The round closes, and within a few weeks the plan on the table has six account executives in it, a target for each and a start date for the first one that is already behind. It is an understandable instinct, because the money was raised on a growth story and the quickest way to show growth looks like headcount. In most cases it is also the wrong order of events.
You build a SaaS sales team after raising by hiring in stages that follow the evidence you have, whatever the size of the round. Start with whoever will own the number, which is usually a sales leader sized to your stage, and add two or three account executives who sell to the buyer you have already won. Check pipeline and ramp before the next cohort, and put the minimum of sales operations, customer success and marketing support around the sellers so they spend their time selling. If your motion is already proven and the plan needs a team in a quarter, you can go faster, but the sequence stays the same.
What does the funding market mean for how you build?
The money is there, but it is moving towards later and bigger rounds. HSBC Innovation Banking UK and Dealroom analysis, reported by Digit on 13 October 2026, has UK startups and scaleups attracting $6.1bn of venture investment in Q3 2026 and $23.3bn over the first nine months, about 35% of European VC. Late-stage rounds took $3.5bn of that quarter, or 58%, against $740m for early-stage (Digit ). GlobalData’s figures for January to July 2026 show UK funding value up 113% year on year with overall deal numbers largely flat, and a pronounced shift towards larger late-stage growth rounds (GlobalData, via Mondo Visione, 28 August 2026 ).
Sources do not agree on direction for a single quarter, which is worth knowing before you quote any of this to a board. The tech.eu Funding Explorer has UK equity funding of €4.4bn in Q3 2026, down 22.6% on Q3 2025 across 191 rounds, down 10.7% (tech.eu ). It excludes debt and grants and uses different definitions and currencies, so I would not read the two quarters side by side. What they share is a picture of fewer deals and more capital in each, and my reading, which is an inference that nobody has measured, is that a company raising at an earlier stage is now expected to show efficient growth sooner.
That expectation is already visible in hiring. Carta’s data on US startups, published in March 2026, found funding up 64% while hiring fell 10% over the past three years, though it does not split hiring by function and says nothing about the UK (Carta ). Our own 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey describes businesses prioritising fewer hires but expecting significantly more impact from each one. A plan with six reps and no leader is the opposite of that.
What should the build sequence look like?
The table sets out the order I would use, and the trigger for moving to the next step. It is my own view from the searches we run, so treat it as a guide and adjust it to your own pipeline.
| Where you are | What to hire | What should be true first |
| Founders still closing most deals | One or two AEs who can learn the motion, or your first sales leader if the founder wants out of deals | You can describe the buyer, the deal size and why customers say yes |
| Round closed, motion partly proven | A sales leader sized to your stage, then two or three AEs selling to the buyer you have already won | Somebody owns the number, the pipeline review and the hiring plan |
| Motion proven, capacity is the constraint | The next cohort of AEs, plus sales operations and customer success support | First cohort has pipeline and is ramping to plan |
| Opening a new market or region | A senior first hire who can open doors, then a cohort once the playbook travels | Someone owns the practical set-up, and the product works locally |
Should your first hire be a sales leader or account executives?
It depends on who is still closing the deals. If the founders are winning the business themselves and plan to keep doing so for another two or three quarters, a couple of strong account executives can learn the motion from them, and a leader added too early may spend months managing a team that does not yet exist. That is a sensible route and plenty of businesses take it.
The problem is that it works only while the founder has the time and patience to coach, and most do not for long. Once the founder wants to step out of deals, or pipeline stops being reviewed properly and forecasts move every week, somebody has to own the number, and by then you often have reps who were hired without a clear owner for their quota, their territory or their pipeline discipline. I would lean towards hiring the leader first, or at the same time as the first reps, for any company that has raised enough to plan a team as well as a seller. The leader decides which buyer to target, what a qualified opportunity looks like and who else needs to be hired, which are the decisions a first round of AEs should not be making by default.
What kind of leader is a separate question. A hands-on VP of Sales who will sit in deals is a different hire from a CRO, and our piece on CRO vs VP Sales covers how to tell which one your problem needs. In our 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey the VP Sales median is £130,000 and the CRO median is £220,000, so getting the level wrong is expensive in both directions.
How many salespeople should you hire at once?
There is no right number, but I would be wary of any plan that hires a whole team before the first cohort has closed anything. Two or three account executives selling into the buyer you have already won will tell you quickly whether the pitch, the pricing and the ideal customer profile hold up outside the founder’s own relationships. If they do, you add the next group with more confidence and a clearer picture of what a good hire looks like. If they do not, you have found that out for three salaries, which is far cheaper than eight.
The investor plan often asks for something faster, and a board that has just put money in will want to see capacity. It is reasonable to agree milestones with them instead of dates, for example pipeline coverage or ramp by a certain month, so that the next cohort is released by evidence. A multi-hire project can make sense when the motion is already proven and the company needs a team in a short window. Our Criteo search is an example from a different market: the brief was 12 Agency Sales hires across London and Barcelona and it was filled in three months, but the proposition was established and the team was being added to an existing sales organisation (Criteo case study , Project & Multi-Hire, run on an exclusive basis).
