The consultant who hired an executive VA and finally reclaimed 14 hours a week
A senior consultant billing at £180/hour was working 55-hour weeks - and roughly 20 of those hours were email triage, scheduling, expense reports, invoice chasing, and travel booking. On paper the math was obvious. In practice, delegating anything felt harder than doing it.
£3,600/week of billable capacity was going into admin work worth roughly £15/hour. Two client proposals slipped past deadline in one month. The consultant considered raising rates instead of hiring; the math didn't work.
Hired an executive VA at £22/hour, 20 hours a week (£440/week). Broke down every recurring task into an SOP before the VA started - the delegation prep took 4 hours and saved the first month.
First 90 days
- Week 1–2
VA takes over inbox triage: three labels (urgent, needs response, archive), 2× daily sweep. Calendar consolidated to one tool with 3 booking rules.
- Week 3–4
Invoicing moved to VA. AR chase automated with 7/14/21-day cadence. Expense reports weekly instead of quarterly panic.
- Week 5–8
Travel and client-comms coordination handed off. Weekly Monday review call, 30 min, replaces most inbound questions.
- Week 9–13
New capacity absorbed: 2 additional client days per month. Rate increase deferred - capacity fix was worth more than a rate rise.
Outcomes (benchmark-based)
Before vs after
| Metric | Before | After | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly admin hours | 20 hrs | 6 hrs | -14 hrs/week |
| Proposal turnaround | 5–7 days | 48 hours | -70% |
| Working hours per week | 55 hrs | 42 hrs | -13 hrs |
Weekly hours spent on admin work
hours / week
Stack used in this story
Honest trade-offs
How I'd run this for you
Executive-level VA and operations support is a core service. I work with founders, consultants, and solopreneurs on inbox, calendar, invoicing, travel, and light client coordination - not just task-taking, but ownership of the operational rhythm.
- Inbox and calendar discipline - SLA-based response times, not chaotic monitoring.
- Invoicing, AR chase, and expense workflow across Xero, QuickBooks, Wise, and Stripe.
- Client-comms coordination that doesn't feel outsourced - same voice, same rhythm you'd use yourself.
FAQs
Is this a real consultant?
No - this is a composite story. Reclaimed-hours figures reflect published research on knowledge-worker admin overhead (McKinsey, Atlassian). Costs use current U.K. market rates for executive VAs.
Are you a VA or an operations person?
Both, depending on scope. For solo founders and consultants, VA support is often the practical entry point. For teams, I run operations across sales, HR, and finance simultaneously.
What hours do you work?
Coverage windows agreed upfront. Most engagements sit in a 9-hour window that spans U.K. morning through U.S. Eastern afternoon, or a GCC-covering window for UAE clients.
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Your situation isn't this exact story - let's map yours
30-minute diagnostic call. I'll tell you whether the fix is a hire, a fractional operator, or a small workflow change - and give you the honest math either way.