How to Hire a Personal Assistant in London: The 2026 UK Guide
Summary
Hiring a personal assistant is less about convenience and more about reclaiming time, focus and control. For founders, executives, and complex households, a PA serves as a central operator across work and life, managing administrative, logistical, and sensitive tasks. The guide outlines what a PA does, the available hiring models, and how to identify the right fit. In most cases, a senior private PA on retainer offers the best balance of flexibility, discretion and high-level support without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Key Highlights
Demand is rising due to increased admin, blurred work-life boundaries, and “family office” expectations
A PA can help manage everything around you: diary, inbox, travel, household, admin and liaison
PA vs EA: PAs cover both personal and professional life, EAs are typically business-only
Three hiring models: in-house, virtual assistant, or private PA on retainer
Top qualities to prioritise: discretion, judgement, range, calmness under pressure, and humility
Two routes to hire: agencies for full-time roles, or direct private PA services for faster, more personal support
The right fit shows quickly: less friction, better filtering, and stronger relationships with your wider circle
Strong onboarding: critical to long-term success
Common mistakes: hiring too junior, poor onboarding, vague scope, and rushing the decision
Best starting point: a confidential discovery call to assess fit before committing
If you are a founder buried in admin, a senior leader whose diary has outgrown your bandwidth, or a household running multiple homes and staff, choosing to hire a personal assistant is one of the highest-leverage moves you will make this year.
This guide walks through what to look for, how to recognise the right fit, and how to start. It is written for the London market and the kind of bespoke, discreet PA work Sarah Smith provides.
The short version. Most clients bring a PA into their lives for one of three reasons. They are losing hours to admin. They want one trusted person across home and work. Or they need confidential help through a complex life event. The right person fixes all three. The wrong one creates a new problem to manage.
If you would rather skip the research and start a conversation, the fastest route in is to book a discovery call with Sarah.
1. Why Hire a Personal Assistant in 2026?
A PA is no longer a status symbol. For London leaders working at the director level and above, and for any household running staff, multiple homes or international travel, the question is not whether to bring one in. It is how soon.
Three trends are driving demand:
Remote-first leadership has compressed the working week but increased the volume of admin, meetings, and inbox traffic. The leader who used to have three days of ‘thinking time’ each week now has half an hour between calls.
Family-office-style help has trickled down from UHNW households into the founder bracket. The expectation is no longer ‘help with the diary’. It is a single trusted person managing home, family logistics, travel, finance, admin and discreet matters.
The line between work and life has dissolved, especially for entrepreneurs. A modern PA works across both, freeing leaders to focus on the few decisions that actually move the business.
If you cannot remember the last time you had a clean inbox, an empty admin pile or an evening untouched by work, those are the signals. Sarah's lifestyle PA work is built around quietly resolving exactly that.
2. What a PA Actually Does
Honest answer: more than most people expect.
A PA can runs the systems with you, or for you. The diary, the inbox, the household, the travel, the bookings, the bills, the renewals, and the small but stressful tasks that pile up when you are busy. The exact scope depends on whether you bring in a PA on retainer, a remote VA or an in-house executive assistant, but the core remit can often look like this:
Diary and calendar work, scheduling, conflict resolution, buffer time, and briefing notes before key meetings.
Inbox and correspondence, triage, replies on your behalf, drafting, follow-ups.
Travel and itineraries, flights, hotels, transport, visa support, and last-minute changes.
Household coordination, staff, contractors, deliveries, maintenance and property oversight.
Personal admin, bills, subscriptions, renewals, insurance claims and medical paperwork.
Liaison, acting as the gatekeeper or the go between for doctors, schools, lawyers, accountants and suppliers.
Events and bookings, restaurants, gifts, family occasions and social engagements.
Research and crisis support for the things you did not see coming.
A senior PA, particularly one operating at an executive personal level, also acts as a trusted confidant. They hold context across your work, your home and your family, and quietly hold things together when you cannot be everywhere at once. Sarah's private and lifestyle PA work covers the full remit above.
3. PA vs Executive Assistant: What’s the Difference?
The terms are often used interchangeably, but they carry different meanings in the British market.
An executive assistant typically supports a single senior leader inside a company. The role focuses on diary, inbox, meetings, business travel and corporate administration. Executive assistants are often employed in-house and report directly to one principal.
