Why become a Virtual Assistant
Working as a remote freelancer can have a lot of benefits, depending on your personal preferences and situation. You may want to be your own boss, or build something from the ground up, based on skills and experience from previous jobs. Or it may be the attraction of choosing when and where to work, and choosing your own work/life balance.
For many virtual assistants, one attraction is the chance to work on a wide variety of challenges and problem solving for diverse businesses and entrepreneurs. If you tend to get bored of doing the same thing every day, then the opportunity to work across admin, project management, social media and scheduling in a typical week might be a big advantage over specialising in a single area.
If you have particular experience in office administration and support, then it’s a logical route into freelancing. And you’re likely to have an easier route to better clients and higher paid projects as a result. But the lack of entry requirements and diversity also means it’s an accessible freelance career for anyone just starting out.
How much does a Virtual Assistant usually earn?
With any freelance career, the potential pay can vary wildly. From doing free projects for the promise of exposure or cut-price deals for friends when you’re starting out, to hopefully securing well-paying long-term contracts based on your growing skills and reputation.
It’s important to estimate what you need to earn to cover your cost of living, and then add around 25% to cover the cost of business taxes and overheads. And to compensate for the lack of employee benefits such as illness and holiday pay, pension contributions, etc.
You’re able to decide whether to charge an hourly rate or on a project basis. Billing based on your working hours is potentially easier when you’re planning your rates, but it means tracking your time accurately and providing detailed invoices. It also means potentially less flexibility in your working hours, and realising that time spent researching and learning new skills or solutions probably won’t be paid.
As a rough guide, a virtual assistant working in the UK would typically charge around £25 per hour, and Glassdoor estimate the average annual salary around £24,609.
Don’t forget that you may set your hourly rate at £25 or £30, but you won’t necessarily be working full time for clients every day. You’ll need to set aside some hours to administrate your own business and finances, and to promote your company and find new clients.
It’s always tempting to drop your prices to bring in work, especially with competition from virtual assistants based overseas, who have much lower costs of living to cover. But it’s easier to lower prices than raise them when you’re taking on a new client. So be careful of underselling yourself and what you can offer.
