Virtual assistant services UK, in local hours
AssistBPO's virtual assistant services for UK businesses give you a named virtual PA who takes on diary management, inbox management, documents, data and the admin you keep putting off, working 8am to 6pm UK time. The assistant is employed by the group, has a trained backup, and handles enquiries the way you would handle them yourself.
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom hours
- GBP
- Employed, screened, managed
How does a virtual assistant work in the United Kingdom?
Most UK owners who ring us are not looking for a freelancer from a directory. They want a virtual PA who logs on at 8am, works through to 6pm, knows the difference between a diary clash and a genuine emergency, and can take minutes on a Teams call without being asked twice. That is the desk we run for the UK. Your assistant is an employee of the group, matched to you within 72 hours of a discovery call, with a backup trained on the same processes. Every task lands in one stream, is acknowledged during the shift, and shows up on the end-of-day report with a timestamp. UK GDPR sits underneath all of it: we sign a data processing agreement with the international data transfer addendum before any personal data is touched, and anything the assistant sends for marketing follows PECR consent rules. Quotes are issued in GBP. If you cannot reclaim VAT, ask any provider you compare us with whether the figure shown includes it, because most UK agencies are VAT-registered and add 20 per cent.
· Reviewed by Issabela Masters
What is different about running this desk in the United Kingdom?
The same desk, run to the rules, hours and vocabulary of this market.
UK GDPR and the transfer addendum
Your assistant works from outside the UK, so personal data crosses a border. We sign a data processing agreement that includes the ICO's international data transfer addendum, apply least-privilege access, and record what data the assistant sees, so your own Article 30 records stay accurate.
PECR for anything that markets
If the assistant sends promotional email or makes marketing calls, PECR applies: consent or the soft opt-in for email, TPS and CTPS screening for calls, and an unsubscribe on every message. Routine replies to customers and suppliers sit outside PECR and need no extra step.
UK hours and bank holidays
The UK shift runs 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, on GMT and BST, and follows the clock change in March and October. Tell us which of the eight bank holidays in England and Wales you want covered and the rota is planned around them; Scottish and Northern Irish dates can be added.
What UK virtual PAs charge
SVA member surveys put freelance UK virtual PAs at around £28 to £35 an hour, the wider market at £25 to £45, and offshore managed full-time assistants at £900 to £2,000 a month against £3,000 to £5,000 for a UK-based hire (SVA, PayScale and 2026 agency price lists).
What does your assistant handle?
- Task stream in Slack, Teams, Asana or email with same-day acknowledgment
- Document creation and formatting in Word, Docs, Sheets and PDF
- Data entry and record updates in your CRM, spreadsheets or database
- Appointment scheduling and confirmations with clients and suppliers
- Customer and vendor follow-up by email and phone
- Web research with sources and a short summary
- Invoice preparation and payment reminders through QuickBooks Online or Xero
- Form filling, applications and online submissions
- File organization in Google Drive, SharePoint or Dropbox
- Simple website, listing and social profile updates
- Recurring reports pulled from your tools every week
- End-of-day report with every task, status and open question
Deliverables and KPIs
| Deliverable | KPI we report |
|---|---|
| Tasks acknowledged during the UK shift | Acknowledged within 30 minutes, 8am to 6pm |
| Diary kept clash-free | Double bookings per month, target zero |
| Documents formatted and returned | Returned inside the agreed turnaround, rework requests per month |
| Enquiries answered and logged | Response time, records with complete fields |
| End-of-day report | Sent by 6pm every working day with the Handled list |
How it works
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Match
A 20-minute discovery call on the work you want gone: the tasks, the tools, the volume and the hours you need. Within 72 hours we propose a named assistant whose past clients look like you, plus a trained backup who has read the same brief.
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Onboard
You share access to the tools, we record your first five tasks as screen walk-throughs, and the assistant turns them into a working checklist by day three. A single task channel is set up so everyone on your team sends work to the same place.
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Daily rhythm
Start-of-day check-in with the day's queue, work through the task stream in priority order, questions batched rather than dripped, and an end-of-day report with a timestamped list of what was handled and what is waiting on you.
