What Businesses Actually Outsource to Virtual Assistants in 2026
Almost nobody hires a virtual assistant to do one thing. An analysis of 323 roles opened by 253 companies shows the hybrid role is now the norm, part-time is the default, and one category takes twice as long to fill as any other.
Key findings
- The hybrid role is the norm, not the exception. Only 26% of roles fall into a single work category. The average spans two, and 28% span three.
- Administrative work is the largest category but not the majority. It accounts for 37.9% of all VA work, and most of it is bundled with something else rather than standing alone.
- Part-time is the standard entry point. 72% of roles are part-time, and nearly half are opened at exactly 80 hours a month. Only a quarter are full-time equivalents.
- Content writing takes twice as long to fill as sales. A median of 27 days against 12, where the overall median across all roles is 15 days.
- Speed does not vary by how common the work is. Administrative roles are by far the most numerous and sit in the middle of the range; analytics roles are among the rarest and fill just as fast.
What the Work Actually Is
Every role carries between one and three work categories. Because a role can span more than one, the table shows two views of the same data.
The share of VA work column divides each role evenly across its categories, so a role tagged with three areas contributes one third to each. It answers the question: how is virtual assistant work distributed? It sums to 100%.
The roles that include it column counts every role that touches a category at all. It answers a different question: how likely is any given role to involve this kind of work? It sums to more than 100% by design.
| Work category | Share of VA work | Roles that include it |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative and operations support | 37.9% | 64.1% |
| Marketing and advertising | 12.8% | 30.0% |
| Sales and business development | 11.2% | 21.4% |
| Tech and development | 6.3% | 15.8% |
| Design and creative | 5.3% | 9.3% |
| Social media management | 5.2% | 13.9% |
| E-commerce management | 5.1% | 12.1% |
| Finance and accounting | 3.9% | 5.9% |
| Real estate | 3.4% | 7.4% |
| Analytics and software engineering | 3.3% | 7.7% |
| Writing and content creation | 3.3% | 9.3% |
| Other | 1.4% | 2.8% |
| Legal and compliance | 0.4% | 0.9% |
| HR and recruiting | 0.4% | 0.9% |
A role with two categories contributes one half to each and a role with three contributes one third to each, so the first column represents the distribution of work rather than a count of roles.
The Hybrid Role Is the Norm
| Categories per role | Share of roles |
|---|---|
| One | 26% |
| Two | 46% |
| Three | 28% |
| Average per role | 2.02 |
Three quarters of roles cross at least two areas of work. The most common shape is not “an assistant who handles admin” but “someone who handles admin and also runs the social accounts”, or “sales support who also manages the CRM”.
This has a practical consequence for anyone hiring. A job description built around a single function will describe about a quarter of the market, and will screen out candidates who could cover more than one area.
Part-Time Is the Default
| Engagement type | Share of roles |
|---|---|
| Part-time | 72% |
| Full-time | 26% |
| Project-based | 2% |
| Monthly hours requested | Share of roles |
|---|---|
| Exactly 80 hours (half-time) | 46% |
| 160 hours or more (full-time equivalent) | 26% |
| Median request | 80 hours |
Half-time is not a compromise position in this market, it is the standard entry point. Almost half of all roles are opened at exactly 80 hours a month, and only a quarter are opened as full-time equivalents.
“The business world is moving away from rigid, full-time costs. Part-time virtual assistant setups give business owners the freedom to buy the exact help they need, test new work routines without big financial risks, and add more team hours as company revenue grows.”
How Long Roles Take to Fill
Time to fill is measured over a longer window than the rest of this report, because only closed roles produce a time-to-fill figure.
| Metric | Days |
|---|---|
| Median time to fill | 15 |
| Fastest quartile | 8 or fewer |
| 75th percentile | 30 |
| Filled within two weeks | 50% |
| Filled within a month | 76% |
By type of work
| Work category | Median days to fill |
|---|---|
| Sales and business development | 12 |
| Administrative and operations support | 14 |
| Analytics and software engineering | 14 |
| Social media management | 14 |
| Tech and development | 14 |
| E-commerce management | 16 |
| Marketing and advertising | 17 |
| Writing and content creation | 27 |
Categories with fewer than 15 closed roles are not shown: finance and accounting, real estate, design and creative, legal and compliance, and other.
Most categories cluster tightly between 12 and 17 days. Writing sits alone at 27, more than double the fastest category.
One explanation is that writing is the category where the output is hardest to assess from a portfolio, so more candidates reach a practical assessment stage before a decision is made. The data here shows the gap; it does not explain it.
What we looked for and did not find
Time zone does not predict time to fill. Roles from clients on the US east coast, the west coast, and in between fill at broadly similar speeds. The distance between a client's working day and a candidate's does not appear to slow hiring down.
Category size does not predict category speed. Administrative roles are by far the most numerous and sit in the middle of the speed range. Analytics roles are among the rarest and fill just as fast.
We report these because a finding that something does not matter is still a finding, and because it shows which relationships were tested rather than only which ones produced an answer.
