What a Virtual Assistant Really Costs in the UK

The short answer

A UK virtual assistant typically charges by the hour or on a monthly retainer. Our published rate is £35 an hour ad-hoc with a two-hour minimum, and retainers start at £280 a month for eight hours. There is no recruitment fee, no employer National Insurance, no pension contribution, no holiday or sick pay, and no notice period.

Why the hourly rate is not the number that matters

Comparing £35 an hour with a £14 an hour part-time administrator is the most common mistake UK owners make. The employee figure is not the cost of the employee. On top of gross pay you carry employer National Insurance, pension auto-enrolment, holiday accrual, sick cover, equipment, software licences, and the management time to keep someone busy for every paid hour.

A virtual assistant is billed only for worked time. If the task takes ninety minutes, you pay for ninety minutes. There is no paid idle capacity, which is where most part-time admin budgets quietly leak.

• Full side-by-side comparison: VA vs employee

What you actually pay

• Ad-hoc hours — £35 an hour, two-hour minimum. Best for project work, holiday cover and busy spells.
• Monthly retainer — from £280 for eight hours, scaling down in effective rate as hours rise. Best when the workload is steady and predictable.
• Fixed packages — a set scope for a set fee, so the invoice is the same every month.
• Out-of-hours — evenings and weekends by prior arrangement at a premium rate, agreed in writing before any work starts.

See the current rates and packages for the full list, or use the retainer quote builder to price your own hours.

Working out your break-even

Take the hours of admin you personally do each week, multiply by your own billable or earning rate, and compare with the same hours at £35. For anyone charging more than £35 an hour for their own time, delegation pays for itself before you count the recovered evenings.

The admin time ROI calculator does this arithmetic and shows the monthly figure.

What changes the price

• Volume — more committed hours a month lowers the effective hourly rate.
• Complexity — routine inbox and diary work sits at the base rate; specialist finance admin or document production can sit above it.
• Timing — anything outside Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm UK, carries a premium and is agreed in advance.
• Notice — same-day urgent work depends on availability rather than a surcharge.

Budgeting realistically for the first three months

Most owners over-buy in month one. A better pattern is to start with four to eight hours covering a single task, measure what actually comes off your desk, and only then commit to a retainer. That avoids paying for hours you have not yet learned how to use.

By month three the pattern is usually stable enough to move onto a fixed monthly package, which is both cheaper per hour and easier to forecast.

• What to delegate first
• How to hire a virtual assistant in the UK

Watch for these cost traps

• Rounding rules — ask whether time is billed to the minute, or rounded up per task.
• Rollover — check whether unused retainer hours carry into the next month.
• Overage — agree in writing what happens when the workload exceeds the retainer.
• Software — confirm who pays for tools, and who owns the account when the engagement ends.

Every one of these should be settled before the first task, not after the first invoice.