Sales jobs you can get at 16 (and at 18)

Straight answer first: sixteen is a positioning year in sales rather than an entry year, so the handful of roles genuinely open to you now are found locally and in person rather than on any jobs board. FIRSTJOBZ lists roles for over-18s, which makes this page your map for the two years in between: what you can really do at 16 and 17, what lands on your eighteenth birthday and how to turn up ready to take it.

What's genuinely open at 16 and 17

First, the distinction that matters more than your birthday: whether you're still under school leaving age. If you're 16 but still in year 11, you count as a child worker in law and the rules are tight. Once you're past school leaving age, broadly from the end of year 11, you're a young worker instead, even though in England you'll stay in some form of part-time education or training until you're 18.

While you're still school-aged, part-time work is legal but bounded. You can't work during school hours, before 7am or after 7pm. Term time is capped at 12 hours a week: up to 2 hours on school days and on Sundays, with Saturdays allowing 8 hours once you're 15 or 16. School holidays loosen to a maximum of 35 hours a week at 15 to 16, with Sundays staying at 2 either way. You're entitled to a break of at least an hour after 4 hours of work. The law also guarantees you a 2-week stretch of the holidays completely free of work every calendar year. Plenty of councils ask your employer to register the job as well, so a work permit may come up.

Now the honest bit about which sales roles fit inside that. Shop-floor selling is the big one. Phone shops, sportswear, jewellers, gyms and plenty of independents hire at 16 for roles built around conversations plus a daily target, which is real selling whatever the job title says. Market stalls and family businesses are the second door, often the fastest, because the person hiring is standing right there. Weekend or holiday work on a trade counter or in a garden centre builds the same muscle.

Here's the part that matters more than the list though: how those jobs actually get found. Not through us. Our board carries over-18 roles, so at 16 and 17 your hunting ground is the high street itself. Walk in with a printed CV at a quiet hour and ask whether the manager's around. Read the cards in the window plus the noticeboard by the door. Tell your school or college careers lead exactly what you're after, because Saturday vacancies, placements and employer visits reach their desk long before they reach anywhere public. Ask family, neighbours, your football club, the parent who runs the stall. At this age the job comes from a person rather than from a search box, nearly every time.

Then there's the evidence you can build with no employer at all. Selling online through the resale apps is genuine sales practice: pricing, photographing, negotiating, closing, handling a complaint. Fundraising for a school or a charity is cold outreach with a target attached. A young enterprise scheme, a stall at the summer fair, anything with a float plus a takings sheet at the end of it. These become CV lines that read as sales rather than as hobbies.

One thing to check before you commit: street trading and door-to-door selling. Councils set their own bylaws about what school-age workers can and can't do, so if a role involves knocking on doors or working on the street, ring your council's education department before you say yes. That single call saves a lot of bother.

What's usually shut at 16: contact centres, field sales, business-to-business roles, estate agency and anything selling regulated products. Most of those set 18 as their own floor. It isn't personal and it isn't permanent.

Pay-wise, your legal minimum at this age is £8.00 an hour. Some employers pay everyone the same rate whatever their age, which makes them the best value on the high street for a 16-year-old. Our sales pay guide shows the full ladder plus how commission sits on top of it.

What unlocks at 18 - and where FIRSTJOBZ comes in

Your eighteenth birthday changes four things at once, no promotion required.

The money moves first. Your legal minimum jumps to £10.85 an hour the day you turn 18. Same job, same targets, higher floor. It happens automatically, whether or not anyone mentions it.

The industry opens second. This is the big one. Contact centres and phone-based sales teams start saying yes, which matters because they hire in intakes rather than one at a time and they train you properly before you speak to a customer. Business-to-business teams take on sales development reps at 18. Estate agencies take trainee negotiators. Field sales, promotional work and events all become available. If 16 felt like a short list, 18 feels like somebody opened the rest of the building.

The rota opens third. Adult working-time rules replace the young-worker limits, so late trading shifts, evening call windows and weekend-long events become yours to take. Those are exactly the hours when customers are reachable, which is why they're often the hours that pay best.

The regulated stuff falls away fourth. Age-restricted products, licensed premises, financial products that need training plus sign-off before you speak to anybody: whole categories of selling that couldn't include you at 16 now can.

That's the point where we come in. From the day you turn 18 you can browse live sales jobs on the board, where every advert is one you're finally old enough to answer. Until then the work is the two years in front of you. Sixteen and seventeen are for stacking up the things those adverts ask for, so the first application you send at 18 already answers every line.

Arrive at 18 ready

Three things stack up during the build-up years. Sort them now, because none of them can be arranged in a hurry the week of your birthday.

Experience is the first. Months on a shop floor hitting a daily target through exam season is worth more than any personal statement, so hold one job for a decent stretch rather than collecting three short ones. Keep a note of your own numbers as you go: takings on a good Saturday, how many of your conversations turned into a sale, the week you covered a colleague at no notice.

References are the second and they're the bit people forget. Before you leave any job, however small, ask your manager outright whether they'd be a reference. Take an email address plus a phone number and thank them properly. A manager who answers the phone about you is the single strongest thing an 18-year-old application can carry.

Availability is the third. At 16 the law caps what you can offer. At 18 it doesn't, so decide in advance what you'll genuinely say yes to: evenings, weekends, full days across the holidays. Sort your National Insurance number, which usually turns up on its own around your sixteenth birthday. If driving is affordable, line it up early too, because you can apply for a provisional licence at 15 years and 9 months and start learning in a car at 17. Nobody needs a licence for a phone-based role, but territory and field sales open up much faster once you've got one.

One warning worth carrying into all of it. If an advert offers commission with no basic pay at all, walk past it. That's true at 16 and it stays true at 18. Plenty of employers also say 18 plus for work a younger person could legally do. Don't take it personally. Spend the time where the door is open instead of arguing with the ones that aren't.

So don't sit and wait for your birthday. Start where the door is genuinely open now: the shop on your road, the stall at the market, the manager who's standing right there. Build the evidence with our guide to getting your first sales job with no experience, keep the sales hub handy for the CV and interview guides. The board will be waiting for you on the morning you turn 18.