How Much Does a Virtual Assistant Cost per Month in the UK?

Search for what a virtual assistant costs in the UK and you will mostly find hourly rates and small monthly bundles of hours. That is a fair answer if you need a few hours of help a week. It is the wrong answer if your inbox, diary, travel, CRM and supplier admin add up to a full-time job, which is where many growing businesses find themselves. The right comparison depends on how many hours of support you really need.

This guide sets out the main ways to pay for a VA in the UK, what each one includes, and how to work out which gives you the best value. For help scoping the role itself, see our guide on how to hire a virtual assistant.

The Four Ways to Pay for a Virtual Assistant

Hourly VA Agencies and Packages

Many UK VA businesses sell support by the hour, often as monthly packages of a set number of hours, with unused hours sometimes expiring at the end of the month. You may work with one assistant or a small pool. This model is flexible and quick to start, and it suits light, varied work. As your needs grow, though, the hourly cost multiplies quickly, and an assistant shared across several clients has limited capacity to learn your business in depth.

Freelance VAs

Freelancers found directly or through marketplaces set their own rates, usually hourly or per task. You take on the vetting, contracting and management yourself, and continuity depends on the freelancer's other commitments. Our comparison of a freelancer and a dedicated remote professional explores the trade-offs.

An Employed Assistant

Employing an assistant directly, whether office-based or remote, means paying at least the National Living Wage (opens in a new tab), which is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from April 2026. Employer costs then sit on top: employer National Insurance (opens in a new tab) at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year for 2026 to 2027, and an auto-enrolment (opens in a new tab) employer pension contribution of at least 3% of qualifying earnings.

Experienced executive and personal assistants earn well above the wage floor. Official statistics have no category for virtual assistants, so the closest employed equivalent is a personal assistant. In the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2025 provisional, Table 14.7a), median gross annual pay for full-time employees in personal assistants and other secretaries (SOC 2020 code 4215) was £34,954, with the middle half of jobs between £28,565 and £43,903. The figures cover the tax year to 5 April 2025 for full-time employees who had been in the same job for more than a year. They describe UK employee pay, not Remoteli's prices. Recruitment, equipment, software and management time come on top, as our guide to the hidden costs of hiring an employee explains.

A Full-Time Dedicated Virtual Assistant

A dedicated VA works full-time on your business alone, at a fixed monthly cost, without becoming your employee. You get the continuity and depth of an in-house assistant, while recruitment, onboarding and ongoing operational support are handled for you. This is the model Remoteli provides.

Finding the right person has a price whichever route you take. For employed hires, the CIPD's Resourcing and talent planning report 2026 (opens in a new tab) puts the median cost per hire for employees below senior management at £2,000, based on a survey of UK organisations in April and May 2026, though the CIPD cautions that costs vary widely.

Costs That Hourly Quotes Leave Out

An hourly rate looks precise, but a few costs sit outside it. Handover time is the first: every time work moves to a new or shared assistant, someone has to explain how you like things done. Minimum billing increments and expiring hours are the second, because a bundle of hours you do not use is still paid for. The third is your own time spent writing instructions, checking work and chasing progress, which tends to fall as an assistant learns your business and rise when the person keeps changing.

None of this makes hourly support poor value. For occasional, varied tasks it is often the most efficient option. It does mean the cheapest rate per hour is not always the cheapest way to get the work done.

The Models Side by Side

The Utilisation Test: When Full-Time Makes Sense

The simplest way to choose is to estimate how many hours of assistant work you have each month, then compare the cost of buying those hours by the hour with the cost of a full-time professional. Hourly support almost always wins for a handful of hours. The tipping point comes as the hours climb, because the full-time fee stays the same while hourly bills keep growing.

Many founders find the second and third steps change the answer. The work that never gets done, such as following up leads, tidying the CRM or chasing invoices, is often where an assistant creates the most value. Our article on founders doing too much admin looks at that hidden cost in more detail.

What a Remoteli Virtual Assistant Costs

Remoteli provides a dedicated, full-time Virtual Assistant who works only for you, in your tools and to your routines. You pay one monthly subscription per professional. Fees exclude VAT and run on a monthly rolling basis with no setup fees. The subscription covers a professional working 180 hours a month, together with recruitment, onboarding and ongoing operational support.

Your price depends on the experience level (Junior, Mid or Senior), the working language, your working hours and the talent market recommended for that combination. If the work is more process-led back-office support than personal assistance, Administrative Support is priced as a separate role:

What is not included is worth knowing too. You still direct the work and provide access to your systems. Professionals are independent contractors who work eight hours a day, five days a week, and take 21 days' annual leave; new standard subscriptions do not include automatic cover while they are away. Extra hours are handled as time off in lieu or a pro-rated additional payment, by agreement.

Getting Value From a Full-Time VA

• Hand over whole processes, not scattered tasks, so your VA can own outcomes.
• Write down how you like things done in the first month; it pays back quickly.
• Choose the experience level for the judgement the work needs: a Junior suits well-documented routines, a Senior suits work that needs discretion and initiative.
• Review the task list after a month and move more across as trust builds.

If you are unsure whether you need a VA or an administrative assistant, see virtual assistant vs administrative assistant, and when you are ready to interview, our virtual assistant interview questions will help. The Administrative & Business Support service page lists every admin role Remoteli offers.