Current Tax associate account Manager:
Corporates UK will underpay you, overwork you, and then get rid of you with no valid reason when the numbers don't add up.
The targets are extreme and disconnected from reality, especially when you're selling products that are failing and don't do what customers were promised. Instead of fixing the product, leadership keeps hiring more reps, so territories get thinner and the pressure keeps rising. Meanwhile there's plenty of dead weight: people who do very little and stay protected while strong performers get pushed out.
There's no real career progression. You can hit your numbers year after year and still be told to wait, while the few opportunities that do come up go to favourites. Loyalty means nothing, and results count for less than who you're friendly with.
Leadership is robotic, with no human element at all. Everything is a number on a dashboard, and you're treated as a headcount rather than a person. Nobody asks how you're doing unless your pipeline is down, and even then it isn't about you. Management cares mainly about protecting itself.
The culture at the top is the worst part. I personally witnessed senior leaders taking dr-gs with reps on nights out into the early hours, and it was treated as normal rather than as a serious problem. When the people deciding your career behave like that, it's no surprise that fairness and professionalism mean so little in the day job.
Advice to management
Set targets that reflect the product you're actually selling, and stop hiring your way out of a product problem. Build clear, fair progression paths and reward results rather than relationships. Treat your people like people, not numbers. Hold senior leaders to at least the same standards you hold your reps to.