A personal assistant works across both work and personal life. The remit extends beyond the office to the household, family, travel, financial admin and lifestyle. Many PAs work freelance or on retainer rather than full-time employed.
For founders, entrepreneurs and discerning clients, a senior PA usually fits better than a traditional EA. The lines between work and life are too blurred for a strict EA brief to cover. For corporate executives inside larger organisations, an in-house EA or executive assistants pool may still be the right model.
There is also overlap with house manager and household staff coordination roles. A PA covers admin, liaison and personal support; a house manager runs the property and household staff day-to-day. Some clients eventually engage both, with the PA acting as the connective tissue.
4. In-House, Remote or Private: Which Kind of PA Fits Your Life?
Three broad models exist, and most first-time clients pick the wrong one on the first attempt.
In-house PA
A full-time employee, usually based in your office or home. Best for high-volume executive support and households needing daily presence. The trade-off is the fixed commitment of having an employee on payroll and the management overhead that comes with it.
Virtual assistant
A remote contractor handling defined tasks, typically inbox, diary, research and bookings. Best for short, well-defined task lists. Less suitable when you need someone in person, with full context, who can hold sensitive information.
Private PA on retainer
A senior, embedded relationship that sits closer to a trusted family advisor than a freelance helper. The retainer route works for founders and households who want one trusted person across work and life, but do not yet need (or want) a full-time hire. This is the model behind Sarah Smith's bespoke PA work, and it is what most discerning clients eventually settle on.
Most clients underestimate the in-house overhead and overestimate what a remote VA can sensibly take on. The retainer model is often the sweet spot, giving you senior-level help without the employment commitment.
5. What to Look For in a Private PA
The qualities that separate a good PA from the right PA are not on a CV or in a job description. Five things matter more than anything else.
Discretion. The single most important quality. A senior PA handles confidential information every day. Look for someone who has worked with discerning clients before and treats discretion as the default, not a feature. Sarah's process starts with confidentiality from the first conversation.
Judgement. Skills can be tested. Judgement reveals itself over time, in the small decisions a PA makes on your behalf. The right person surfaces what you need to know and quietly handles the rest.
Range. A PA who has run the diary for one founder, the household for one family and the logistics for one discerning client is more useful than one who has done a single corporate EA role for a decade. Look for breadth of context. Sarah's private and lifestyle PA work draws on experience across all three.
Calm under pressure. Things go wrong. A PA who keeps a steady hand when a flight is cancelled, a contractor lets you down, or an insurance claim turns difficult is worth their weight in gold.
Warmth and humility. The strongest PAs blend in. Present where needed, invisible where they are not. They build trust with your household, your team and your wider circle without ever drawing attention to themselves. What Sarah's clients say is the clearest signal of all five qualities working together.
6. Two Routes to Finding the Right PA
For a London client, there are two sensible routes.
A specialist PA agency
Agencies are best when you are recruiting a permanent in-house PA. They will brief candidates on your role, vet them and present a shortlist. Useful when you want a full-time employee on payroll and the time horizon allows several weeks for the process.
A direct private PA service
If you do not need a permanent employee, working directly with an experienced PA is the simpler route. There is no shortlisting, no interview round, and the person you spoke to first is the same person who delivers the work, together with a small experienced team. Sarah Smith PA operates this way.
For founders and busy professionals who want one person to handle work and life without the overhead of a permanent hire, the direct route is usually cleaner, faster, and more personal.
7. What Discreet Households and Family-Office Clients Need from a PA
Family-office and ultra-high-net-worth households operate under a different set of expectations. Confidentiality is non-negotiable. The scope spans business, household, family, philanthropy and travel. The right private personal assistant becomes part of the household's quiet operating system.
A few things matter more than usual at this level:
Discretion and vetting. References, NDAs and a track record with discerning clients are essential.
Range of context. The PA often holds context across multiple homes, business interests, family members, schools, properties and household staff.
Liaison with experts. Wealth managers, solicitors, tax advisers, security teams, school admissions and healthcare providers. The PA is the connective tissue.
Flexibility. Schedules shift, travel happens at short notice, and international time zones become normal.
Professionalism with humility. The strongest PAs blend in. Present where needed, invisible where they are not.
