Most agency comparisons of hiring versus outsourcing are rigged, because they compare things that are not comparable. This one tries not to be. A £45,000 job advert is an £88,000 commitment in year one — and it produces for about half of it.
What the market pays a logistics BDM in 2026
Two things stand out. The East Midlands now prices almost level with London, because warehouse density has pulled demand inland. And the London premium is far smaller than it is in software sales — freight pays for sector knowledge, not postcode.
The costs that are not on the job advert
Take the £45,000 North of England hire and build it out properly.
Roughly double the headline salary. None of it is unusual, and none of it is on the advert.
The cost nobody budgets for is time
- Hiring takes eight to sixteen weeks depending on seniority
- Ramp runs three to six months before pipeline materialises
- Freight sales cycles run three to eighteen months on top of that
Divide £88,250 by the months that are actually productive and you land near £14,600 per productive month in year one.
The risk nobody prices is that they leave
Around two-thirds of logistics professionals will consider a counter-offer, and 30–40% accept one. A departure in month nine is roughly £60,000 of sunk cost, plus the relationships that walk out with them.
What outsourcing actually costs
Specialist outbound firms run £2,000–£3,500 a month. Generalist B2B agencies range from £1,600 to £8,000 and upwards. At £2,497 a month you are just under £30,000 a year, live in two to three weeks, with no employment liability attached.
The honest part
An outbound firm does not close deals.
We generate qualified conversations. A BDM owns the whole cycle — prospecting, quoting, closing, then holding the account. Those are different jobs, and anyone selling you one as a replacement for the other is selling you something else.
The real question is narrower: should prospecting specifically be a salaried employee’s responsibility, or is it the part of the job best done in parallel by someone else?
When to hire, when to outsource
- You have no sales capacity at all
- You have enough inbound and existing accounts to occupy a salesperson from day one
- Relationship depth demands that the person who quotes is the person who built it
- Your closers have capacity but no pipeline
- You are entering a sector or geography you do not know
- You need pipeline inside a quarter
And do both when you can afford to — which is exactly what the larger forwarders do.
The 2026 complication
UK permanent placements fell at their fastest rate since January in May 2026, driven by Gulf disruption and the 15% employer National Insurance rate. Coastal clusters took it hardest; inland Midlands distribution held up. In practice finance defers the headcount while the target stays where it was.
The short version
A £45,000 hire costs about £88,000 in year one and is productive for roughly half of it. If what you need is prospecting, there are cheaper ways to get it. If what you need is someone to close and hold accounts, there is no substitute — hire.