What should sit around the sellers?
Less than most plans assume, but more than none. Salesforce’s State of Sales report, published in February 2026 from a survey of 4,050 sales professionals in 22 countries, found the average seller spends 40% of their time selling. Salesforce sells the software this work runs on, so treat it as a vendor figure, but it matches what founders tell us: reps spend a lot of time building quotes, updating the CRM and chasing approvals. If you are paying for six account executives and they sell for two days a week, the plan has a hidden cost.
That is usually the point where a first operations hire starts to make sense, and our post on when a scale-up needs its first Head of Operations sets out the signs. Customer success matters earlier than people expect, because renewals and expansion are the other half of the revenue number, and our survey commentary notes sales working closely with customer success. A development role will also be needed, whether that is a few SDRs or a marketing hire, and for SDRs the question of who to promote is covered in our post on SDR to Account Executive . For a marketing leader who owns pipeline, see hiring a marketing leader who is accountable for revenue .
Does the same approach work in Adtech, MarTech and Emerging Media?
Largely yes, because the sequence is about evidence and ownership, whatever the product. What changes is the shape of the seller. In Adtech the first hires are often agency and client-facing sellers who need to understand supply, measurement and the buyer’s trading desk, and how much category experience to insist on is covered in our post on direct Adtech experience for a sales hire . In MarTech the buyer is often a marketing or revenue team, so a seller who can talk to that stack and to the data matters. In Emerging Media the commercial hire is often brand partnerships and audience-led, which we cover in what makes great branded content commercial talent and hiring commercial talent for the creator economy .
Pay differs by market too. These are the commercial leadership roles in each of our 2026 UK surveys, for 2025 to 2026. They are not like-for-like, because titles and definitions differ between surveys, none states a sample size and none says whether the figures are base salary or another definition.
| Market (survey) | Role | Range | Median |
| SaaS & MarTech | VP Sales | £100,000 to £160,000 | £130,000 |
| Adtech | VP Sales | £120,000 to £200,000 | £160,000 |
| Adtech | Head of Agency Sales | £105,000 to £140,000 | £125,000 |
| Emerging Media | VP Commercial | £130,000 to £220,000 | £160,000 |
| Emerging Media | Head of Brand Partnerships | £85,000 to £130,000 | £105,000 |
Sources: the 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey , the 2026 Adtech Salary Survey and the 2026 Emerging Media Salary Survey . You can read more about our work across SaaS , MarTech , Adtech and Emerging Media .
What does a SaaS sales team cost in the UK?
These are UK salary figures for 2025 to 2026 from Ultimate Asset’s 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey. The survey does not publish a sample size and does not say whether the figures are base salary or OTE, so treat them as a guide and check what a candidate means before you compare. It has no Head of Sales or Sales Director rows, so I have not shown one.
| Role | Range | Median |
| Chief Revenue Officer | £180,000 to £300,000 | £220,000 |
| VP Sales | £100,000 to £160,000 | £130,000 |
| Enterprise AE, 6 to 9 years | £90,000 to £140,000 | £115,000 |
| Enterprise AE, 3 to 5 years | £75,000 to £95,000 | £85,000 |
| Mid-Market AE, 4 to 6 years | £55,000 to £80,000 | £68,000 |
| Head of Customer Success | £65,000 to £100,000 | £85,000 |
| Demand Generation Manager | £60,000 to £90,000 | £75,000 |
| Customer Success Manager | £45,000 to £75,000 | £60,000 |
Source: 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey , available through our salary survey page . The survey puts overall salary movement at typically 2 to 5% year on year, with the shortage of experienced talent keeping pressure on pay. Hiring the wrong person costs more than the salary: CIPD research cited in our Recruitment Cost Calculator puts a regretted hire at typically one to three times salary, depending on seniority.
What changes across UK & Europe, North America & Asia?
Everything in this post that comes from a data source is UK, and I would not carry the pay or funding figures into another country. The funding numbers above are UK; Digit puts the UK at about 35% of European VC in the first nine months of 2026, and I have not gathered equivalent figures for North America or Asia. Our salary surveys are UK only, so I would not quote you a salary for a seller in another market. The sequencing logic holds anywhere, but the practical detail does not: notice periods, restrictive covenants, commission and OTE conventions, equity expectations and the paperwork for employing someone differ by country, so take local advice and build the differences into start dates.
The first hire in a new region is a different job from the second. A first seller or country lead is paid for opening doors, and in our Vistar Media search for Japan the case study puts commercial network and market reputation ahead of direct category experience (Vistar Media case study , Executive Search). Once a playbook travels, cohorts become sensible, and our Hivestack work covered 23 senior placements across 15 markets in seven months, with each market needing its own search strategy (Hivestack case study , Project & Multi-Hire). For more on regional structure see whether to hire an APAC leader or Country Managers , and for a European market that technology businesses are looking at more closely, Spain . Somebody also needs to own contracts, entities, payments and local rules from the start, which is one of the signs in our post on when a scale-up needs its first Head of Operations .
