Key Takeaways
The global virtual assistant market is expected to grow by 184% from 2025 to 2035.
40% of virtual assistants offer specialized services like digital marketing, social media management and bookkeeping.
Most VAs are college-educated, with 54% holding a bachelor’s degree.
U.S.-based VAs cost $81000 annually, while overseas VAs charge $3600 to $7000.
By hiring VAs, businesses can reduce operational costs by 52% and increase team productivity by 28%.
Hiring virtual assistants (VAs) is a growing trend in businesses, thanks to their cost-effectiveness, scalability and time-saving benefits.
They’re also the perfect fix for burnout! Studies reveal that 73% of C-suite executives and 63% of employees are overworked. The reason? They had no one to offload tasks to.
But fortunately, more and more leaders are beginning to realize the value of virtual assistants. In 2022, 35% of executives hired VAs to delegate everyday tasks and boost productivity.
Many startups with tight budgets are choosing VAs over full-time employees. E-commerce, retail and logistics businesses are also relying on overseas virtual assistants to meet the rising demands for 24/7 customer service.
Keep reading to learn more virtual assistant statistics that will help you make the right decisions when hiring them.
Why Do Businesses Hire Virtual Assistants?
From increased productivity and time savings to lower overhead costs, there are many reasons why businesses hire virtual assistants.
As per reports by SQ Magazine:
1. Businesses that employ virtual assistants increase team productivity by 28%!
2. Companies save 52% in operational costs by hiring a VA instead of a full-time employee.
3. 64% of e-commerce brands rely on virtual assistants for chat support, inventory management and other tasks.
4. Customer service teams that hire virtual assistants reduce ticket handling time by 32%.
You can also reinvest your savings from hiring VAs into core processes to scale your business.
Virtual Assistant Industry Statistics
The virtual assistant industry is growing at breakneck speed! If you’re considering hiring a VA, you’re likely curious about market trends and growth projections.
Here’s some data on the virtual assistant industry at present to help you make an informed decision.
5. The global virtual assistant market is expected to reach $19.50 billion in 2025 and grow to $55.40 billion by 2035.
6. This reveals a market growth by 184% from 2025 to 2035, at a CAGR of 11%.
7. Dedicated monthly VAs are the most common service, with a market share of 53.5%. Businesses opt for subscription-based VAs to enjoy continuous support and consistent outcomes.
8. Hourly freelance VAs and agency-managed teams make up for 46.5%.
9. Creative and technical VAs together will dominate 60% of the market by 2035.
10. Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) are the leading clients of VA services, accounting for 44.4% of the market. They enjoy the affordability and scalability of outsourcing to VAs.
11. Enterprises, individuals and other players make up the remaining 55.6% of the market.
12. India (23.6% CAGR), China (22.8% CAGR) and Japan (16.9% CAGR) are the fastest-growing countries in the industry.
13. The UK, Germany and the USA are following behind with CAGRs of 13.6%, 10.1% and 9.1%, respectively.
Due to oversaturation and high competition, these markets are growing at a slower rate.
Virtual Assistant Qualifications Statistics
When you delegate business tasks to a virtual assistant, it’s important to know if they have the right skills and qualifications.
You’ll be glad to know, most virtual assistants are college-educated.
14. 54% of virtual assistants have a bachelor’s degree, 22% have an associate degree and 7% have a master’s.
15. 9% of virtual assistants hold a high school diploma.
16. Business is the most common major for virtual assistants (31%).
17. 11% of VAs are Psychology majors, 7% are Communications majors and 5% majored in Accounting.
Virtual Assistant Demographic Statistics
Virtual assistant services are a women-led industry, with over 85% being female. Plus, most VAs are mid-career professionals, bringing years of industry experience with them.
18. 87.6% of VAs in the US are female and 12.4% are male.
19. Most virtual assistants belong to White ethnicities (66.5%).
20. 16% of virtual assistants are Hispanic or Latino, 9% are Black and 3.8% are Asian.
21. Most US-based VAs come from New York and Georgia.
22. On average, virtual assistants are 40+ years old (78%). 16% of VAs are 30–40 years old and 6% are below 30.
Virtual Assistant Salary Statistics
Compared to in-house employees, virtual assistants are more affordable.
Since they don’t need office space, equipment or benefits, you can save money on rent, utilities and overhead. But how much do you pay virtual assistants?
23. The average yearly salary for a US-based VA is around $81,000.
24. Outsourced VAs can cost between $3,600 and $7000 per year. This highlights the cost-efficiency of outsourcing to overseas virtual assistants.