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Weekly review
20 minutes with the team lead to look at hours used, turnaround, tasks that need a written process and the next tasks to hand over. Each month the team lead audits a sample of completed work against your standards.
Coverage
Staffed now, GMT/BST
Shifts run from the group's two offices. Pick your zone to see each shift in your local time and what is staffed right now.
- US Eastern shiftChecking
- US Pacific shiftChecking
- UK shiftChecking
- Australian Eastern shiftChecking
- After-hours deskChecking
Bilingual and extended AEST coverage are available on request and confirmed in your staffing plan.
United Kingdom rules we follow
- United Kingdom
- UK GDPR with a data processing agreement and IDTA, PECR with TPS and CTPS screening, Ofcom persistent-misuse rules, call-recording notices.
Outbound calls, texts and emails only with lawful consent and do-not-call scrubbing. Plain-language detail on the compliance page. Certifications are listed only when held.
Tools UK clients ask us to work in
Other desks we staff in United Kingdom hours
Frequently asked questions
How much do virtual assistant services cost in the UK?
Plans depend on hours, desks and coverage. Get a staffing plan within 1 business day. For a reference point, UK-based virtual PAs charge £25 to £45 an hour, SVA member surveys cluster around £28 to £35, and published agency plans include Virtalent at about £28 an hour or £1,680 for 60 hours and SmartPA from £330 for 10 hours (SVA, PayScale and agency price lists, 2026). We quote in GBP for a named assistant for a block of hours, with the backup and team lead included rather than billed as extras.
Do you have staff in the UK?
No. Our assistants are employed by SS Support Network LLC and work from the group's offices in Vancouver, Washington and a second office in Pakistan, on a rota built around UK hours. Your virtual PA starts at 8am GMT or BST and finishes at 6pm, so replies, diary changes and calls happen while you are at your desk. Nobody is co-employed by you, and nobody is a freelancer picked from a marketplace. If a UK-based person on UK payroll is a requirement, we will say so on the first call and point you elsewhere.
Can the assistant take minutes and manage my diary?
Yes, both are core to the UK desk. For diary management the assistant holds your rules: buffer times, which meetings can move, who gets a slot the same week and who waits, and travel time between London postcodes. For minute taking the assistant joins the Teams or Zoom call, notes attendees, apologies, decisions and actions with owners, and circulates a draft within the hour. Templates follow your house style, and the team lead spot-checks a sample every month.
How is UK GDPR handled when the assistant is overseas?
We treat it as a standard cross-border processing arrangement. Before go-live you get a data processing agreement with the international data transfer addendum, a list of the systems the assistant will access, and named contacts for any incident. Access is least-privilege with MFA on every login, work happens inside your accounts rather than on local files, and subject access requests that reach the assistant are flagged to you the same day so the one-month clock is respected.
Will the assistant use UK spelling, dates and formats?
Yes. Assistants on the UK desk are trained on British English, day-month-year dates, pounds and pence, postcodes, sort codes and the way UK firms address a letter or an email. Documents are produced in your templates, so a proposal from your assistant reads like one you wrote. Spelling and formatting are part of the monthly QA scorecard, and you can add your own style notes to the brief at any point.
What happens when my assistant is on leave?
A trained backup, briefed on your processes from day one, steps in for holidays and sickness, and the team lead tells you in advance where the dates are known. Your task stream, SOP notes and templates live in shared workspaces, not on one person's laptop, so the handover is a matter of reading the current list. If the substitute needs a decision from you, it appears on that evening's end-of-day report rather than sitting in a queue.
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Next step
Your desk, staffed. Wherever you are.
Tell us what is overloaded. A named person replies within 1 business day with a staffing plan, and we propose your assistant within 72 hours.
Or call +1-657-777-0006 during US, UK or Australian business hours, or hear our demo receptionist.
- A named assistant proposed within 72 hours
- Employed, screened and managed staff, never freelancers
- Your hours, your tools, your data