For journalists
How to cite this data
Attribute figures to “VA Masters, What Businesses Actually Outsource in 2026” and link to this page. Always carry the data period with the figure, for example “72% of roles are part-time, February to August 2026”. Charts and tables may be reproduced with attribution.
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Press room & full dataset
Press coverage & media kit · State of the Filipino VA Industry 2026
Boilerplate
VA Masters is a global recruitment agency founded in 2021 that places rigorously vetted Filipino virtual assistants with businesses across the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Europe. Over 1,000 placements to date.
Company facts
Founded: 2021 · Founder & CEO: Alon Pearl · Placements: 1,000+ · Vetting: 6 stages
Questions & Answers
Common questions about what virtual assistants are actually hired to do.
What do virtual assistants actually do in 2026?
Most do more than one thing. Across 323 roles opened between February and August 2026, only 26% covered a single type of work. Administrative and operations support is the largest single category at 37.9% of all VA work, followed by marketing and advertising at 12.8% and sales and business development at 11.2%. The average role spans two areas.
Is a virtual assistant role full-time or part-time?
Overwhelmingly part-time. 72% of roles opened between February and August 2026 were part-time, 26% full-time and 2% project-based. The median request is 80 hours a month, and 46% of roles are opened at exactly that figure.
How many hours a month do businesses hire a virtual assistant for?
The median request is 80 hours a month, which is half-time. Nearly half of all roles land on exactly that number, and only about a quarter are opened at 160 hours or more. Half-time is the standard entry point rather than a compromise.
How long does it take to fill a virtual assistant role?
A median of 15 days across roles opened between January 2025 and August 2026 that have a recorded close. Half are filled within two weeks and 76% within a month. Speed varies by type of work: sales roles fill in a median of 12 days, while content writing takes 27.
Which virtual assistant roles are hardest to fill?
Writing and content creation, at a median of 27 days, more than double the fastest category. Most other categories cluster between 12 and 17 days. One likely explanation is that writing output is hardest to assess from a portfolio, so more candidates reach a practical assessment before a decision is made.
Should a job description cover one function or several?
Three quarters of roles in this dataset cross at least two areas of work, so a description built around a single function describes about a quarter of the market. It also screens out candidates capable of covering more than one area, which is what most employers actually end up hiring.
What is this analysis based on?
323 virtual assistant roles opened by 253 separate companies between February and August 2026, taken from the VA Masters positions database. Time-to-fill figures use a longer window, January 2025 to August 2026, covering 179 roles with a recorded close date. Both periods are stated wherever their figures appear.
Has VA Masters data been covered by the press?
Yes. Our data has been reported on by Manila Bulletin, BusinessWorld, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, InsiderPH and others. Those articles cover our earlier industry dataset rather than the analysis on this page. The full coverage index is in the VA Masters newsroom.
Can I cite these figures?
Yes. Attribute figures to “VA Masters, What Businesses Actually Outsource in 2026”, link back to this page, and carry the data period with the figure. For additional cuts or an interview, contact [email protected].
Methodology & Definitions
Source
The VA Masters positions database, exported 2 September 2026.
Two windows, both stated
Role mix, hybrid analysis and engagement type cover 323 roles opened between February 2026 and August 2026, belonging to 253 separate client companies. The window starts in February 2026 because structured role descriptions reach complete coverage from that month; earlier records are incomplete and would distort any comparison.
Time to fill covers a longer window: 179 roles opened between January 2025 and August 2026 with a recorded close date. A longer window is used because only closed roles produce a time-to-fill figure, and the shorter window does not contain enough closed roles per category to report reliably. Both windows are stated wherever their figures appear.
Category weighting
Roles carry between one and three work categories. In the weighted column a role with two categories contributes 0.5 to each and a role with three contributes one third to each, so the column sums to 100% and represents the distribution of work rather than the count of roles.
Category consolidation
Four narrow labels were merged into their parent categories: bookkeeping into finance and accounting, video editing into design and creative, paid-ads management into marketing and advertising, and data science into analytics and software engineering. Those labels described specific job titles rather than areas of work, and left uncorrected they would have split single categories in two.
Reporting threshold
Time-to-fill figures are shown only for categories with at least 15 closed roles. Categories below that threshold are named as excluded rather than silently dropped: finance and accounting, real estate, design and creative, legal and compliance, and other.
Exclusions
Roles opened by VA Masters for its own internal team are excluded throughout. Roles without an opening date are excluded from any figure covering a time period. Client names, individual role details, absolute counts of open roles by category, and any figure relating to pay are not published.
About this data
This report describes what passes through VA Masters, not the offshore hiring market as a whole. Every dataset of this kind reflects the business that produced it. Our client base skews toward the companies that find us, and most arrive on their own through search, through AI assistants, and through referrals from clients we already work with. A client roster with a strong presence among marketing agencies and local service businesses will show a different mix of work than one built around enterprise accounts.
We think the sample still says something real. It covers hundreds of roles across fourteen categories and clients on four continents, and the patterns inside it are consistent rather than driven by a handful of accounts. But a reader should treat it as a detailed view of one large pipeline, not a measurement of national demand. Where a finding is unusually specific to our client mix, we say so in the section itself rather than leaving it to this note.
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