25. E-commerce support VAs cost the most at $50/hour.
26. In the US, virtual assistants from Hawaii, Washington and Alaska charge the highest salaries ($52,000 to $58,000 per year).
27. Those from Texas, Nevada, Ohio and Los Angeles charge the lowest ($37,000 to $40,000).
28. 65% of VAs work as freelancers. These independent contractors often charge higher rates than VAs from virtual assistant agencies.
29. Tech giant IBM pays the highest average yearly salary to virtual assistants–a whopping $77,053!
Virtual Assistant Employment Statistics
Contrary to popular belief, virtual assistants aren’t just for small businesses. Larger companies gain just as much from hiring them.
Many owners also worry that virtual assistants are unreliable, thereby opting to spend more on full-time staff. But data reveals otherwise! In reality, most VAs stay on for 5 to 7 years, offering consistent, reliable support.
30. 59% of businesses that hire virtual assistants have fewer than 500 employees.
31. Over 40% of enterprises that hire VAs have a workforce of 500 to 10,000.
32. 72% of virtual assistants work at private companies, 18% work at public companies and 4% are employed by government agencies.
33. Professional (14%), IT (12%) and media (8%) are the top industries that hire VAs.
34. 8% of Fortune 500 companies employ virtual assistants.
35. Around 33% of VAs stay at their jobs for 1 to 4 years, 50% remain longer and only 17% leave within a year.
As you can see, VAs are just as committed as full-time employees, often sticking around long-term if needed.
Admin Virtual Assistant Statistics
Every business, regardless of size or industry, has some routine administrative tasks.
Tasks such as scheduling appointments, organizing documents and replying to emails are essential for smooth operations, but they waste a lot of time.
You may spend over three hours per day checking your work email and another two handling personal emails. That’s over half of your workday wasted!
Besides emails, many executives also dislike bookkeeping (49%), scheduling meetings (45%) and responding to routine queries (35%).
To overcome this challenge, executives hire virtual administrative assistants. This way, all your boring tasks get done without core members having to waste time on them.
36. Admin virtual assistants account for 38.4% of the global virtual assistant services market.
37. Most common services offered by admin VAs include:
- Data entry (9.3%)
- Email management (7.6%)
- Booking (6.8%)
- Website maintenance (6.4%)
- Zoom meetings (6.2%)
Specialized Virtual Assistant Statistics
Besides offloading routine tasks, you may also need specialized support. 57% of executives want assistance with strategic projects and 54% need help with tasks that require special skills.
So what can specialized virtual assistants do for you?
38. According to Virtual Assistant Institute, 40% of virtual assistants offer specialized services like digital marketing, social media management and bookkeeping.
39. Specialized virtual assistants (customer service, design, technical support, bookkeeping, etc.) make up 61.6% of the market.
Customer Service VA
40. 7.8% of virtual assistants provide customer support services.
Customer service VAs help businesses improve their response times by quickly replying to customers and escalating issues to the right teams. While core employees focus on complex cases, a VA can handle routine queries, so customers aren’t left waiting.
Customer service virtual assistants handle responsibilities like:
- Replying to basic queries
- Managing phone, email and live chat
- Resolving complaints
- Generating and closing support tickets
- Recording customer interactions for future reference
Web Design VA
41. Over 50% of virtual assistants are skilled in web design, social media management or PowerPoint presentations.
By hiring a web design VA, you can get a lucrative, SEO-optimized website without having to spend a fortune. They’ll also monitor your website and troubleshoot technical issues, so you don’t have to worry about regular maintenance.
Tasks you can delegate to your web design virtual assistant include:
- Creating attractive layouts for websites
- Uploading images and text
- Removing and replacing broken links
- Optimizing websites for SEO
Multilingual VA
42. Many virtual assistants offer multilingual services. 62% speak Spanish, 8.6% speak French and 6.9% are fluent in German.
As more and more businesses expand their operations, the demand for multilingual support keeps growing. These VAs help you overcome language barriers, understand cultural nuances and strengthen relationships with international clients.
Global businesses can hire multilingual virtual assistants to:
- Communicate with non-English-speaking clients
- Translate emails and documents
- Coordinate with overseas teams
- Expand businesses into new markets
Real Estate VA
43. There’s an increasing need for VAs in real estate. The global real estate virtual assistant service market size is expected to grow at a 12.5% CAGR between 2026 and 2033.
