A BBC team were filming on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, close to where clashes have been reported between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

After hearing small arms fire and rockets from across the border, they ran for cover as warning sirens sounded.

Lucy Williamson reports.

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OCTOBER marks the start of the ‘golden quarter’ where the majority of sales are made across the UK.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, the run-up to Christmas sees both overall sales – and commission levels – leap.

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Discover thousands of UK job vacancies now on The Sun Job Board

Have you ever wondered just how much you could make in a sales job? Click the links to find out your potential pay packet.

Sold on a sales job? Here’s your five-minute ‘need to know’ from Sun Jobs to break into the industry.

What is a sales job? 

All jobs in sales involve selling a company’s products or services to customers.

Salespeople play a key role in almost every industry as they are responsible for identifying potential customers, building trust and convincing them to make a purchase. 

There are lots of different responsibilities, including selling face-to-face, over the phone, generating leads, negotiating sales contracts and demonstrating products.

You may also be called on to provide after-sales service in some sectors.

Savvy sales people also keep an eye on the market, tracking trends and what competitor companies are doing.

How much do salespeople earn? 

Most sales jobs offer a small basic salary with the chance to earn much more in commission.

This means the salary you earn will vary according to how successful you are.

Estimates for sales salaries range from £16,000 for a first job up to £125,000 for a top salesperson in an industry such as estate agency or high-value iT systems.

On average, expect to pocket between £40,000 to £50,000.

What qualifications do you need to get a job in sales? 

Sales isn’t about qualifications, it’s about people. The saying ‘people buy from people not companies’ explains why personality is so essential to be a good salesperson.

You need to be tenacious, have the ability to form connections and trust, and be highly organised to keep track of your sales inventory.

That said, most jobs will expect you to have GCSE passes in Maths and English as a minimum and certain professional sectors such as pharmaceutical sales will seek candidates with related degrees.

You can find out more at professionalsalesassociation.co.uk and the-isp.org.

What career progress is there for salespeople? 

Plenty. Being a successful salesperson proves you have commercial acumen which can take you into the boardroom or even to become MD or CEO.

Once you have experience and a solid track record in sales, pathways include moving up to be an area or regional manager, where you support an entire sales team.

You could also choose to work in marketing, product or account management.

Discover thousands of open vacancies for jobs all across the UK now on The Sun Job Board

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‘Game-changing’

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The artist Sir Howard Hodgkin had his studio in an old dairy close to the British Museum in London. Instead of the rattling of milk bottles, there was a contemplative silence in which his unfinished canvases faced the wall, some of them for years on end. They were that rare commodity, works of modern art that the public actually liked.

Lucian Freud planted his easel on bare floorboards, surrounded by piles of soiled rags and with gouts of paint splashed up the skirting board. For him, “working from home” was like being in a field hospital at the Battle of Trafalgar. By contrast, I remember the atelier of Gilbert & George, the odd couple of contemporary British art, in Whitechapel as a spotless gun-metal tank, jet-washed by an assistant in trawlerman’s waders. It was like a cross between a quality-assured abattoir and a Berlin techno club.

As a journalist, I’ve been fortunate enough to pop my head around the door of a few studios, trying to answer the big question about artists: how does the magic happen? Like a Sunday painter, I was merely dabbling with my researches.

By contrast, Martin Gayford, long-serving critic and art historian, is a trusted insider and a favoured guest of the most celebrated talents in the UK and beyond. If anyone knows what makes them tick, it ought to be this latter-day Vasari. Freud painted his portrait, “Man with a Blue Scarf”, which was also the title of a very good book that Gayford wrote about the experience. He has also collaborated in print with David Hockney. Now he has distilled a lifetime of studying pictures and talking to painters into a “How to” book.

Van Gogh wrote to his brother in 1884 about the ‘paralysing stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can’t do anything’

On second thoughts, “distilled” might not be quite the right word, with its suggestion of long-trickled perfectibility. All that patient looking and listening only gets you so far, it turns out. True, Gayford can tell us plenty about the origins of painting and pigments. In How Painting Happens, he devotes pages to synaesthesia, the syndrome of experiencing colour in terms of sound, and vice versa. We learn about the influence of photography on painters, and of painters on other painters.

But the author is honest enough to admit that the real alchemy remains tantalisingly out of reach. Professional gallery-goers think they can tell at a glance which paintings are worth their consideration, he says, but “critics and curators . . . including me, everybody, regularly get these judgments completely wrong.”

So how does painting happen? For Freud, the spur to creativity was settling his terrifying gambling debts. That is, until his prices became so astronomical that he simply couldn’t lose enough on the horses to make a new picture a financial necessity. Hodgkin was trying to capture his fleeting emotions in paint, though he would rather have been doing almost anything else. “I hate the act of painting,” he claimed. “People have said so often, ‘Aren’t you lucky to be able to do this for a living!’ And I say, ‘No, thank you, I’m not lucky.’ Having to go through the horrors of painting a picture is not something I look forward to, ever.”

At times, Gayford’s account reads more like a “How not to” handbook. Tracey Emin began work on what she imagined would be a “love scene”, only to find a Turneresque seascape demanding to escape from her brushstrokes instead (“The Ship”, 2019). Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1884 about the “paralysing stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can’t do anything”. Even Titian propped his half-finished pictures against the walls. Like Hodgkin, he was wondering what to do with them.

