A pattern is currently emerging among British startups and scale-ups that would have seemed unusual five years ago. Founders who clearly can afford to hire a full-time executive assistant choose not to.
Instead, they turn to VA agencies – not five-pound-an-hour offshore agencies. You pay for managed, EU-based executive support that costs less than hiring in-house and starts work in days rather than months.
After spending several years building a VA agency that works exclusively with CEOs and founders, I have watched this change accelerate dramatically since 2023. The reasons for this tell us something important about how the economics of running a British business have changed.
The internal equation is no longer correct
A competitive EA salary in the UK is now between £45,000 and £60,000 depending on the city. Things continue to go up in London. When you add in employer national insurance – which increased again in April 2026 – mandatory pension contributions, equipment and recruitment fees, the total cost easily comes to £70,000-80,000 a year. That’s before you consider the two to four months it typically takes to find and onboard the right person.
For a founder running a business worth £1m to £5m, investing £75,000 a year on a single hire without knowing whether the relationship will work is a significant gamble. And if the job doesn’t work out, you’re back to square one with nothing to show for it other than a few months of mediocre support and an unpleasant termination process.
What has changed
Three things came together to make the VA agency model truly competitive.
First, remote work was no longer an experiment. Between 2020 and 2023, every founder in the country has proven that complex, trust-dependent work can be done effectively without sharing an office. The psychological barrier to remotely supporting executives has essentially disappeared.
Secondly, the EU talent pool became more accessible through agencies, not less. After Brexit, it became more complicated to employ someone directly in the EU. But engaging an EU-based agency via a services contract remained simple – one invoice, no cross-border employment issues. For founders who wanted qualified, culturally aligned professionals without additional effort, the agency model became the path of least resistance.
Third, the quality of managed VA services has improved significantly. The early virtual assistant industry was dominated by freelance marketplaces. What has emerged since then is fundamentally different. The best VA agencies now recruit, train and manage executive assistants specifically to support founders, providing account management, quality monitoring and backup coverage. The founder delegates to his EA; The agency takes care of everything else.
What founders actually get
A managed VA agency will typically charge £2,000 to £3,000 per month for dedicated part-time executive support – around half the monthly cost of a full-time in-house appointment, excluding the staff costs.
But what I hear most from founders isn’t the money. It’s about speed and flexibility. A founder going through a funding round needs intensive support for 8 weeks and then gentler support after that. An in-house employee cannot be as flexible. A founder with three companies needs someone who can handle the complexities of multiple calendars and stakeholder groups simultaneously – and a pre-trained EA from a specialist agency comes with the frameworks to do just that.
The virtual executive assistant model, in which a remote EA acts as a strategic partner rather than a task pursuer, has matured to the point where it actually competes with in-house hiring on quality, not just cost. VA agencies serving UK founders, such as DonnaPro, have built their entire model on this flexibility and typically offer 60-day trial periods without contracts – something unheard of in traditional employment arrangements.
The objections that still exist – and those that don’t
Not every founder should use a VA agency. If your company requires more than 30 hours of weekly support and you value someone’s physical presence, an internal EA is still the right choice. The cultural integration and personal availability of a dedicated employee are real benefits that remote support cannot fully replicate.
The objection that no longer applies is the trust argument. After years of fully remote working relationships that have proven successful across all industries, concerns that a remote assistant won’t be able to handle sensitive information or communicate with investors have largely dissipated. Modern EA agencies enforce GDPR compliance, background checks, and confidentiality agreements as standard – often with greater rigor than a typical internal hiring process.
Where does this lead next?
The trend will not reverse. The cost of employment in the UK continues to rise. The pool of qualified, English-speaking professionals across the EU remains large. And founders who have experienced the flexibility of agency-based support rarely return to the traditional model.
For UK founders currently weighing up this decision, the practical advice is simple. If you spend more than 10-15 hours per week on operational tasks and your business generates enough revenue to invest £2,000-£3,000 per month in support, a VA agency like DonnaPro, which specializes in supporting UK founders, is a low-risk place to start. Most offer short trial periods, and the benefit is significant. Not just in the hours you regain, but also in the freedom that comes when you finally have someone who can competently do the work that was stressing you out.
The founders who are currently building the most resilient businesses in the UK are not the ones doing everything themselves. They’re the ones who figured out earlier than their competitors that the smartest use of their time isn’t managing their inbox.
