Medical Sales in October 2026

In October 2026, the US medical sales employers this board reads posted 6,836 new roles and closed 5,603, a net change of +1,233 (new roles less closed). 737 of the new roles matched a role at the same employer, title and city that had closed earlier. The employer posting most was Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), with 413 new roles; Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) followed. California, Texas and Florida saw the most new roles.

2,734 of the closed roles were confirmed closed by the employer's own hiring system.

Who was hiring

513 employers opened at least one role in the month.

New and closed roles by employer (most new roles first)
Employer	New roles	Closed	Net change	Reopened	Ownership
Amgen	413	123	+290	17	Nasdaq: AMGN
Medtronic	399	388	+11	161	NYSE: MDT
Johnson & Johnson	364	356	+8	110	NYSE: JNJ
Syneos Health	354	361	−7	38	Private-equity owned: Elliott Investment Management, Patient Square Capital and Veritas Capital
Stryker	262	217	+45	44	NYSE: SYK
Pfizer	167	148	+19	37	NYSE: PFE
Abbott	144	165	−21	3	NYSE: ABT
argenx	113	12	+101	0	Euronext Brussels: ARGX
AbbVie	101	50	+51	16	NYSE: ABBV
Compass Pathways	99	41	+58	0	Nasdaq: CMPS

Where the new roles were

California, Texas and Florida saw the most new roles.

New and closed roles by state
State	New roles	Closed	Net change
California	733	568	+165
Texas	544	468	+76
Florida	411	361	+50
New York	392	319	+73
Pennsylvania	294	240	+54
Illinois	260	231	+29
Ohio	259	192	+67
Georgia	201	160	+41
Tennessee	197	177	+20
North Carolina	182	132	+50

What the roles paid

Across the 6,464 postings listed on November 4, 2026 that published an annual base range, the median advertised pay was $130,000, with the middle half between $93,000 and $168,742. Of the industries shown, biotech roles had the highest median ($166,250) and home medical equipment & care the lowest ($70,000).

Advertised pay by industry
Industry	Median	25th percentile	75th percentile	Postings with a range	Note
Biotech	$166,250	$130,541	$187,500	1,078	Amgen is 34% of these postings, so this median heavily reflects its pay
Pharmaceutical	$151,750	$126,775	$180,168	2,407
Health IT & software	$135,000	$104,550	$170,000	144
Diagnostics	$130,000	$108,174	$170,000	387
Medical device	$95,000	$76,550	$119,050	2,065
Distribution	$90,000	$75,000	$145,000	99
Care services	$77,500	$72,500	$82,500	172	Charlie Health is 74% of these postings, so this median heavily reflects its pay
Home medical equipment & care	$70,000	$52,000	$100,000	112	Rotech Healthcare is 34% of these postings, so this median heavily reflects its pay

Median and quartiles, never the mean. One $400,000 director role drags an average upward and describes nobody. One job posting. A posting advertising a range contributes the midpoint of that range, so "$90,000–$140,000" counts once, as $115,000. These figures describe advertised annual base pay. Hourly rates and ranges identified as on-target earnings (base plus commission at plan) are excluded, and so are seasonal roles, which pay for a few months rather than a year, and part-time roles, which pay for fewer hours than the full-time roles beside them.

Who said what the job pays

On November 4, 2026, 75% of the postings listed stated what the job pays (7,089 of 9,401).

Pay published, at the five employers with the most live postings
Employer	Postings	Stating pay	Share
Syneos Health	473	254	54%
Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN)	406	379	93%
Stryker (NYSE: SYK)	404	257	64%
Abbott (NYSE: ABT)	308	308	100%
AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV)	158	157	99%

Degrees, and backgrounds from outside medical sales

Of the postings listed on November 4, 2026 with a description, 91% mention a degree; of those, 48% require one outright, 29% accept experience or another credential in its place and 14% prefer one.

On November 4, 2026, 52% of the postings listed named a background outside medical sales they will take: outside or B2B sales 40%, clinical or allied health 20%, scientific or technical 6%, military or veteran 4%, athletics 3% (a posting can name more than one).

Method

The definitions and caveats below are the datasets’ own, with the downloads’ column names written out in words.

New roles: Postings the employer dated inside the month (where a posting carries no date, the day this board first saw it, excluding the first 7 days after an employer was added to the board).

Closed roles: Postings that closed inside the month because the employer stopped listing them or its hiring system confirmed them closed; the board's own removals (listings too old, not real openings, employers dropped, postings missing from an employer's careers site that was read only in part) are never counted.

Confirmed closed: The part of closed roles the employer's hiring system confirmed.

Net change: New roles minus closed roles.

Reopened: New roles whose employer, title and city match a role that closed earlier, under a different posting or under the same posting link listed again by the employer (with a date of its own later than the last day the earlier posting was listed, or more than 14 days after it was recorded as closed); a posting that left the employer's list and is back under the same link within 14 days with no later date of its own counts as one role that never closed, as does a posting this board removed itself and listed again, and so does a posting still listed under another link with the same requisition number; one requisition that closed under two links at the same time counts as one closed role.

