance tools are designed to catch before it becomes a breach.
Client travel and time spent working overseas
Business sales executives often travel to meet clients, attend trade shows or manage accounts across several countries, and that pattern of travel raises its own sponsor considerations. A sponsored worker who stops actually working for the sponsor — including an extended period effectively based overseas rather than simply travelling for meetings — can trigger a duty to report the change, and prolonged unexplained absence is one of the things a compliance visit will ask about. Keeping a simple log of business travel dates, alongside the usual right to work and salary records, is a cheap way to have an answer ready if the question ever comes up.
FAQs
Can a guaranteed annual bonus count toward the threshold?
Only if it's contractually guaranteed regardless of performance — a discretionary or performance-linked bonus cannot be counted, even if it's paid every year in practice.
What if total earnings, including commission, are well above the threshold?
It doesn't matter — the assessment is based on guaranteed basic pay, so a high-earning sales executive can still fail the check if their fixed salary alone is too low.
What happens if a sponsored sales executive is promoted into a sales management role?
A genuine change in seniority and responsibility usually means the SOC code and going rate need reassessing, and the Certificate of Sponsorship updated to match — the sponsorship shouldn't simply carry on unchanged while the job underneath it has moved on.
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