Is outsourcing to the Philippines still worth it? UK wages and the peso

What UK admin pay has done

The Office for National Statistics measures pay by occupation every year in its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. The annual figures cover the tax year to 5 April, and the latest published covers the year to April 2025. Here is the median full-time pay for two groups of jobs that a VA commonly takes on, beside the National Living Wage.

Reading the pay figures

Median full-time pay for administrative jobs rose by 12.6% in two years, from £27,333 in the year to April 2023 to £30,787 in the year to April 2025. Customer service pay rose by 11.9% over the same two years. The floor has risen faster still: the National Living Wage was £9.50 an hour in April 2022 and is £12.71 from April 2026, a rise of 33.8%.

A rising floor pushes up the pay of everyone just above it, because people who were paid more than the minimum expect to stay ahead of it. For small businesses whose admin roles sit near the bottom of the pay scale, that is the number that matters most.

The employer's share went up too

Salary is not the whole cost. In April 2025 employer National Insurance rose from 13.8% to 15%, and the point where it starts fell from £9,100 a year to £5,000. Employers also pay at least 3% of qualifying earnings into a workplace pension.

Put together, a full-time admin employee on the ONS median of £30,787 costs about £35,391 a year at 2026 to 2027 employer rates: £3,868 in National Insurance and £736 in pension on top of the salary. That is before recruitment, holiday cover, sick pay and equipment. Many small employers can reduce the National Insurance with the Employment Allowance, worth up to £10,500 in 2026 to 2027, but not every business qualifies, so take advice.

What the pound buys

On the other side of the sum is the exchange rate. The table shows how many pesos and how many US dollars a pound bought on average each year, and on 24 September 2026. The dollar figures are the Bank of England's. The peso figures are worked out from the European Central Bank's euro reference rates for the peso and the pound.

Why the dollar matters more than the peso

On those figures, a pound bought about 26% more pesos on 24 September 2026 than it did on average in 2019. It is easy to read that as outsourcing getting a quarter cheaper. For most UK businesses it has not, because Filipino VA rates are usually agreed in US dollars, not pesos. Published rate guides for Filipino VAs quote dollars, and we pay our own VAs in dollars too.

Against the dollar, the pound has hardly moved: $1.3220 on 24 September 2026 against an average of $1.2766 in 2019, about 3.6% more. So if you pay a VA in dollars, your cost in pounds is much where it was, while the UK alternative has risen by double digits in two years.

The weaker peso still matters, but it matters to your VA. A dollar bought about 62.75 pesos on 24 September 2026, against an average of 51.80 in 2019, so the same dollar pay goes further at home. That helps you keep good people, provided prices in the Philippines do not rise faster.

Philippine pay is rising as well

The gap is not fixed. The International Labour Organization's figures, from the Philippine Labour Force Survey, put median monthly earnings for employees in clerical support jobs at ₱19,619 in 2024, up from ₱15,392 in 2018: a rise of about 27% in six years. Median earnings for all employees rose by about 41% over the same period, from ₱10,799 to ₱15,208.

Local office pay is still well below what VAs earn from overseas clients, so it does not set VA rates directly. But it shows the direction of travel. Expect good VAs to ask for more over time, and plan for a pay review once a year.

So, is it worth it?

On cost alone, the case is stronger than it was three years ago. UK admin pay and employer costs have risen quickly, while the pound's value against the dollar, which is what most VA pay is set in, is roughly where it was in 2019.

Cost is not the only test, though. Outsourcing works when the work suits it, and fails when it does not, however cheap the hours are.

• It suits work done on a screen that repeats and follows rules you can write down.
• It suits businesses whose customers can be served in UK hours from the Philippines, where a UK working day falls in the afternoon and evening.
• It does not suit work that needs someone in the room, or that is regulated in a way that makes an offshore arrangement hard.
• It needs your time at the start: writing procedures, handing work over and checking it. Without that, any VA struggles.

What could change the picture

Nothing here is fixed, and an honest answer has to say what would weaken it.

• The pound could fall against the dollar. It averaged $1.2362 in 2022, about 6.5% below where it was on 24 September 2026, and a fall like that raises the pound cost of every dollar you pay.
• Philippine pay could keep rising, and demand from overseas clients could push VA rates up faster than UK pay.
• UK employer costs could fall, or rise again. Employer National Insurance and the pension minimums are set by government and can change at any Budget.
• Software could take over some of the routine admin that VAs do today, for UK staff and VAs alike. That changes which jobs are worth handing over, not just who does them.
• Rules on sending personal data abroad could change. At present, UK GDPR needs a lawful basis for the transfer; take advice if your VA will handle customers' or tenants' details.

Hedging the risks

• Agree rates in one currency and review them once a year, so neither side is caught out by a sudden move.
• Keep your procedures written down and owned by you, so a change of VA does not mean starting again.
• If you use a managed service, ask who carries the exchange rate risk: you, or the provider.
• Start with the work that suits a VA best, and add more only once it runs without you.

Your own numbers

National figures only tell you so much. What matters is what a UK hire would cost for your role, against what a VA would cost for the hours you need. Our page on what a VA costs has a calculator for the UK side. For the full comparison, including which jobs to hand over first, our free plan at /fit takes about three minutes.