Hiring a VA in 2025? Here’s What Business Owners Need to Know About The Industry in 2025

Today I’m going to walk you through the three biggest trends I’m expecting to see through the next year in the Virtual Assistant Industry.

These are the trends that you as a business owner hiring a VA needs to know about in 2025. The third one is especially important.

I’ve been the owner of The Lifestyle VA, a virtual assistant agency for 6 years now and have seen this industry ebb and flow - including before, during and after the pandemic. Throughout that time, we have helped dozens upon dozens of clients and interviewed hundreds of VAs, and hired over 30 virtual assistants over the years.

The first thing I see happening in 2025 is Business owners are expecting more from their VAs. Access to a broader set of services, such as HR services and bookkeeping alongside their day-to-day admin VA.

Business owners like you want access to additional services without the fuss and hassle of yet another outside company.

You don’t want to try and manage even more service providers, instead you want someone you already trust and like working with to solve the problem for you.

That’s why having access to bolt-on services as and when you need is so valuable to you.

As your business grows you can access the skills you need without having to add on, train, and communicate with another provider.

You get to keep the VA you've already built rapport with and gain another area of expertise.

So for us at The Lifestyle VA it’s a no-brainer to add services that benefit you like HR admin, bookkeeping support, project management, podcast editing, and other specialist services to our agency in 2025 so we can serve you better.

Tasking an agency owner like myself with finding you support in different areas of your business not only saves you time, but the headspace and time spent managing another service provider all falls on us, not you.

So in 2025, we’ll also be seeing more business owners asking for pay transparency from the agencies they hire.

We know that CEOs like you care so much about where your money is going and making sure that fair wages go to the people they are paying.

Because more businesses are putting their values and ethics first, we are seeing business owners demanding better work environments for the agencies and contractors they hire.

What we are then seeing is business owners like yourself turning to smaller agencies like ourselves to hire a new VA and away from the huge corporate style agencies, for many reasons.

One of which is that big agencies typically pay their VA’s poorly, often a staggering 80% less than boutique agencies such as ours, but for someone like you who cares about fair pay - this isn’t going to fly in 2025.

We have always paid our virtual assistants the industry average and always made sure we pay more than double minimum wage.

And in 2025 we are even more committed to paying that way for our team and for the people who provide those specialised or additional services too, which is why when we increase our rates, we pass an increase down to our VAs as well.

With the cost of living so high and add in the costs of being self employed, our VAs are happier and deliver a higher standard service compared to large agency VAs.

The other noticeable problem we’ve heard from clients who come to us from larger agencies who don’t pay well is that the service provided tends to reflect the pay - poor.

At such low rates, those agencies see unmotivated VAs who feel like a little fish in a massive pond who do just enough to hit the mark, but not enough to stay a step ahead of their clients because they aren’t paid well enough to do so.

It’s a waste of your money and your time, especially when you’re seeking support to make your life easier.  Plus you’re thoughtful - rightly so - about how your money is invested, you want a good ROI and you want fair pay for someone working so closely with you.

Our fair pay means we can afford to seek out the most experienced, mature and skilled VAs and offer them great rates, which translates to the clients receiving an exceptional service.

The third trend I see in 2025 is redefining the role of Virtual Assistants now that many people are going back to the office.

In a post-pandemic world that’s becoming less about hybrid working and more about going back to the office slowly but surely, can people still benefit from a Virtual Assistant instead of an employed executive assistant?

My prediction is yes - and actually - more now than before.

If anything with the recent change in government and with employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NIC) set to rise from 13.8% to 15%, plus the earnings threshold dropping to just £5,000 a year, business owners face a hefty increase in employment costs.

And they’re looking for ways to maintain their profit lines, instead of being further out of pocket.

This change means CEOs and business owners will be paying more for each employee they hire and put on the payroll.

In contrast, hiring a Virtual Assistant on a contract basis and part time basis from an agency such as mine sidesteps these increased costs entirely.

No NIC, no payroll headaches.

Plus add to the other known benefits of hiring a VA such as no holiday or sick pay, or pension contributions to worry about with a VA - because they handle it all themselves, it’s always been a cost effective way to hire executive support and even more so with changes like this happening.

Therefore I know for business owners like yourself who have been wondering whether a Virtual Executive Assistant or an employed Executive Assistant is what they need, they can now see that they can have the exact support that makes such a difference, saving money while keeping their business running smoothly.

These are all key things to think about as a business owner who is thinking about hiring their first or next VA in 2025.

From needing a core day to day VA, but wanting the ability to bolt on another VA for a couple of hours a week for things like book keeping or editing your podcast, to caring how your money is spent and looking more towards contract VAs instead of employed executive assistants.

These are all important things to be mindful of as you prepare to pick up where you left off in 2024, and make 2025 even better with all those big, beautiful plans you have.

If this has got your cogs turning and you’d like to chat about how one, or more, or our Virtual Assistants can support all your bold plans for 2025, I really encourage you to book a call now.