Head of Sales — UK

Neilson Financial Services; Gloucester; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Neilson Financial Services seeks a hands-on sales leader to own daily performance across all UK contact centres, from conversion rates to revenue per interaction. You'll be on the floor coaching managers and agents, turning sales strategy into revenue.

Reporting to the GM-UK, you will manage multi-site operations, design incentives and ensure FCA compliance while scaling the business. This role demands dynamic leadership in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• 5-10+ years in sales leadership with revenue responsibility.
• 5+ years leading sales teams of 50+ in contact centres or telesales.
• Strong track record of meeting targets.
• Experience in insurance or financial services preferred.
• Hands-on leader who coaches on the floor.
• Fluent in sales metrics and CRM analytics.
• Proven ability to develop Sales Leaders and Advisors.
• Comfortable operating in a high-growth, high-pressure environment.
• Experience across multiple sites with FCA regulatory requirements.
• High-energy, competitive, results-driven.

Responsibilities

• Own daily, weekly and monthly sales numbers across the UK.
• Drive adherence to sales processes and upselling.
• Utilise dashboards to monitor KPIs and translate data into action.
• Lead Contact Centre Managers and frontline agents; coach culture.
• Define onboarding programmes and monitor attrition.
• Ensure training translates into performance improvement.
• Design incentive programmes and leaderboards.
• Maintain consistent processes across sites and scale operations.
• Ensure FCA regulatory standards are met.

Skills

Sales Leadership

Team Leadership

CRM platforms

Performance analytics

Coaching on the floor

Regulatory knowledge

Data-driven decisions

Multi-site operations

Job description

Location: Gloucester or Ashford (hybrid - 3 days onsite, with travel to Windsor and Hull sites as needed)

The Role

This is a hands-on, floor-first leadership role. You'll own every lever of day-to-day sales performance across all UK contact centres - conversion rates, revenue per interaction, quality, compliance and team productivity. You'll spend real time on the sales floor, listening to calls, coaching managers, reading the data and acting on what it tells you. This is not a strategy-from-the-boardroom job - you are the operational engine that turns sales strategy into revenue.

You'll report to the GM-UK and work directly with the Chief of Sales and C-Suite partners, translating group commercial strategy into frontline execution. Your influence on strategy comes from what you see at the coalface - the patterns, the friction, the opportunities your teams surface every day.

What You'll Own

Sales Performance & Conversion - Own daily, weekly and monthly sales numbers across the UK. Drive adherence to sales processes, objection-handling frameworks and upselling. Key KPIs include lead-to-sale conversion, GWP, AGWP, persistency, QA and colleague engagement. Spot underperformance early, intervene fast and feed structured insight back to leadership.

Team Leadership & People Development - Lead Contact Centre Managers, Team Leaders and frontline agents across all sites. Set clear expectations at every leadership layer. Build a coaching culture through regular one-to-ones, call reviews, role-plays and structured feedback. You set the tone - energy, standards and pace start with you.

Recruitment & Onboarding - Maintain a continuous pipeline of high-quality talent. Define the ideal candidate profile, drive a structured 30/60/90-day onboarding programme and monitor early attrition to keep refining the approach.

Training & Sales Enablement - Ensure agents are compliant with training requirements and following defined sales processes. Work with the training function to identify skill gaps and ensure training translates into measurable performance improvement on the floor.

Incentives, Culture & Recognition - Design incentive programmes, leaderboards and competitions that drive motivation aligned with quality, compliance and customer outcomes - not just volume. Make high performance visible and celebrated.

Data & Operational Rigour - Live in the data. Use dashboards daily to monitor conversion rates, AGWP, QA, persistency and engagement. Translate patterns into action and be the most informed person in the business about what's happening on the UK sales floor.

Compliance & Quality - Ensure all sales activity meets FCA regulatory standards and Neilson's internal compliance framework. Sales performance never comes at the expense of fair customer outcomes.

Scalability - Maintain consistent processes, standards and performance across all UK sites. As we continue to scale, you'll play a central role in expanding sales capacity.

What We're Looking For

• 5-10+ years in sales leadership with direct accountability for revenue targets, conversion rates and team performance
• 5+ years leading sales teams of 50+ in a contact centre, telesales or direct-to-consumer environment
• Consistent track record of hitting or exceeding targets
• Experience in insurance, financial services or regulated direct-to-consumer sales strongly preferred
• A hands-on leader who's visible on the floor - coaching in the moment, listening to calls, holding people accountable face-to-face
• Fluent in sales metrics - conversion rates, revenue per call, pipeline velocity, attrition, ramp times - with experience using CRM platforms and performance analytics tools
• Proven ability to develop Sales Leaders and Advisors through structured coaching and development programmes
• Comfortable operating at speed in a high-growth, high-pressure environment
• Experience across multiple sites or locations with the ability to maintain consistency as the operation grows
• Understanding of FCA regulatory requirements as they apply to financial services sales
• High-energy, competitive, results-driven - with the emotional intelligence to lead people well

Why Neilson?

You'll be joining a business that's scaling fast, rewards performance and gives its leaders real ownership. The UK operation is the launchpad for international growth - this role puts you at the centre of it.