How much does a virtual assistant cost in the UK? A straight answer.

When I was thinking about starting this business, I spent ages looking at other virtual assistants' websites trying to work out what people actually charged, and so many of them were not explicit about pricing. I understand why they do it, because every business is different and nobody wants to be judged on a number sitting on its own without any context around it, but it did make me feel like I was being kept out of a conversation I was trying very hard to join.

So I'm going to do the opposite here. Below is what virtual assistants cost in the UK in 2026, what I charge, and what actually sits behind the difference between one rate and another, because you should be able to work out whether this is affordable for you before you ever have to speak to anyone about it.

What the UK market actually looks like

The best number to start from comes from the Society of Virtual Assistants, who have run an annual survey of the UK VA industry for fifteen years now and get responses from over 10% of it, which makes it the closest thing this industry has to proper data rather than guesswork. Their figure for the average UK VA hourly rate is £32.35, with specialists commanding £50 an hour and above.

It's worth knowing that this has been climbing. The same survey put the average at £27.17 in 2021, so rates have risen by close to 20% in three years, which is roughly what you'd expect given everything else that has happened to costs in that time.

Around that average, the spread looks like this:

• Freelance UK VAs: roughly £25 to £35 an hour, depending on experience

• VA agencies: roughly £30 to £40 an hour

• Specialist VAs (bookkeeping, technical, regulated sectors, or anything carrying real operational responsibility): £50 an hour and upwards

• Offshore VAs: roughly £5 to £15 an hour depending on where and how you hire

• For comparison, employing someone: a £28,000 salary actually costs you around £32,100 a year once employer National Insurance at 15% and pension contributions are added, which is roughly 15% on top before you've thought about holiday cover, equipment or recruitment time

Most of the variation in that list is about who you're buying from and how much responsibility they're carrying, rather than about how fast anybody types.

What I charge

• Monthly retainer: £30 an hour

• Ad-hoc work: £40 an hour

Business Suppport:

• The Essential: £250 a month. Inbox and diary management, document creation, file organisation, basic customer support and a monthly check-in

• The Business Partner: £450 a month. Everything in The Essential, plus client onboarding, CRM updates, process documentation, research tasks and a weekly check-in

Marketing support:

• Content Essentials: £300 a month. Monthly content calendar, 8 to 10 posts, Canva graphics, captions, scheduling and basic analytics

• Content Growth: £540 a month. Everything in Content Essentials, plus community engagement, a monthly newsletter and content repurposing

Add-ons like blog writing, SquareSpace updates, lead magnet design and reel creation are quoted separately or can be added to a package.

Retainer, ad-hoc or a package?

This is the bit that confuses people most, so here it is in plain English.

Ad-hoc at £40 an hour is for one-off jobs, the sort of thing where you've got a specific piece of work with an end to it and you don't need ongoing support afterwards. You pay for what you use and there's no commitment at all, which is exactly why it costs more, because I'm holding time in my diary for something that might never come back.

A retainer at £30 an hour is an agreed number of hours every month. That's a 25% saving on the ad-hoc rate, and you're paying for it with a bit of predictability rather than with money, because when I know your hours are booked I can plan around them and you never have to check whether I'm free.

A package is a fixed monthly price for a defined set of work, and it suits you if what you need is fairly consistent month to month and you'd rather not think about hours at all. Plenty of people find this the easiest one to budget for, because it's the same number every month and nobody is counting minutes.

If you're not sure which fits, ad-hoc is a perfectly sensible way to start and there is no rule that says you have to commit to anything on day one.

"But I could get someone for £8 an hour"

You could, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise or be sniffy about it, because offshore VAs are skilled people doing good work and for certain tasks the maths is genuinely hard to argue with. If you have a large volume of clearly defined, repetitive work that comes with a written process attached, that model can work very well.

Where it tends to come unstuck is anything that needs context, and by context I mean knowing that this particular client always books in a panic on a Friday, or that this email needs a gentler tone because of what happened in the last meeting, or that the thing you've asked for isn't quite the thing you need.

The other thing worth counting is rework. Cheap hours stop being cheap the moment you're checking, correcting or redoing the output, and I'd rather you went in with your eyes open about that than found out three months later.

"I don't know how many hours I'd need"

This is the question that stops most people from ever enquiring, so let me take a guess at it for you. At £30 an hour, here's roughly what each level buys.

Around 5 hours a month, £150. Enough for one contained job that keeps recurring, like a weekly inbox tidy, scheduling a month of social posts, or keeping a document library in order. Small, but it removes a task you've been carrying for a year.

Around 10 hours a month, £300. This is where it starts to feel different, because there's room for a couple of ongoing responsibilities rather than one, so inbox and diary together, or content plus the admin that surrounds it.

Around 20 hours a month, £600. Roughly a day a week. At this level I know your business properly, I can pick things up without being asked, and you stop being the only person who knows how anything works.

You don't have to get this right the first time. Most people start lower than they need and adjust after a month or two, which is much easier than committing to twenty hours before either of us knows what the work involves.

So, is it affordable?

If you're running your business late into the night, doing the admin after the actual work is finished because there was never room for it in the day, then the honest question isn't whether you can afford support. It's what the current arrangement is already costing you, in evenings, in headspace, and in the work you never get around to because the small stuff keeps winning.

You are the expert in your business. You should be spending your hours on the things only you can do.

If you'd like to talk it through, I offer a free 15-minute discovery call and there's genuinely no pressure attached to it.

PS if you read all of that and thought "I still don't know where I'd start", that's normal, and it's exactly what the 15 minutes is for.

Why I use AI tools as your VA — and why that makes me better, not replaceable.

