Sales Representative (Industrial Products)
A Sales Representative (Industrial Products) identifies and develops business relationships with manufacturing, construction, and resource sector clients to sell industrial equipment, machinery, components, or raw materials. They conduct needs analysis, prepare technical quotations, negotiate contracts, and manage account relationships to meet sales targets and revenue goals.
What this job is
A Sales Representative (Industrial Products) identifies and develops business relationships with manufacturing, construction, and resource sector clients to sell industrial equipment, machinery, components, or raw materials. They conduct needs analysis, prepare technical quotations, negotiate contracts, and manage account relationships to meet sales targets and revenue goals.
Are employers advertising this role?
Falling, down 21.3% over 5 years
Counted across a group of similar roles. These are three-month rolling averages of online job advertisements, not filled positions.
Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Internet Vacancy Index.
Day-to-day
Identify and qualify prospective industrial clients through market research, industry directories, and networking to build a sales pipeline. Conduct site visits and facility inspections to understand customer production processes and specify appropriate industrial products or solutions. Prepare detailed technical quotations and proposals that include product specifications, pricing, delivery terms, and compliance with Australian Standards (e.g. AS/NZS standards for safety and quality). Present product features, performance data, and cost-benefit analyses to decision-makers in client organisations using sales demonstrations or technical literature. Negotiate commercial terms including volume discounts, payment schedules, and warranty conditions to secure orders. Process sales orders, manage order documentation, and coordinate with logistics and fulfilment teams to ensure timely delivery. Maintain detailed customer relationship management (CRM) records including contact history, purchase history, and follow-up actions. Monitor competitor products, pricing, and market trends to advise management on competitive positioning and identify cross-sell or upsell opportunities.
Who does this now
About 11,700 people worked in this occupation across Australia at the 2021 Census.
Is it steady
Lead generation and outreach are partly automated. Relationship selling and complex deals tend to stay human-led.
What this role asks for
Bachelor degree or higher (ABS skill level 1)
Can employers fill these jobs
Employers hiring for this occupation were generally able to find suitable applicants in 2025. This measures how hard employers found it to fill jobs. It is not a count of jobs, and it does not say whether the occupation is growing.
Requirements
The standard entry pathway requires a bachelor degree or higher (ABS Skill Level 1). Specific qualification requirements vary by employer and state. Some employers may accept equivalent experience. Check yourcareer.gov.au for available courses and dewr.gov.au/skills-reform/free-tafe for subsidised training options.
The honest hard part
Your pay is capped by commission structures that favour long-term accounts over new sales, meaning switching careers means starting from scratch with zero existing client relationships while competing against reps with 10+ years of contacts. You'll also chase targets relentlessly in a role where economic downturns directly kill your income, not just your job security.
Where the jobs are
The practical reality is that major client bases sit in industrial parks near major cities, and remote work is minimal because site visits and relationship-building are core to the job.
Pay
Published for ANZSCO unit group 2254, the wider group this job sits in, not for this job on its own.
This is the median for full-time employees who are not managers and are paid at the adult rate, before tax and salary sacrifice. It is a guide to what the work pays, not a wage rate.
Source: ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
Skills
- Active Listeningcore
- Characteristics of productscore
- CRM System Operationcore
- Customer Complaint Resolutioncore
- Customer Needs Assessmentcore
- Negotiationcore
- Objection Handlingcore
- Outbound Customer Contactcore
- Problem Solvingcore
- Stakeholder Communicationcore
- Supplier Communicationcore
- Time Management and Prioritisationcore
- Upselling and Cross-Sellingcore
- Verbal Communicationcore
- Adaptability and Flexibility
- Customer Order Tracking
- ERP and Inventory Systems
- Goal Setting and Planning
- Invoicing and Accounts Receivable
- Microsoft Office Suite Proficiency
- Purchase Order Processing
- Reporting and Analytics
- Written Communication
Which of these do you have?
Tick the ones you haveCommon questions
Sources
- ABS OSCA 2024, occupation definition and task statements
- ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
- ABS, 2021 Census of Population and Housing based on usual place of residence (Custom Report). OSCA Experimental Estimates.
Role data is drawn from official Australian Government sources, and each figure names where it comes from. Where a role is not in the ABS classification, the page shows no government figures for it. Data may not reflect every local variation.
What Sales Representative (Industrial Products) workers move into, from ten years of tax records.
Last updated: 30 October 2026
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