Why the going rate is only half the answer
If you are about to hire an assistant offshore, you have probably already seen the problem. One site quotes £2 an hour. Another quotes £11. Both describe the same job: inbox, diary, data entry, customer replies. Nothing on either page tells you which figure is a bargain, which is fair, and which will leave you hiring again in three months.
The going rate is easy to find. In October 2026, offshore assistants in the Philippines are quoted at roughly £2.30 to £9.10 an hour, and in India at £2.10 to £11.35. Assistants in Latin America, hired mostly by US firms for the time zone overlap, run from about £6 to £19. Those ranges are wide because they mix three things: what the assistant earns, what a platform or agency adds, and what kind of work is being bought. Dollar figures in this guide are converted at $1 to £0.757, the mid rate on 8 October 2026.
So the useful question is a different one. What rate is fair, to you and to the person doing the work? The second half of that question decides whether they are still at the desk next year.
An hourly rate is fair when it covers a decent local salary, the cost of managing the work, and a reason for the assistant to stay. A figure that cannot do all three is a discount you repay in turnover.
What "fair" means when the assistant lives abroad
Fair does not mean UK wages. An assistant in Manila is not paying London rent, and nobody in the market expects a London salary. Fair means the rate works on their side of the deal as well as yours.
The numbers on their side are public. A salary report built from 1,385 job applications between October 2025 and July 2026 found that Filipino assistants ask a median of about £540 a month for full-time remote work. Half of all applicants ask between £430 and £680. Spread across a 160-hour month, the median comes to roughly £3.40 an hour, before a platform, an agency or an office adds anything.
Now set that against the cost of living. A survey of 2,000 Filipino remote workers puts a comfortable middle-class household budget in Metro Manila at roughly £910 to £1,290 a month. One asking salary covers part of that, not all of it. So assistants weigh more than the headline pay: health cover, paid leave, the thirteenth month of pay that employees in the Philippines are due each December, and whether the job will still exist in a year.
This is where a rock-bottom rate fails. At £2.30 an hour, a full month comes to about £370. That is less than three in four applicants ask for, before anyone has paid for a desk, a manager or a laptop.
"A rate is fair when the person earning it has no reason to keep one eye on the job boards."Umbrella Connect Editorial
Five things that decide whether a rate is fair
Two quotes at the same hourly figure can be very different deals. One is a salary paid to an employee with leave and cover behind them. The other is a contractor's fee that a platform has already taken a cut from. Five questions separate them, and a sixth card shows what to stop worrying about.
Take-home share
How much of your rate reaches the assistant as pay? Ask the provider directly. A vague answer is an answer.
Employment and benefits
Are they an employee with paid leave and statutory benefits, or a contractor carrying every risk alone?
Rate reviews
Does pay rise as skills grow? A rate frozen for two years is a pay cut once local prices move.
What the rate includes
Supervision, equipment, a workspace and backup cover sit inside the rate, or they arrive later as your problem.
What happens if they leave
Who finds, vets and trains the replacement, and how many weeks does that cost you?
What counts for less
The lowest headline number, years of experience and the cheapest country on paper. None of the three predicts who stays.
The last card surprises most owners. The same salary report found that applicants with two to three years behind them already ask about £605 a month, and long-serving veterans ask only 13% more than newcomers. Experience stops moving the price early. Skill moves it instead: an assistant who can reconcile a ledger or run a lettings inbox costs more than a generalist with twice the years.
Fair 2026 rate bands by role
The table shows a fair hourly band for four common roles, with the full-time monthly figure beside it. "Direct" means hiring a freelancer yourself or through a marketplace. "Managed" means a provider that employs the assistant, supplies the workspace and supervises the work.
| Role | Fair hourly band | Full-time month (160 hours) | What moves the rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| General admin | £3.05 to £5.30 direct; £5.30 to £6.80 managed | £490 to £850 direct; £850 to £1,090 managed | Written English, range of tools, how much runs without checking |
| Customer service | Same band as general admin | Same as general admin | Phone work and UK evening or weekend shifts sit at the top of the band |
| Bookkeeping and finance | £4.55 to £9.10 | £730 to £1,455 | Named software skills, month-end responsibility, credit control |
| Lettings and property admin | £4.55 to £9.10 | £730 to £1,455 | Compliance tracking and contractor chasing sit above inbox triage |
| Caution line, any role | Below about £3.40 | Below about £540 | Cannot cover the median asking salary, before any overhead |
Three things stand out. General admin and customer service share a band, because asking salaries for the two sit at the same median. Specialist work starts where generalist work ends. And the managed band for admin begins where the direct band stops. That step is the cost of the office, the supervisor and the cover.