Did you know searches for "AI assistant" are now outpacing searches for "virtual assistant”? And I get why. The AI tools out there really are impressive, they can draft an email, brainstorm content ideas or summarise a document in seconds.

So, if you've found yourself wondering whether you even need a VA anymore or whether ChatGPT can just take care of it all, evidently you're not alone. It's a fair question and one I get asked more and more as my business grows.

Here's the honest answer from someone who uses AI to complete most tasks.

What AI is genuinely brilliant at

There's no denying it - AI is fast. Need fifty content ideas before your coffee's even ready? Done. Want a first draft of an email or a quick summary of a long document? AI will have it for you in seconds. If you need a quick burst of output and you're happy to check it over yourself, AI can be a great little sidekick.

Where it quietly falls short

AI doesn't know your business in a human way. It doesn't know that your client Dave prefers a phone call over an email, or that your audience responds better to a behind-the-scenes photo than a polished graphic. It doesn't know that the "urgent" message from your biggest client needs sorting today, not whenever it gets round to it.

AI can't read a room. It can't manage relationships, make judgement calls, or spot a problem brewing before it happens. And when it does get something wrong (which happens more often than people think) there's no one there to catch it. Unless that someone is you. Which rather defeats the point of trying to free up your time in the first place.

"The goal isn't to do more yourself with AI's help. It's to trust that the details are handled by someone who knows your business as well as you do."

The bit that might surprise you: a good VA already uses AI

Here's where it gets interesting. I'm not "AI vs human" - I'm both. Every day, I use AI tools to work faster: drafting social posts, organising inboxes, doing research, building schedules. Then I review everything, tweak it so it actually sounds like you, fix anything that's drifted off-brand, and get it out the door.

You get the speed of AI, with the judgement, consistency and personal touch of someone who knows your business inside out. Best of both worlds — without you having to learn a new tool or proofread a single AI-generated post yourself.

So, which one do you actually need?

✓ Got a quick one-off task and happy to check it over yourself? AI alone might just do the trick.

✓ Want your inbox under control, your socials consistent and your admin handled without babysitting a tool on top of everything else? That's where I come in.

What changes when you have the right support

My clients often tell me the biggest shift isn't just the time they get back, it's the headspace. When you're not carrying every task (or every AI tool) in your head, you think more clearly. You make better decisions. You show up for your clients and your business with more energy.

Whether you need a bit of ad hoc support to get through a busy patch, or ongoing help to keep things running smoothly every month, having someone reliable in your corner (someone using all the right tools, so you don't have to) makes a real difference.

If you're tired of juggling tabs, tools and a to-do list that never shrinks, let's have a chat. I'd love to take some of that off your plate.

How to scale your small business — without doing it all yourself.

Can I let you in on something? When I was working as a teacher, I was doing everything. I was spinning so many plates that I stopped being the person I wanted to be — for my students, and for my family. Burnout is real, and it sneaks up on you quietly.

When I started Kathryn Claire VA, it was because I knew exactly how that exhaustion feels. And I see it all the time in the small business owners I work with — people who started their business with real passion and purpose, and now spend most of their week buried in emails, social media scheduling and admin tasks they never signed up for.

Here's the good news: it doesn't have to stay that way.

Why doing everything yourself is holding you back

There's a certain point in every small business owner's journey where the hustle that got you here starts to work against you. Your to-do list grows faster than you can tick things off. The strategic, exciting work — the stuff you actually love — gets pushed aside by the urgent and the routine.

This is where growth stalls. Not because your business idea isn't good enough, but because you've become the bottleneck.

"You started your business to pursue your passion. The goal is to get back to that — and to trust that the details are handled."

Scaling your business doesn't mean working more hours. It means building in the right support so your business can grow without everything depending entirely on you.

What you could hand over (starting this week)

One of the most common things I hear from business owners before we start working together is: "I'm not sure I have enough to hand over." But once we audit their week together, it's almost always the opposite — there's a huge amount of time being spent on tasks that don't need their expertise at all.

Here are just some of the things a VA can take off your plate:

✓ Inbox management — sorting, flagging, and responding so you're not living in your emails all day

✓ Scheduling and calendar management — bookings, reminders, and follow-ups handled for you

✓ Social media support — consistent posting and engagement without you having to post at all hours

✓ Content creation — blog posts, newsletters and marketing copy that sounds like you

✓ Data entry and admin — the behind-the-scenes work that keeps everything running smoothly

✓ Customer communications — responding to DMs, enquiries and keeping your clients feeling looked after

Even handing over just a few of these can give you back hours every single week. Hours you can spend on the work that actually moves your business forward — or, honestly, just enjoying your evenings again.

How to start delegating with confidence

If the idea of handing things over feels daunting, you're not alone. Most business owners feel this way at first. Here's a simple way to get started:

1. Track your time for a week. Write down everything you do, and roughly how long it takes. You'll quickly see where your time is really going. Clockify or Toggl are really good software tools for this.

2. Identify what only you can do. Sales conversations, creative decisions, client relationships — protect this time fiercely. Everything else is a potential delegation.

3. Start small. You don't need to hand over everything at once. Pick one or two recurring tasks, get comfortable, and build from there.

4. Find the right person. A good VA won't just do the tasks — they'll genuinely care about your business and adapt to the way you work.

What changes when you have the right support

My clients often tell me that the biggest shift isn't just the time they get back — it's the headspace. When you're not carrying every task in your head, you start thinking more clearly. You make better decisions. You show up for your clients with more energy.

Whether you need a few hours of ad hoc support to cover a busy patch, or ongoing help to keep your business running smoothly every month, having someone reliable in your corner makes a real difference.

Ready to get your time back?

Book a free, no-obligation 15-minute discovery call and let's chat about what support would make the biggest difference for you and your business.