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The 10 Best- And Worst-Paying Jobs In Sales Right Now

This article is more than 8 years old.

It’s among the most populous professions in the country, but pitch people who master the art of the sale command a variety of different job titles–and salaries.

To determine the Best- And Worst-Paying Sales Jobs, Forbes consulted the most recent Occupational Employment and Wages data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which reflects May 2014 salary and employment data, and zeroed in on sales and related occupations.

"The occupations with the largest employment in May 2014 were retail salespersons and cashiers," according to the BLS. "These two occupations combined made up nearly 6% of total U.S. employment, with employment levels of 4.6 million and 3.4 million, respectively."

So what kind of wages are members of the nation’s largest employment groups commanding?

Sales engineers top the list, unseating securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents with mean annual salaries of $104,660. According to the BLS, these professionals "sell complex scientific and technological products or services to businesses. They must have extensive knowledge of the products’ parts and functions and must understand the scientific processes that make these products work."

The field is expected to see steady demand, growing by about 9%  by 2022.

Following close behind are  securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents who also pull in six figures, and sales representatives for wholesale, manufacturing, technical, and scientific products, who can expect annual salaries of nearly $87,000.

In pictures: The 10 Best- And Worst-Paying Sales Jobs Right Now

First-line supervisors of non-retail sales workers and real estate brokers–those individually licensed to assist clients in the buying, selling, and renting of property–round out the top five.

On the other end of the spectrum, cashiers–a job title nearly 3.4 million strong in the U.S.–earn the lowest wages for sales professions, bringing home a mean hourly wage of $9.93, or about $20,640 annually.

Further down the ranking, door-to-door sales workers, news and street vendors, and related occupations bring in about $12.20 per hour--up just $0.02 from last year--while telemarketers take home just shy of a quarter more.

Also categorized among sales jobs is a title that may raise a few eyebrows: “Models.” Though not obvious as a sales occupation, the BLS defines the job thusly: “Models pose for artists, photographers, or customers to help advertise a variety of products, including clothing, cosmetics, food, and appliances.”

While Linda Evangelista may have famously declared in in the 1990s that she didn’t “wake up for less than $10,000 a day,” BLS data indicates that the average American with ‘model’ as their job title is making just over three times that rate–per year.

This is an update of a post that ran previously. 

In pictures: The 10 Best- And Worst-Paying Sales Jobs Right Now

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