An outsourced executive assistant is senior EA support bought from a specialist provider rather than hired as an employee. You pay for the capacity you need, typically two to five days a week, and the provider handles vetting, cover and training.
Hiring an executive assistant as an employee is a big commitment: a London salary of £45,000 to £70,000, employer costs on top, and a three month notice period if it does not work. For many founders and leadership teams the workload does not justify that yet, even though the need for help is very real.
Outsourcing exists to close that gap. Instead of employing someone, you buy senior assistant capacity from a provider whose job is finding, vetting and supporting exactly that kind of person.
The label covers three quite different models, and confusing them is the most common mistake buyers make.
Rates vary with seniority and how much the provider does around the person. Task-based support starts around £20 to £30 per hour. A dedicated senior fractional EA is usually packaged as a monthly retainer for a set number of days, priced against the scope of the role rather than the clock.
The useful comparison is not the hourly rate but the monthly cost against the alternative. A full time hire at £55,000 costs roughly £5,800 a month once you add employer National Insurance, pension, equipment and management time. A fractional EA at two days a week costs a fraction of that, and there is no recruitment fee, no notice period and no gap when they are on holiday.
The provider matters as much as the person, because the provider is your insurance policy. Four questions do most of the work.
Outsourcing wins when you need between one and four days of support a week, when speed matters, or when you are not yet sure what the role should look like. It also wins when the work spans both traditional EA duties and newer automation work, because providers train for that combination while the open market rarely supplies it. Our guide to [what fractional EA services include](/blog/fractional-ea-services) shows how a typical engagement runs.
Hiring in-house starts to make sense once the workload reliably exceeds four days a week and the role is stable enough to write a confident job description for. Many companies do both in sequence: outsource first, learn what the role really is, then hire into certainty if the demand holds.
The three models overlap in price but not in what you are actually buying. The table below is the comparison most buyers wish they had seen before signing anything.
Every provider interviews well. The differences appear in operational detail, and a few direct questions expose them before you are committed.
The engagements that fail rarely fail on capability. They fail on a vague first month. Write down the three outcomes you want by day thirty, usually a settled diary, a triaged inbox and one process mapped, and review against them weekly. A provider who resists that level of clarity is telling you something useful.
How much does an outsourced executive assistant cost in the UK? Task-based virtual assistant support starts around £20 to £30 per hour. A dedicated senior fractional executive assistant is usually packaged as a monthly retainer for a set number of days per week, scoped to the role.
Is an outsourced executive assistant the same as a virtual assistant? Not exactly. Virtual assistant usually describes task-based support from a pool of generalists. An outsourced or fractional executive assistant is a named senior person who owns areas of your week, such as the diary, inbox and back office processes.
How quickly can an outsourced EA start? A good provider can shortlist within days and have someone started within one to two weeks, compared with two to three months for a typical permanent hire including notice periods.
What if it does not work out? Providers typically offer a replacement guarantee and short notice periods of two to four weeks, rather than the statutory and contractual commitments that come with an employee.
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