This is not the book for cynics and readers who suspect that how painting happens is that dealers, artists and collectors get together in a cosy relationship — one where multiple shares are sometimes sold in a single artwork and the goods are “flipped” for quick and profitable resale. In truth, that sort of thing has always gone on, one way or another. Without hard-faced but loaded patrons, we might never have had masterpieces by Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt. 

Stimulating and sumptuously illustrated, How Painting Happens is really two books in one, a double-sided canvas. The “recto”, as art world types would dub the “front” side, depicts humankind’s steady upward progress, from scratches on a cave wall to the glorious, inexhaustible possibilities of paint and beyond.

Painting matters, Gayford argues, because it “communicates directly across time, without using words”. A successful picture creates its own world, he says. Mark Rothko’s colour field paintings made people burst into tears. The artist himself was unfazed; in fact, he would have been disappointed if they didn’t. They were having a religious experience, he said. For Rothko, a painting had to have meaning: “There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.”

The other side of Gayford’s study, the “verso”, is a less flattering but sympathetic portrait of artists failing, then failing better; of the sublime and the ridiculous; of blood, sweat and turpentine.

The influential New York critic Clement Greenberg took a more prosaic view than Rothko. “Mark was a decent guy . . . but he was so pompous! . . . All that ‘sublime’ crap! . . . People who talk about meaning! I don’t give a damn about meaning,” he told Gayford. “When it comes to about-ness, if you are painting from nature, you are not making it about a tree or clouds, you are making it as good as you can.”

How Painting Happens (and why it matters) by Martin Gayford Thames & Hudson £35/$45, 384 pages

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Money Marketing’s Weekly Must-Reads: Top 10 Stories

Key highlights include the Chancellor ‘likely to target’ £48bn pension tax relief in the Budget and the PFS-CII relationship being ‘blown wide open’ after the latest developments. Read more below:



Chancellor ‘likely to set sight on’ £48bn pension tax relief in Budget

PFS and CII relationship ‘blown wide open’ after latest saga

Tensions between the Personal Finance Society (PFS) and its parent body, the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), have reignited after the CII appointed four of its executives, including CEO Matthew Hill, to the PFS board on 1 October.

This follows the controversial “Christmas coup” in December 2022, when the CII imposed directors on the PFS board due to governance issues. The move has drawn criticism from the campaign group OurPFS, which fears this could define the future of the PFS.

True Potential CEO Daniel Harrison steps down after seven years

True Potential CEO Daniel Harrison is stepping down after seven years in the role, following a planned transition since the firm’s partnership with private equity firm Cinven in 2021.

Harrison announced his departure to staff at the firm’s annual conference on 3 October. Co-founding True Potential 17 years ago, Harrison played a pivotal role in the firm’s growth to over 500,000 clients and £31.4bn in assets.

He expressed confidence in the executive team to lead the business forward post-departure.

FCA fines Starling Bank £29m for financial crime failings

The FCA has fined Starling Bank £29m for serious failings in its financial sanctions screening and anti-money laundering framework.

Despite agreeing to restrict opening new high-risk accounts in 2021, the bank opened over 54,000 such accounts between September 2021 and November 2023. An internal review revealed Starling’s automated screening system only checked a fraction of those on the sanctions list.

The FCA criticised the bank’s lax controls, but Starling has since implemented measures to improve its financial crime controls.

Abrdn Adviser hires chief technology and product officer

Abrdn Adviser has appointed Derek Smith as its new chief technology and product officer, starting in November.

Smith, previously CTO at Morningstar Wealth, will lead the integration of technology and product teams, driving innovation and scalability at Abrdn Adviser. CEO Noel Butwell highlighted Smith’s experience in delivering market-leading solutions during a time of digital transformation.

Smith joins amid a leadership expansion, following the recent hires of Verona Kenny as chief distribution officer and Louise Williams as CFO, as Abrdn Adviser focuses on growth and platform upgrades.

FCA secures first conviction for crypto ATM operation

The FCA has secured its first conviction for illegal crypto ATM operation in the UK. Olumide Osunkoya, 45, pleaded guilty to operating unauthorised crypto ATMs, using false documents and possession of criminal property.

Between December 2021 and September 2023, Osunkoya’s network of at least 11 crypto ATMs processed over £2.6m in transactions without conducting due diligence or source of funds checks. His machines, located in convenience stores, were used by those likely involved in money laundering or tax evasion.

Sentencing will take place at Southwark Crown Court.

Royal London chair Parry resigns

Kevin Carr: It’s almost as if we want to put people off…

Standard Life launches free pension-finding tool

Standard Life has launched a free pension-finding tool in partnership with Raindrop to help UK residents locate their missing pensions.

Research revealed that 19% of individuals with multiple pensions have lost track of at least one. Despite the advantages of consolidating pensions, 73% of people with multiple workplace pensions have not done so, often due to uncertainty or difficulty in the process.

Users can trace lost pensions by providing their former employer’s name and employment period, streamlining the search and aiding retirement planning.

Hang Seng ‘performed better’ during 2024 than S&P 500