The right person at this level brings the same calm to a Tuesday admin pile and a 2 am crisis call. Sarah's private office and estate support work is shaped for exactly these households.
8. The Conversation That Gets It Right
Whichever route you take, every successful PA engagement starts with a conversation, not a job spec. That conversation matters more than any document.
The first conversation aims to understand:
What you want handled (and what you want to keep)
How many hours a week, roughly
Whether you need someone in person, remote or hybrid
How sensitive the work is, and what discretion looks like for you
Who else is in the picture: family, staff, accountant, solicitor, contractors
Sarah runs every engagement this way. A confidential 30-minute discovery call. No pressure, no hard sell. The output of the call is a clear sense of fit and, if it makes sense for both sides, a paid trial week.
9. How to Know You’ve Found the Right Fit
Trust is the foundation. You will not feel certain after one call, and you should not. The early period aims to test fit, gently, on real work.
Three signals to watch for in the first month:
They make your week feel quieter. The first sign of the right PA is not visible action. It is the absence of friction. Things stop falling through the cracks. Your inbox calms down. Bills get paid on time without you noticing.
They surface the right things—a good PA filters noise. A great one knows what you actually need to see, and what they can handle on your behalf. The cadence of weekly summaries should evolve over the first month as they learn your priorities.
They build trust with your circle: your accountant, your solicitor, your household staff, your family. The right PA earns confidence with the people around you, quietly, without drawing attention to themselves.
If those three signals are present in the first month, you have found the right person. If they are not, the trial period exists for exactly this reason.
10. Onboarding for a Smooth Start
The first month is where the relationship is made, or quietly lost.
Where applicable, share access to whatever systems you require support with.
Brief the PA on your routines, preferences, expectations and key relationships and household staff.
Map the ecosystem: the family, the accountant, the solicitor, the contractors and any other suppliers.
Set the cadence: daily check-in, weekly review, monthly retro.
Define the no-go list. Anything you do not want delegated yet.
Agree on the first 30 days. What success looks like.
Protect the first month with diary discipline. A PA who is set up to win in the first 30 days will compound for years. Sarah's onboarding process is built around exactly this principle.
11. Common Mistakes to Avoid When Bringing in a PA
The most common reasons a PA appointment goes wrong:
Hiring too junior. A junior PA needs you to manage them. A senior PA manages the brief themselves.
Underspecifying the scope. Vague briefs lead to vague support.
Skipping references and discretion checks for sensitive engagements.
Onboarding badly can waste time. Onboard well from day one.
Not reviewing. The role evolves; the working agreement should too.
A slower, sharper appointment saves twelve months of friction. Talk to Sarah before you commit to any of the above.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to hire a personal assistant in London?
If you are hiring a full-time, in-house personal assistant through an agency, the process typically takes 6 to 10 weeks. If you choose a private PA on retainer, support can usually begin within 1 to 2 weeks following the initial discovery call.
Do I need to hire a full-time personal assistant?
Not always. Many founders and private clients begin with a senior personal assistant on a flexible retainer. A full-time, in-house hire usually only makes sense once the volume of work consistently requires daily support.
What is the difference between a personal assistant and a house manager?
A house manager oversees the day-to-day running of a property, including staff, cleaning, and maintenance. A personal assistant manages the administrative, logistical and communication side of your life and work, often coordinating household staff rather than replacing them.
Can I hire a personal assistant who works remotely?
Yes. Many personal assistants now work in a hybrid way, combining remote support with in-person time where needed. Fully remote roles are typically more task-based, while higher-level support often includes some in-person involvement.
How do I find the right personal assistant for a private or discreet household?
Look beyond skills and focus on judgement, discretion and experience with similar clients. The best way to assess fit is through an initial conversation, where you can gauge how they think, communicate and handle sensitive information.
What is the best way to get started with a private PA service in London?
The simplest route is to begin with a confidential discovery call. This allows you to outline your needs, understand the level of support required, and decide whether a retainer, project or longer-term arrangement is the right fit.
Ready to Find the Right PA?
If you are ready to hand over some of the admin, the overflow, the logistics - or any part of it - booking a confidential discovery call is the fastest way to get started.
Sarah Smith provides bespoke PA services in London for busy professionals, founders, discerning households, and family office clients on a month retainer basis.