Admin VA · Virtual Personal Assistant

Virtual Personal Assistant UK

A dedicated PA who runs your inbox, diary, travel and expenses so your day is yours again. Works for your business alone, on your hours, managed by us. Here is what a PA takes off your plate.

Inbox triageDiary managementTravel bookingExpenses
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✓ From £5/hour ✓ UK-managed ✓ Dedicated PA, not shared ✓ No long-term contract
What They Handle

What your virtual PA handles each week

Inbox triage

Sorts your inbox, drafts replies for your review, archives the noise and surfaces what needs your attention. Routine replies go out independently within the limits you set.

OutlookGmail

Calendar management

Books meetings, handles reschedules, blocks focus time and keeps your schedule clean across time zones, with prep notes sent ahead of each meeting.

Google CalendarOutlookCalendly

Travel booking

Books flights, hotels, transfers and accommodation, then prepares the itinerary with confirmations, addresses and contact details ready before you leave.

Document & note prep

Formats documents, prepares meeting notes, drafts standard correspondence and keeps your filing system in order.

Expense tracking

Processes receipts, categorises spending, prepares the monthly expense report and syncs it with your accounting tool.

Your accounting tool

Supplier & vendor coordination

Liaises with suppliers, schedules service visits, manages quotes and handles the routine vendor emails you should not be reading.

Slack
Which role

Virtual PA, virtual assistant or executive assistant: which do you need?

The titles overlap, so the honest way to choose is by the work. A virtual assistant is a general term for remote support of any kind; a personal assistant is the one who runs one person's working life: inbox, diary, travel, expenses and the small decisions that keep a day moving. An executive assistant sits a level up: preparing board papers, managing a leadership team's diaries, handling projects and stakeholders on your behalf.

If you are a founder, director, consultant or owner-manager and the problem is your own inbox and calendar, this is the page. If the work is running a leadership team's operations, the virtual executive assistant UK page describes that role. If you are unsure, read virtual assistant vs personal assistant, or tell us on the first call and we will say which fits.

Who It's For

Who a virtual personal assistant is built for

Founders and directors without an in-house PA

You are the bottleneck on your own diary. A dedicated PA takes the scheduling, the travel and the inbox, and brings you only the decisions.

Consultants and partners who bill by the hour

Every hour on admin is an hour not billed. A virtual PA at £5 per hour handles the expenses, the correspondence and the bookings, so your hours go where they are paid for.

Owner-managers running the business from their inbox

When suppliers, customers and staff all land in one inbox, nothing gets the attention it needs. Your PA triages, drafts, chases and files, and the inbox becomes a to-do list you can see the bottom of.

Cost Comparison

What a virtual PA costs depends on where you hire

The same work is priced very differently by market: a UK employee costs a salary plus employer costs and a desk, a UK freelancer or agency bills by the hour or the project, and an offshore marketplace leaves the managing to you. With Ant Assist the entry rate is £5 per hour for the first 6 months on the Entry tier. It covers your dedicated PA's time, our office facilities in Cairo, and the supervision and management that keep quality up.

Set that against a UK in-house personal assistant once salary, employer National Insurance, pension, holiday and a desk are counted; the comparison card on this page shows the calculator's model, and the full calculator gives your exact figures for your hours.

UK in-house hire
~£3,210/mo
~£38,516 / year
You save ~£26,420 a year
Ant Assist VA
£1,008/mo
£12,096 / year at the standard rate
UK In-House · Entry level
UK in-house personal assistant (calculator model)
£2,488 a month gross salary, full time (the calculator's admin benchmark, ONS ASHE 2025)
Monthly salary£2,488
Benefits (5% of salary)£124
Equipment and office£442
Management time (2 hrs a week)£156
~£3,210/mo
~£38,516 / year
Ant Assist VA · Entry
Dedicated Virtual Personal Assistant
160 hrs a month · £5/hour for the first 6 months (£800/mo), then £6.30/hour on the admin rate card
VA hours (160h × £6.30/hour standard rate)£1,008
Management and supervisionIncluded
Recruitment and onboardingIncluded
Office infrastructureIncluded
£1,008/mo
£12,096 / year at the standard rate
You save ~£26,420 / year at the standard rate (est.)

What the £5/hour entry rate includes

  • Dedicated VA, never shared
  • UK-hour aligned support
  • Management and supervision included
  • Recruitment and onboarding included
  • Office infrastructure included
  • VA replacement available
  • No NI, pension, or holiday costs
  • No long-term contract, rolling monthly

These are typical estimates. Get your exact numbers in the full calculator. Or read how much a virtual assistant costs in the UK.

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Process

How to hire a virtual PA

1
First call
A short call about your tasks, your tools and the hours you need covered.
2
Matching
We pick a VA from our in-house team for your work and introduce them to you.
3
Onboarding
Together we write down your rules and set up your access before day one.
4
Active support
Your VA starts on your hours from our managed office, supervised from the UK.
5
Ongoing management
A UK team reviews the work each week; hours scale up or down as you need.
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Why Managed

Why a managed PA beats a freelance PA

Managed, not just placed.
Your PA is recruited, trained and supervised from our own in-house office. Not a freelancer platform, not a profile you have to vet yourself.
Replaceable without restart cost.
If the fit is wrong, we replace the PA and carry the handover. No re-recruitment, no starting from zero.
No NI, pension, or holiday overhead.
One hourly rate; the employment costs sit with us.
Language and cultural alignment with UK clients.
Trained on your tone, your priorities and your calendar rules before they touch your inbox.
Your data stays yours.
Every PA signs an NDA and a data-processing agreement, works through password managers, and you can revoke access at any time.
Rolling monthly.
Scale hours up or down, pause, or cancel with 30 days' notice.
Rated 5.0 on Google.Trusted by our clients
FAQ

Common questions about hiring a virtual personal assistant

The running of your working life: inbox triage and replies, the calendar, travel booking, document and note preparation, expense tracking, and the supplier and vendor chasing that fills the gaps between meetings. One dedicated PA, on your hours, working inside your accounts.

A virtual assistant is the general term for remote support of any kind. A personal assistant is the specific role that runs one person's day. If what you need is your own inbox, diary, travel and expenses handled by one person who knows you, you need a PA, and a virtual one does the same job without the desk.

Yes, within what you ask for. Most founders and consultants hand over the whole calendar, because a dentist's appointment and a client call compete for the same hour. The rules you set at onboarding cover what is booked directly, what is checked with you first and which cards and accounts are used.

On UK business hours by default, which is when your suppliers, clients and airlines answer. Messages you send outside those hours are actioned first thing; extended cover can be arranged at additional cost when your work genuinely runs on another clock.

Access and rules. Day one is delegated access to the inbox and calendar, the tone guide from your own sent mail and the one-page rule set. In the first days every reply and booking is checked with you; by the end of the week the routine ones run without you and the PA has a list of what to take on next.

£5 per hour for the first 6 months on the Entry tier. After the promotion the admin rate card applies: £6.30 per hour full time, £1,008 a month for 160 hours, or £6.50 per hour part time, £520 a month for 80 hours. Rolling monthly, no employer costs, and the PA is yours alone, never shared.

Didn't find your answer? Browse more common questions in the Help Center.

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One dedicated PA, from £5 per hour. Book a free 15-minute call.

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