Questions we answer Outsourcing and external support

Should I hire a virtual assistant or an employee?

Often neither yet. A VA works on work that is documented and hands over cleanly; an undocumented mess delegated remotely comes back with more email attached.

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The short answer

Often neither, yet. A virtual assistant works where the task is written down, repeatable and genuinely handed over — delegate an undocumented mess remotely and it returns to you with more email attached to it. An employee makes sense where the work needs context, presence and somebody to own an outcome rather than perform a task. Before choosing, write the process down: a real share of typical VA work turns out to be either unnecessary or better done by an AI assist you supervise.

This question has three answers, not two, and the third one rarely appears in anything written about it — because almost everything written about it is published by somebody who places virtual assistants.

The discriminator is not cost and it is not location. It is whether the work can survive being handed over. Delegation works when somebody else can pick the task up from a description; it fails when the description exists only in your head, and remote delegation fails hardest of all, because the questions that would have been asked over a desk become a thread instead.

Is it really this?

Worth checking before you spend anything. These are the signals that tend to tell the two apart.

Signs it is

The tasks are repetitive, have a right answer, and you could write instructions for them today.
Nothing in the work requires being in the room or holding relationships.
You have the time to brief somebody properly in the first month, which is when remote delegation is won or lost.

Signs it's something else

Every task needs a decision only you can make, which means you have a delegation problem rather than a capacity one.
The work is genuinely a role — it needs somebody to own a result, not complete a list.
Most of what you would hand over is a workaround for something upstream being broken.

What's usually behind it

A founder whose week is being consumed by inbox, scheduling, chasing and formatting.
A first attempt at delegation, by somebody who has never had to write down how they work.
A cost comparison that assumes the two options do the same job.

What people usually get wrong

Comparing hourly rates and ignoring supervision, which is where the real cost of remote delegation sits.
Handing over the messiest part of the week first, on the theory that it will help most. It is the part least ready to be handed over.
Treating the AI option as a way to avoid the writing-down. It needs the instruction just as much; it just does not resent being asked twice.

The options, and when each one fits

In no particular order. Which of these fits depends on your situation, not on the question you typed.

Virtual assistant
The work is documented, repeatable, and survives being done by somebody who is not in the room.
Employee
The work needs context, presence, and somebody accountable for an outcome over time.
An AI assist you supervise
The work is text-shaped and repetitive, and you will read the output before it goes anywhere.
Remove the work
Writing the process down reveals steps that exist only because of how something else is set up.

When doing nothing is the right call

Writing down one week of the tasks you would hand over is the cheapest version of this decision, and it frequently answers it. If the list is short and strange, the work needs redesigning rather than delegating.

What here comes from somewhere else

The reasoning above is ours and does not go out of date. These do: they are other people's facts, and they are linked rather than restated so you can see the current version rather than our copy of it. Last checked 16 September 2026.

Employment status — GOV.UK (opens in a new tab)How somebody is engaged is a status question with consequences, and this page does not determine it. Where an arrangement starts to look like employment, that is a question for GOV.UK guidance or an accountant.

What the diagnostic asks

What the work actually is, and whether it is mostly repeatable.
How much judgement it needs and how often it comes round.
What happens if it goes wrong, and how sensitive the information is.
Whether anyone owns it today and whether software already exists for it.

“I don't know” is always an answer. Nothing is assumed on your behalf.

The routes it weighs

Every diagnostic weighs all ten routes. These are the ones that tend to matter for this question — a description of the rules, not a promise about your answer.

Outsource
Hand a defined, ongoing scope of work to an external provider.
Recruit
Recruit a new person for a durable, sizeable need that is central to the team.
AI Assist
Keep a person in charge and give them AI for drafting, summarising, checking or analysis.
Process improvement
Change how the work flows — remove steps, name an owner, fix the hand-offs.
Offshore
Run a defined scope of work with a team in another country or time zone.
Redistribute
Move ownership of the work to where it fits, and make that explicit.
Do nothing yet
Record the issue, set a revisit date, and decide what would change your mind.

What changes the answer

Work you can already describe in a paragraph is ready to hand over; work you cannot is not ready for anybody.
Needing somebody to own an outcome rather than execute a task moves this towards an employee.
Personal or client-confidential data narrows the options and changes what you have to check before handing it anywhere.

Get your own read

A handful of short questions, then the strongest route for your situation, what's also credible, what we still don't know and what would change our view. No account, no setup.