Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products
US occupation · SOC 41-4011
Job titles people report: Inside Sales Representative, Marketing Representative, Sales Representative
Pay and outlook
- Median annual wage, May 2025
- $104,920
- Half earn more, half earn less
- Middle half earn
- $75,030 – $158,160
- 25th to 75th percentile
- People employed, May 2025
- 284,800
- Wage and salary jobs (OEWS)
- Projected change, 2025–35
- +1.2%
- Growing slower than all jobs (0% to under 3.5%)
- Openings a year (projected)
- 23,600
- New jobs plus replacing people who leave
- Typical education to enter
- Bachelor's degree
- BLS
- All figures are for the United States as a whole. Pay varies a lot by state and city.
- Wages are for everyone working in the occupation in May 2025, at every career stage. They are not starting salaries or figures for new graduates.
- Growth and openings are BLS projections for 2025–35. They are estimates, not promises. Openings include jobs that open up when people retire or change occupation, not just new jobs.
What the work involves
Sell goods for wholesalers or manufacturers where technical or scientific knowledge is required in such areas as biology, engineering, chemistry, and electronics, normally obtained from at least 2 years of postsecondary education.
Main tasks
- Negotiate prices or terms of sales or service agreements.
- Prepare and submit sales contracts for orders.
- Visit establishments to evaluate needs or to promote product or service sales.
- Maintain customer records, using automated systems.
- Answer customers' questions about products, prices, availability, or credit terms.
- Quote prices, credit terms, or other bid specifications.
- Contact new or existing customers to discuss how specific products or services can meet their needs.
- Emphasize product features, based on analyses of customers' needs and on technical knowledge of product capabilities and limitations.
More specific O*NET® occupations under this one: Solar Sales Representatives and Assessors.
Description and tasks from the O*NET® 31.0 Database.
Getting in
- Typical education to enter (BLS)
- Bachelor's degree
- Training once hired: moderate-term on-the-job training
- O*NET Job Zone 4
- Considerable preparation
- Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Interests it suits
The strongest of the six O*NET interest types for this occupation, highest first. The short glosses are ours.
- Enterprising: leading, persuading and making business decisions
- Conventional: organising information, records and procedures
- Investigative: research, analysis and solving problems with ideas
Fields of study that lead here
From the federal CIP–SOC crosswalk, which links 1 programme to this occupation. A link means the programme prepares people for this kind of work. It doesn't mean the programme is required, or that it's the only route.
Business
- Selling Skills and Sales Operations
Find colleges that fit you with our matcher: choose Business at the Major step.
Where many students take business
- Southern New Hampshire UniversityManchester, NH · 35% of degrees · 163,164 undergraduates
- Western Governors UniversitySalt Lake City, UT · 28% of degrees · 155,088 undergraduates
- Arizona State University Campus ImmersionTempe, AZ · 26% of degrees · 64,674 undergraduates
- Grand Canyon UniversityPhoenix, AZ · 22% of degrees · 73,371 undergraduates
- University of Maryland Global CampusAdelphi, MD · 25% of degrees · 49,664 undergraduates
- University of the PeoplePasadena, CA · 53% of degrees · 22,688 undergraduates
Ordered by the field's share of degrees awarded times undergraduate enrolment (College Scorecard), among colleges with at least 1,000 undergraduates. Online universities are included. It's a rough measure of how big the programme is. It says nothing about quality. The share counts every programme in the field, not only the ones linked to this career.
Related careers
Related occupations from the O*NET database, in its order.
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
$72,080 median · -0.9% projected
- Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products
$77,710 median · +6% projected
- Industrial Production Managers
$126,060 median · +2.6% projected
- Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products
$77,710 median · +6% projected
- First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers
$87,520 median · +0.5% projected
- Sales Managers
$148,270 median · +4.5% projected
Sources
This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. CollegeMatcher has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET 31.0 Database · CC BY 4.0
Changes: we show the core tasks in the O*NET database with the highest importance ratings (up to eight, in that order), the top three O*NET interest types by score, and shortened Job Zone names. Titles, descriptions and task text are unchanged.
Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Projections, typical entry education and training: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025–35. Fields of study: NCES and BLS CIP 2020–SOC 2018 Crosswalk. All public domain. OEWS · Employment Projections · CIP–SOC crosswalk