Does everything happen under โone roofโ nowadays? Well, a rise in self-employment, sole-tradership and freelancing within both the UK and global landscape would suggest not. In this article, Angelica Stevenson, founder of BLAINE CRM explores why this is and how the rise of Virtual Assistants or โVAsโ has taken the global market by storm.
“I founded BLAINE CRM Solutions as a direct reaction to these ‘winds of change’ permeating the post-covid world, world-wide recession and overall everchanging professional landscape. More specifically in 2025, the UK has recorded 4.4 million self-employed individuals. But what are we doing? And more importantly which specific business areas and gaps are we filling?”
The rise of Virtual Assistants
Now, more than ever since the covid-19 pandemic we have witnessed a huge rise across this ever-growing space. The growth of VA employment rate by companies is on a consistent rise, and can be identified in 2025 across some key industries: Healthcare. Finance and E-commerce.
Virtual Assistants by industry. This information was collated and was presented by BLAINE CRM Solutions.
On my travels during the research for this article, ย I stumbled across the findings from Society of Virtual Assistants (SVA) industry body. Which has nearly 6,000 members and reported over 500 UK VA businesses taking part in its 2024 survey. And according to a recent survey by Deloitte, UK: โapproximately 35% of UK businesses are already utilising virtual assistants, with an additional 37% planning to implement them within the next two yearsโ. This reflects a growing recognition of the benefits that VAs can bring to business operations.
This growing space of the global virtual assistant industry is projected to reach ยฃ5.9 billion by 2028. Expanding at an impressive 33% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). This growth presents substantial opportunities for individuals looking to enter the field as well as for businesses seeking support.
But why? I hear you asking me –ย Well, for starters, Virtual Assistants provide in one word: versatility. They are able to deliver a wide range of services, including but not limited to administrative support, customer service, social media management, content creation, assisting marketing function, accounts payable, data entry and presentation preparation, inbox management and really, whatever your business needs.
Virtual assistance by business function. Diagram by BLAINE CRM Solutions.
And whatโs the best part? These functions can all be performed, online, in-house or from anywhere in the world. I myself, a London-based CRM Consultant could be doing work for a client based in Sydney, NSW in the morning and heading into central London to a clientโs offices; as I personally love any opportunities where I can have that much needed real life โface-timeโ.
Let’s look at the best tools for business support today:
- CRM systems
- AI tools and plug-ins
- Automation
- Task Management Platforms
CRM systems:
Across my experience there hasnโt been an industry left untouched by the need for some form of CRM. When I was in the following Industries: Publishing, to manage the marketing outreach to lecturers, industry professionals and event invites? We needed CRM.
Working for an IT and telecommunications support firm in Covent Garden across Thorpe Park, Hilton, Marriot and Exclusive Memberโs clubs? We needed CRM.
As Operations Manager at leading sustainability consultancy in Shoreditch, with cross 600+ live projects worldwide? Yep! you guessed it! We needed CRM.
CRM (Customer Relationships Software) can more often that not be that final piece of the puzzle, an invisible yet essential cog that if missing would prove unravelling all sense of connection and organisation across: projects, clients, accounts payable, social media, marketing the list goes on. My personal love for something (at a first glance) as โmundaneโ as CRM? In all honesty, is that it is still so severely underrated. CRM can be whatever you want it to be. And the point I was trying to start earlier in this section is this:
Regardless of where I have worked in my career; CRM has been moulded into what Iโve needed it to be.
In this spirit, I want to bring out attention to plug-ins โ this is an exciting development in the CRM Software space. Plug-inโs allow us to connect our CRM system for example to our invoicing software. You are then able to view your project, the clients attached to it, and the stage of the project โ and with the plug-in: what amount of the project is remaining to complete and invoice. Zapier is a plug-in I have found to be growing in popularity to connect for example: ย CRM database to your XERO invoicing system.
AI tools and plug-ins
Other plug-ins growing in popularity: such as HubSpot (for marketing) or Microsoft Dynamics 365 (streamlines operations), and website platforms like WordPress, WIX and GoDaddy.ย The ability to sync these programmes into one viewable landing page; so that theyโre all โtalking to each otherโ allows the end-user a birds-eye view of your business digitally across the key business functions.
Automation
This is another business tool on the rise with emerging platforms: Zapier, Klaviyo and Omnisend to name a few. These can be great plug-ins to your task management and CRM databases.
Task management tools
Similarly key task management platforms such as Clickup, Asana, Wrike, Zoho, Jira and Trello are on the rise in popularity or already a firm favourite at my client and professional peerโs workplaces. These task management platforms allow projects to have an overall view and be connected to departments, teams, individuals and send messages and updates about the project in hand to keep all team members up to date.
Concluding my thoughts behind the rise of Virtual Assistants
In conclusion, what my takeaway from this research has been, is that: we, as the VA / PA/ Consultant / service provider, have been able to recover extremely well post covid landscape and the global recession. That’s been achieved by us seeking market gaps and arising industries to offer our services to a wider reach of clients. This versatility from the VAs allows businesses to delegate various tasks, freeing up time for employees to focus on strategic initiatives. In my bias opinion, we are ahead of a curve and the VA is able reach much wider client base, and businesses are able to reach a larger talent pool. This is what I think we might just be able to call a โwin-winโ scenario, but until 2028 or sooner, letโs keep plug-in’ away at it (pardon the pun) and stay tuned!
