Hiring a virtual assistant in the UK: real rates, the rules and where AI fits

What does a virtual assistant do?

Most UK VAs handle a mix of these tasks.

• Inbox and diary: Sort email, reply to simple messages and book meetings.
• Customer admin: Answer enquiries, send quotes and follow up on leads.
• Finance admin: Raise invoices, chase late payers and prepare papers for your bookkeeper.
• Data work: Update your CRM, clean spreadsheets and enter orders.
• Research: Find suppliers, compare prices and gather details for a decision.
• Social media and content: Schedule posts and tidy up drafts.

A good VA learns how you like things done. Over time, they need fewer instructions.

How much does a virtual assistant cost in the UK?

Two UK VA firms, Time etc and Virtalent, publish the same hourly rates on their pricing pages. The more hours you buy each month, the lower the rate.

Hours a month	Hourly rate	Monthly cost
10	£31	£310
20	£30	£600
40	£29	£1,160
60	£28	£1,680
100 (Virtalent)	£27	£2,700

Time etc says its prices exclude VAT at 20%. Virtalent says VAT applies to UK clients. Ask your accountant if your business can reclaim it.

Both firms sell rolling monthly plans with no set-up fee. Both say unused hours roll over to the next month. Time etc lets you cancel at any time. Virtalent asks for 7 days' notice before your billing date. Virtalent says each plan includes a dedicated UK VA.

Freelance VAs set their own rates, so prices vary widely. Ask each one for a fixed monthly price for a set list of tasks.

For a wider look at prices, including offshore assistants, see my guide to virtual assistant costs.

Is a VA cheaper than hiring a PA?

Often it is, for part-time needs. An employee costs more than their salary.

The National Careers Service gives an average salary range for an executive assistant of £28,000 for a starter to £60,000 for someone experienced. On top of salary, an employer pays these costs.

• Employer National Insurance: 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year, for 2026 to 2027. On a £28,000 salary, that is £3,450 a year.
• Pension: At least 3% into a workplace pension under auto-enrolment.
• Holiday: At least 28 days of paid leave a year for a full-time worker.
• Desk, laptop and software: Plus the time it takes to recruit and train.

Some small employers can claim the Employment Allowance, which is £10,500 for 2026 to 2027. It reduces the employer National Insurance you pay.

Now compare that with a VA. Forty hours a month at £29 an hour comes to £13,920 a year before VAT. Forty hours a month is about a quarter of full-time hours. If you need 10 to 60 hours of help a month, a VA usually costs less. If you need someone at a desk every day, an employee may be the better choice.

If you only need a junior helper in the office, the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour from April 2026.

What rules apply when you hire a VA in the UK?

Employment status

A freelance VA should be truly self-employed. GOV.UK says a person is likely to be self-employed if most of these apply. They give quotes, work without direct supervision, send invoices, pay their own tax and National Insurance, and get no holiday or sick pay.

If you get the status wrong, the person or the business may owe unpaid tax and penalties. HMRC offers an online tool to check employment status for tax. If you hire through a VA firm, ask how the firm engages its assistants and who handles their tax.

Data protection

Your VA will see customer names, emails and perhaps payment details. Under UK GDPR, a VA who handles that data for you acts as a processor. The ICO says you need a written contract that covers what data they handle and why. The contract must also say they act only on your documented instructions, keep the data confidential and secure it properly. They need your written permission to use another subcontractor. At the end, they must delete or return the data, as you choose.

Most VA firms have a standard contract. Read it before you share any logins. Use a password manager to share access, and remove access when the work ends.

Can an AI assistant replace a virtual assistant?

For some tasks, yes. AI tools are now good at drafting emails, summarising long threads, writing first drafts and pulling notes from meetings. They work at any hour and cost far less than a person.

Here is what the main business AI tools charge, as of October 2026.

Tool	Price	Notes
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business	£13.80 a user a month paid yearly, as an offer down from £16.10. £19.32 paid monthly	Excludes VAT. An add-on for Microsoft 365 business plans
Claude Team	$20 a seat a month paid yearly, or $25 monthly	Minimum 2 seats. Priced in US dollars
ChatGPT Business	$20 a user a month paid yearly, or $25 monthly	Renamed from Team in August 2025. Minimum 2 seats. Priced in US dollars

Microsoft does not give an end date for its Copilot offer, so check the price before you commit.

What AI does well

• Drafting: Replies, proposals, job adverts and social posts.
• Summaries: Long email threads, meeting notes and documents.
• Sorting: Tagging enquiries and pulling key details from forms.

What AI still does poorly

• Judgement calls: It can't tell when a client is upset and needs a phone call.
• Phone work: A general chat tool won't ring your suppliers or chase a late payment by phone.
• Owning a task: It won't notice that a job has slipped unless someone built that check.
• Accuracy: It can state wrong facts with confidence, so a person must check its work.

My guide to ChatGPT for business covers how to set these tools up safely. If your main need is answering calls, see my page on an AI receptionist in the UK.

Should you use a VA, AI or both?

Many small firms get the best value from both. The AI does the first draft and the VA checks it, sends it and follows up. A VA who uses AI well can get through more work in each paid hour.

Here is a simple way to decide.

• Mostly writing and summaries: Start with an AI tool and review its output yourself.
• Mostly calls, chasing and judgement: Hire a VA.
• A repeated task with clear rules: Consider an AI workflow that runs on its own, with a person checking the results.

When does a custom AI assistant make sense?

Off-the-shelf AI tools work on what you paste into them. They don't know your systems unless someone connects them. A custom AI assistant is worth a look when the same admin task eats hours every week. Examples include reading supplier invoices into your accounts, or sorting enquiries into your CRM with a draft reply ready. My page on the AI employee explains what these tools can and can't take on.

When does a human VA still beat AI?

As with the US market, be wary of anyone who tells you AI replaces a VA entirely, including me. A person is still right for judgement calls, a phone call that needs a real tone, or work that changes shape every week. AI is right for the repetitive load underneath that: sorting email, drafting routine replies, moving data between your tools. In 2026, general UK virtual assistants charge roughly £18 to £35 an hour for standard admin work, with specialist skills, bookkeeping or technical tasks, priced higher. Most UK small businesses end up using both: a smaller VA role for judgement, AI for the volume work.

How Blur Studio would approach it

I would start by listing the tasks your VA or team does each week, with the time each takes. Some tasks are best left to a person. Others follow clear rules and can run as an AI workflow connected to your email, CRM or accounts. I build those workflows so a person still approves anything that matters. You own the setup and the accounts, and I can look after it once it is live.