What goes wrong when a team is built too fast?
The same few things come up. The brief changes halfway through a search because the leadership team has not agreed what good looks like, so strong candidates lose interest while the process feels unfinished. Salary expectations are set before anyone has checked them against the market, which shows up late and costs weeks. And the people being hired assess the company as closely as it assesses them: they want to know why the role is open, how the target was set and who they will report to. A business that has just raised money should be able to answer all three, and the ones that cannot tend to find that out in the final round. These are patterns from the searches we run and please read them as views.
The scale of the problem is not unique to SaaS. The ScaleUp Institute’s Annual Review 2025 found talent and leadership is a leading challenge for 55% of the 1,009 scaleup CEOs it surveyed, across all sectors (ScaleUp Institute ). If you are hiring for the first time at this scale, you are in good company, and the cost of a slow search is covered in what happens when a critical hire stays open for 30, 60 or 90 days .
Should you hire directly or use a recruiter?
If you can find the right person directly, quickly and confidently, you should. A founder with a strong network of sales leaders and the time to run a proper process can save a fee, and the numbers in the calculator may well tell you hiring directly is cheaper. Recruiters make more sense when you are hiring a leader and several sellers at once, when the founders are still running the company, or when the people you want are not looking. For a sales leader, Executive Search starts from who has built a team at your stage; for a larger build, a Project & Multi-Hire approach can run several roles together. Ultimate Asset offers Executive Search, Contingent Search and Project & Multi-Hire across UK & Europe, North America & Asia, and you can read more about our SaaS practice .
Common questions
How do you build a SaaS sales team after raising investment?
Hire in stages that follow evidence. Start with a sales leader sized to your stage, add two or three account executives selling to a buyer you have already won, then release the next cohort when pipeline and ramp support it. Put enough operations and customer success around the sellers that they spend their time selling.
Should you hire a VP Sales or account executives first?
If the founders are still closing and will keep doing so for a few quarters, a couple of AEs can learn from them. For most companies that have raised enough to plan a team, I would hire the leader first or alongside the first reps, because somebody has to own the number.
How many salespeople should you hire after a funding round?
There is no fixed number. Two or three AEs first is a sensible start, with the next cohort tied to milestones such as pipeline coverage or ramp. A proven motion and a short window can justify hiring faster.
What does a VP Sales cost in the UK?
In our 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey (UK, 2025 to 2026) the VP Sales median is £130,000 within a range of £100,000 to £160,000. The survey does not say whether this is base salary or OTE.
What do enterprise account executives earn in the UK?
The median is £115,000 for those with 6 to 9 years of experience and £85,000 for 3 to 5 years, in the same survey.
Does this apply to Adtech, MarTech and Emerging Media businesses as well as SaaS?
The sequence does, because it is about evidence and ownership. The sellers differ: Adtech leans on agency and supply knowledge, MarTech on a marketing or revenue buyer, and Emerging Media on brand partnerships and audiences. Our 2026 UK surveys show VP-level medians of £130,000 in SaaS & MarTech, £160,000 in Adtech and £160,000 for VP Commercial in Emerging Media, though the roles are not like-for-like.
Does the approach change outside the UK?
The logic does not, but the detail does. The first hire in a new region is usually someone who opens doors, and notice periods, commission conventions and employment rules vary by country. Our pay data is UK only, and we recruit across UK & Europe, North America & Asia.
If you are planning the hires behind a round, talk us through the plan. Even if the round has not closed or the brief has not settled, and whichever of our markets you are in, we can give you an honest view of who is realistically available for each seat, what they are likely to cost and how long each route is likely to take. And if you would rather work it out yourself first, put your own numbers into the Recruitment Cost Calculator . You can submit a brief when you are ready.
About the author
Swaran Sandhu, Director
Swaran leads Ultimate Asset’s SaaS & MarTech practice and contributed commentary to Ultimate Asset’s 2026 SaaS & MarTech Salary Survey. Ultimate Asset is a specialist recruitment firm for Adtech, MarTech, SaaS and Emerging Media, offering Executive Search, Contingent Search and Project & Multi-Hire across UK & Europe, North America & Asia. Founded in 2005, with more than 20 years in its markets.
Sources
Digit, “UK VC fund strongest fundraising quarter on record”, 13 October 2026 (HSBC Innovation Banking UK and Dealroom)
GlobalData via Mondo Visione, 28 August 2026
tech.eu Funding Explorer, UK Q3 2026
Carta, startup funding up, hiring down, March 2026
Salesforce, State of Sales 2026
ScaleUp Institute, Annual Review 2025
CIPD Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey 2024, as cited in our Recruitment Cost Calculator
Ultimate Asset 2026 SaaS & MarTech, Adtech and Emerging Media Salary Surveys (UK, 2025 to 2026)
Ultimate Asset case studies (Criteo, Vistar Media, Hivestack).