Open at month start and end: Roles listed on the board on the first and last nightly snapshot inside the month, which also move when employers are added or listings are removed as not real openings.

Other change: Open at month end minus open at month start minus net change, the part of the change in roles on the board that new and closed roles do not explain (employers added to or dropped from the board, listings the board removed as not real openings, postings the employer dated before the month but the board first listed in it, postings dated inside the month that were already listed on the first night, roles the employer had stopped listing that were still within the board's three-day grace on the first or last night, and, in the rows by industry, call point and product line, postings the board moved from one to another), so open at month start plus net change plus other change equals open at month end on every row.

Empty counts: An empty count at month start or end means the row had no roles on the board that night, and counts as zero.

Counts taken before a scope change: A night counted before the board's scope last changed is read with the roles the board no longer lists left out (marked "corrected"); where the board's record of closed listings cannot do that, the whole column is empty, other change is too, and the basis is "not comparable".

Counted once: Each posting counts once, under its primary industry, call point, product line and state; a product line or call point the board has renamed or merged is counted under its current name throughout, and so is an employer that has changed its name.

A posting counts as publishing pay when it states a pay figure or range (a single figure counts), at any period, whether that is a base salary, on-target earnings or a draw. Hourly rates and on-target figures both count: the question is whether the employer said what the job pays, not whether the figure can be averaged. Wording such as 'competitive', with no figures, does not count. Note this is a wider definition than the salary guide uses — that one needs an annual base figure, because an hourly rate cannot join a median without assuming an hours-per-year nobody published, and on-target earnings fold in commission at plan. Each posting that names a state is counted once, in the state it is based in. A role covering several states appears only under its primary one, so these counts are smaller than a search of the same state on the board, which also returns multi-state roles based elsewhere. The population is the sales postings whose text this board has read: a posting stored without its description is left out (counted as unread) rather than counted as an employer who said nothing. The board does not list non-promotional field roles such as Field Reimbursement Manager, and any it holds are excluded.

Counted from the text of every live sales posting that has a description; the board does not list non-promotional field roles such as Field Reimbursement Manager, and any it holds are left out. The word is read as a qualification rather than an amount, so 'a high degree of accuracy' is not counted. A degree is read as required only where the requirement sits beside a degree word or under a required qualification heading, and where a posting says both required and preferred it is counted as required, at the lowest level it actually requires — so "Bachelor's required, Master's preferred" is a bachelor's job that requires one. A degree the posting only prefers stays preferred even where experience may stand in for it. Explicit high-school-plus-experience alternatives are counted separately and retain their experience conditions. A degree in "science" or a scientific discipline counts as life sciences. Unresolved substitutions and explicitly optional degrees are separate categories. The level table describes the lowest named college level, not a universal required floor. No degree wording means unknown, not no degree needed.

US medical sales postings live on the board that carry a job description. The board does not list non-promotional field roles such as Field Reimbursement Manager, and any it holds are left out. A posting with no description cannot name a background, so it is left out of the count altogether rather than counted as naming none.

Closure records begin 21 Aug 2026 and nightly snapshots 29 Aug 2026; September 2026 is the first complete month.
How long roles stay open is not included yet: with weeks of history it would understate every figure.
Covers the employers this board reads directly. An employer added to the board mid-month contributes the postings it dated inside the month, those dated before it was added only if they were still listed that day; its undated postings only from 7 days after it was added; and its closures only from the day it was added, since the board cannot see the ones before.
A closure is recorded when the employer stops listing a role for three days, so a role closing on the last days of a month can fall in the next.
Product lines and call points the board has renamed or merged are counted under the name it uses now in every figure, the roles on the board included: orthopedics, stored under its British spelling until 5 Sep 2026 and still spelled that way in older closure records, is one line throughout, and the smaller lines merged into broader ones are counted in the broader line. A posting whose stored industry, call point or product line the board corrected during the month moves between rows without opening or closing; other change carries that move. A correction made after the month ended does not: a role that closed keeps the label it had on the day it closed, while a role still listed is counted under the label it carries when these figures are read, so such a correction moves the month's new roles that are still listed into their new row while its closed roles stay in the old one, and net change moves with them.
In October 2026 the board redefined its industries and relabeled about 1,350 postings already listed, in place, without opening or closing any of them (measured on the board of 16 Oct 2026). A medicine's FDA license now decides between Pharmaceutical and Biotech, so most of the drug makers' roles that moved went from Pharmaceutical to Biotech; tissue products moved from Biotech to Medical device and gene sequencing to Diagnostics; Health tech split into Health IT & software and Care services, and Distribution & home care into Distribution and Home medical equipment & care. Roles that closed are counted under the new definitions throughout. For this month those industry rows change on the board by far more than their new and closed roles; other change carries that move.
Open at month start, the count of October 1, 2026, was counted before the board's scope last changed, and corrected: roles the board no longer lists that were on the board that night are left out, using the board's record of closed listings, so it compares with the nights counted since.
Open at month start, the count of October 1, 2026, was counted under the industry definitions before 17 Oct 2026 and translated: Health IT & software and Care services from the old Health tech, and Distribution and Home medical equipment & care from the old Distribution & home care, each by its employers' counts that night; Pharmaceutical and Biotech are not comparable before that day, because a medicine the posting named decided some roles and a nightly count cannot see it, and no figure is given for them; Medical device and Diagnostics are as counted, without the old Biotech's tissue and sequencing roles (43 on 16 Oct 2026).
Open at month end, the count of October 31, 2026, was counted before the board's scope last changed, and corrected: roles the board no longer lists that were on the board that night are left out, using the board's record of closed listings, so it compares with the nights counted since.
For employers whose careers site runs on Greenhouse, a posting's date is the day the employer last updated it, so a posting first published before the month and edited inside it counts as a new role in the month.

