Business Development Manager - Payroll

Embedded Services is Sage’s newest venture, helping third-party platform embed accounting and payroll technology into their products. This is greenfield business development, defining a completely new go-to-market motion inside Sage. This is your chance to help launch a disruptive embedded accounting offering that puts accounting and payroll capabilities directly into the products small businesses use every day. There’s no playbook.

The product is evolving. There are no leads. Instead, you’d be joining at ground level: shaping the motion, exploring markets, and helping define what this function becomes over the next few years. As a Business Development Manager, you will play a central role in building this new business by identifying, developing and closing strategic partnerships across the UK. You will work with organisations that serve small businesses, helping them embed accounting features into their platforms in a way that creates real value for their customers.

You’ll be part of a growing UK business development team and supported by product and subject matter experts, but this is also a high-ownership, entrepreneurial environment. We are still early in the journey, so you’ll need creativity, determination and strong commercial instincts to build momentum and shape how we go to market.

This role suits someone who understands the payroll needs of small businesses and is motivated by building something from the ground up turning early ideas and conversations into launched partnerships that create meaningful impact.

Success in this role will be measured by partnerships signed, pipeline created, and partner‑driven revenue growth.

At Sage, we believe face to face collaboration drives innovation, so we operate a hybrid model. You’ll work 3 days per week in the office and two days from home.

• Full BD lifecycle: research, outreach, discovery, shaping opportunities
• Act as your own SDR sourcing, segmenting, starting conversations
• Customer education (getting past assumptions about Sage)
• Feeding insights into product
• Helping build internal processes and documentation
• Managing long, complex cycles
• Identify vertical SaaS partners
• Show them how embedded accounting would fit their workflow
• 5+ years of sales or business development experience in technology-based services.
• Experience with ambiguity (new product development, BD, product marketing, vertical SaaS, partnerships, early sales)
• Ability to work with no leads, no materials, no predefined motion
• Strong communication and listening
• Can manage their own workload without needing stimuli from others
• Product or PMM experience
• Background in long, multi‑year enterprise cycles
• Experience working in a bank, SaaS company, fintech, or consulting firm.
• Cross-functional experience (any mix of consulting, engineering, product, marketing, account management, sales, business development).
• Competitive base salary and commission structure
• Work away scheme for up to 10 weeks a year
• On-going training and professional development
• Paid 5 days yearly to volunteer through our Sage Foundation
• Flexible work patterns and hybrid working