Real estate agencies, property managers and mortgage brokers are seeking VAs for administrative tasks, marketing support and customer relationship management. VAs help them maintain timely communication with clients and convert leads faster.
Real estate virtual assistants can handle tasks such as:
- Creating property listings
- Scheduling showings
- Inputting data into CRM
- Communicating with clients
- Following up with leads
Read more: Why Every Realtor Needs a Real Estate Virtual Assistant for Lead Generation
Beyond real estate, many businesses look for project managers to coordinate teams and keep projects on track. Specialized VAs can also provide niche support in areas like IT, sales, e-commerce and more.
44. 5.3% of virtual assistants possess project management skills.
45. Demand for niche support is expected to grow, which will increase the number of specialized VAs by 20%.
You can hire one, two or more of these specialized VAs to build a virtual team.
This way, you can delegate everyday processes to trustworthy professionals, save time and streamline operations.
How To Hire Virtual Assistants
You can hire freelance virtual assistants directly via platforms like LinkedIn or Upwork. To do this, you’ll need to create a job description, screen resumes and conduct multiple rounds of interviews and assessments with numerous candidates. This process can take weeks.
However, losing time isn’t your only concern. When searching for talent online, you’ll face fierce competition from industry rivals and other global businesses.
There are over 40,000 virtual assistant jobs listed on LinkedIn and 9,000+ open VA positions on FlexJobs.
Considering the huge number of companies looking for VAs and the current level of talent shortage, you’ll be lucky to find specialists within your budget.
To hire skilled professionals without the hassles of finding them, start by shortlisting a few reliable virtual assistant agencies.
Set Clear Expectations
When drafting a role description, always ensure it’s clear, coherent and comprehensive.
Being clear means writing down exactly what you want your VA to do daily. For example, an e-commerce business hiring a VA might want them to:
- Communicate with suppliers to restock inventory.
- Update product listings on e-commerce websites.
- Respond to inquiries about product specifications and order status.
Being specific is also crucial when looking for a VA.
For example, you can’t write: “looking for an admin VA who also manages social media account and writes SEO blogs.” Although such versatile professionals may exist, this JD will narrow down the applicant pool, significantly increasing the time and cost of hiring.
In such cases, hiring separate VAs for each role is best.
Once you’ve specified your expectations, you should also set a budget. Always ensure that your budget is realistic enough to attract top talent and reasonable enough to prevent overspending.
Contact a VA Agency
Share the finalized role description and budget details with a virtual assistant agency.
VA agencies such as Zenius specialize in talent acquisition, helping businesses build efficient, high-performing remote teams.
We identify top-quality candidates by researching the global talent pool. From common roles like data entry virtual assistants to niche profiles such as email marketers, we have you covered.
Once you inform your VA agency about your requirements, they’ll identify the most suitable candidates for you.
Some even let you interview VAs yourself. You can ask questions to evaluate candidates’ work experience and communication skills or conduct assessments to test their technical aptitude.
Onboard Your VA
When onboarding your VA, introduce them to the team by hosting some fun virtual icebreakers.
Next, provide them with details about your company. Explaining communication guidelines, policies and standard workflows will help them settle into their role seamlessly.
Besides general info, you should also provide role-specific instructions to your VA. For example:
- Inform your data entry VA about accuracy benchmarks and data storage practices.
- Share the login credentials of your business’s social media accounts with your marketing VA.
- Notify your graphic designer VA about your brand colors and fonts.
Start with a small task and move on to bigger ones. This is because it is easier to give feedback on smaller tasks. Don’t forget to praise your VA from time to time, either.
If they ever offer relevant suggestions about workflows, tools or other matters, consider implementing them. This is why you hired them after all–to gain unique perspectives and enhance efficiency.
Final Thoughts
You can look up hundreds of statistics about virtual assistants from various articles, datasets and industry reports. They all paint the same picture–VAs are vital in every industry.
You can easily outsource multiple business functions to overseas virtual assistants.
They streamline your workflows, so your core employees don’t waste time on distracting tasks.
You will also boost productivity and enjoy a better work-life balance, enabling you to grow your business without burning out.
From routine duties like email management and data entry to specialized tasks like customer service, bookkeeping and social media management—there’s a VA for every need.
While hiring, don’t just evaluate technical expertise. Soft skills like communication, teamwork and adaptability are just as important!
Keeping up with the latest stats on VA rates, skills and services will help you make an informed decision and choose the right VA.