The caution line is arithmetic. £3.40 an hour is the median asking salary divided across a full month. A full-time quote below it leaves two possibilities: the assistant earns less than most applicants ask for, or the same assistant is shared with other clients.
How to read these bands
Every figure is the rate a business pays, not the assistant's take-home pay. The bands come from 2026 rate guides for the Philippines, the largest market for English-speaking assistants.
Published data does not split specialist rates by role. Bookkeeping and lettings admin therefore share the market's general band for specialised offshore work.
Reading a quote: where the money goes
A quote is a bundle. Part of it is the assistant's pay. The rest covers whoever stands between you and them. The split tells you more than the total, and it changes with the route you hire through.
Nearly all of the rate reaches the assistant, which is the fairest split on paper. They also carry every cost themselves: equipment, internet, power cuts, sick days and tax. You carry the hiring, the checking and the search for a replacement.
The platform takes a service fee, so the assistant's pay is lower than the rate you see. In return it handles payment and disputes. It does not supervise the work, supply equipment or provide cover.
The provider employs the assistant and pays a salary out of your rate. The remainder funds the office, the equipment, a supervisor and a replacement if the person leaves. The take-home share is lower. The security around it is higher.
Now run the fairness test on a real quote. Umbrella Connect prices a dedicated full-time assistant from £5.50 an hour, or from £968 for a 176-hour full-time month, plus one-off sourcing (£300) and setup (£500) fees. That sits inside the managed band in the table above: the band that pays a market salary and also funds the office, the equipment and the supervision around it.
The way the service is built answers three more of the five questions. Assistants are employed through the company, work from its managed office in Sri Lanka, and are supervised on site. A second office, in the Philippines, is planned for January 2027. Each placement comes with three guarantees: a free replacement if the fit is wrong, no long-term contract, and a 3-month trial before a 3-month rolling contract. That covers employment, what the rate includes, and what happens if the person leaves. The other two, take-home share and pay reviews, are questions to put to any provider on the first call, this one included.
What to confirm and what to treat with caution
By this point the rate itself is the easy part. The questions below take ten minutes on a call. They tell you whether the figure will hold for a year or fall apart by spring.
The gap between a rock-bottom rate and a fair one is often about £2 an hour, or roughly £320 across a full month. One departure, and the weeks of retraining that follow, costs more than that.
Setting the rate for your role
The right figure depends on what you are handing over. Four roles cover most first offshore hires.
General admin
Inbox, diary, data entry and research. Budget £5.30 to £6.80 an hour for a managed full-time assistant, or £3.05 to £5.30 if you hire direct and manage the person yourself. Pay towards the top if they will work without daily checking.
Customer service
Email, chat and phone replies. The band matches general admin. Add to it for phone-heavy work and for shifts that run into UK evenings or weekends, because those hours fall in the middle of the night for the assistant.
Bookkeeping and finance
Invoicing, reconciliations and credit control. Expect £4.55 to £9.10 an hour. Named software experience and month-end responsibility justify the upper half. Check who reviews the work, because an error here costs more than the rate.
Lettings and property admin
Tenant queries, maintenance logging and compliance chasing. The same £4.55 to £9.10 band applies. Inbox triage sits low. Tracking repair deadlines under Awaab's Law sits high, and continuity matters more than price.
A fair rate is the one you only set once
Every owner hiring offshore starts by asking what the job costs. The better question is what it costs to keep the person. A rate that undercuts the market buys a few cheap months and then a vacancy.
The gap between cheap and fair is small. On general admin it is the difference between about £3 and about £5.50 an hour. On that £2.50 rests whether the assistant is employed or exposed, supervised or alone, staying or already looking.
So treat the rate as the last number you agree, not the first. Ask where the money goes. Ask what the assistant is paid, how they are employed and when their pay is reviewed. Umbrella Connect is built on that view: a full-time assistant, employed and supervised in a staffed office, at a rate with room for a fair salary. Whichever provider you choose, pay the rate that lets a good assistant stop looking.
Under about £3.40 an hour, a full-time rate cannot cover a market salary. Between £5 and £7 it can cover the salary and the management around it. Ask for the pay band, the employment terms and the review date before you sign.
