Commercial Director vs Sales Director

In the UK market these two titles are frequently treated as the same job at different prices. They are not. They answer different problems, attract different people, and fail for different reasons.

The confusion is understandable — in a business of forty people one person often does both. The cost appears when a business recruits one title while describing the other, and then judges the appointment against expectations that were never in the brief.

The difference in one table

Where the two genuinely overlap

Both roles are accountable for revenue outcomes. Both need to understand pipeline, customers and competitive position. Both should be able to run a negotiation and read a P&L. In practice, a strong candidate for either role can usually do a competent version of the other.

That is precisely why the brief has to be specific. Two capable executives can perform the same title very differently depending on what they believe they were hired to fix.

How company size changes the titles

• Under roughly £5m turnover: one commercial leader, whatever the title, usually owning both selling and terms. The title reflects preference more than remit.
• £5m–£20m: the split starts to matter. Many businesses appoint a Sales Director first and discover a commercial governance gap eighteen months later.
• £20m+ or multi-route businesses: the roles typically separate, with a Commercial Director owning the framework and a Sales Director owning the function.
• Group structures: Commercial Director often carries cross-divisional pricing and partnership accountability that no single Sales Director holds.

Choosing between them: three diagnostic questions

1. 01Is revenue below where it should be, or is profit below where revenue should have put it? The first points to sales; the second to commercial.
2. 02If you won every open opportunity at current terms, would the business be in good shape? If yes, you have a sales problem. If no, you have a commercial one.
3. 03Who currently decides price, and does anyone govern the exceptions? If the honest answer is 'whoever is in the room', that is a commercial gap regardless of how sales is performing.

When the answer is both

Some businesses genuinely need both, and cannot carry both permanently. The usual sequence is to appoint the one that addresses the more urgent problem full-time, and meet the other requirement through an interim or fractional engagement until the revenue supports a second appointment. That is a considered structure, not a compromise — provided the boundary between the two is written down before either starts.

What does not work is appointing one person and quietly expecting both remits. The role becomes unmanageable, and the first thing to be dropped is usually the commercial discipline, because it is the part with no weekly number attached to it.