Actual earnings depend on the offer, commission plan and performance. A posted range is not a guarantee of an offer or take-home pay.
Sample size does not catch employer concentration. One company advertising the same band across forty territories contributes forty postings, so a segment can be large and still describe one employer. Where the gap between the 25th and 75th percentiles is zero or very small, read the row as that employer's pay band rather than a market rate. The top employer columns name the largest employer in each segment and its share of the postings; where that share is above about a third, the segment mostly describes that employer's pay.
Only postings that publish a range are included, and publication is not random: pay transparency law varies by state, and larger employers comply more consistently. Segments are therefore weighted toward transparent states and larger employers.
The board shows a posting for at most 180 days (90 days until 2 Oct 2026) and this dataset describes what was open on the day it was cut. It is a stock, not a flow: a role that opened and filled between two editions never appears. (A historical record of closed listings, including their text, is kept separately to measure hiring over time; it is not part of this dataset.)
Each edition is one reading of the board on the day it was cut and reports no month-on-month change; compare two editions row by row on dimension and value.

This dataset does not track pay-transparency law. The pattern in the state rows resembles the states with disclosure requirements, and naming a statute, a date or a headcount threshold on that basis would read more authoritative and be less true.
A posting whose pay this board did not capture, including pay an employer published only in its application system's own fields, counts as not publishing, which would blame the employer for a gap that is ours. Read a low rate for one employer with that in mind.
An employer at 0% is not withholding pay from candidates; they are not stating it in the advertisement. Many disclose during the process.

This reads advertisements, not hiring practice. An employer who writes "Bachelor’s required" may hire without one.
A posting can mention a degree and name no field, and is then in none of the field rows; the Wording row "Names any field at all" gives the share that name one.
A level has no row when fewer postings than the edition’s minimum have it as the lowest level they name, so the level rows can add to less than the postings that mention a degree.
Rows for a subject outside the five families are left out of this edition. How the board reads a posting's subject changed just before the first edition of this series was cut, and the rows it now gives have not yet been checked by hand against the postings behind them.

This counts postings that name a background, not employers that hire from it. An employer that takes nurses or veterans without writing it into the advertisement is not counted, so absence is not evidence.
Each background is read from the posting's wording by rules that were measured against the board; a posting that names a background in wording the rules do not know is missed. Counts are therefore floors.
An employer advertising the same requirements across many territories contributes many postings, so a large count can be one hiring policy. Read the employer table beside the industry share.
This reads advertisements, not hiring practice. A posting that invites transitioning service members says something about how the role is advertised, not about who was hired.
Case-coverage or procedural-support experience in an operating room counts as a clinical background, so a device posting that accepts device case coverage in place of medical sales is counted under clinical, in the whole-population row, the industry, call-point and employer rows and the years rows.
An industry or call point is shown for a background when it holds at least 25 postings and at least one of them names that background. So where a group has a row for one background and none for another, no posting in it named the other: the count is zero, not too small to report, and the group's size is in the Out of column of the row it does have. Postings with no call point are in no call-point row, so the call-point rows add up to less than the whole.

89% of the new roles carry the employer's own posting date; the rest are counted from the day this board first saw them.

The hiring figures count October 2026 day by day from employers' own careers pages; the pay, pay-transparency, degree and career-changer figures are a reading of the live board on November 4, 2026, the day the five datasets were cut. Cite the month and that date with any figure.

Cite this report

Figures and this page may be quoted with credit. Suggested form:

MedSales Radar, "Medical sales in October 2026," datasets cut November 4, 2026, medsalesradar.com/medical-sales-report/2026-10.

The live reports update as the board changes: hiring activity, the salary guide and pay transparency. The month's frozen files, with every row, are the datasets, which are free to download and reuse under CC BY 4.0.

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