Personal assistants and other secretaries: pay and what the work involves

Occupation 4215 · Administrative and secretarial occupations

Personal assistants and other secretaries

Personal assistants and other secretaries provide administrative and secretarial support to individuals, departmental or management teams within organisations.

How people enter it

There are no minimum academic requirements, although entry to professional secretarial courses typically requires GCSEs/S grades. NVQs/SVQs are available in Administration at levels 2, 3 and 4.

What the work involves

acts as a first point of contact for a manager or team with colleagues and people from outside organisations, fields telephone enquiries, takes and passes on messages
arranges appointments, keeps business diary, organises travel arrangements, makes reservations and organises a variety of functions
opens, sorts, distributes and files correspondence (in hard copy and electronic) and deals directly with routine correspondence
uses appropriate software to produce correspondence, memoranda, reports, presentations and other documents from drafts, handwritten copy or by transcribing dictation
arranges and attends meetings, takes minutes and prepares records of proceedings
translates documents and liaises with overseas clients and suppliers

Also called

Executive assistant · PA-secretary · Personal assistant · Personal secretary · Secretary

What it pays

Measure	Hours	Basis	Period	Value	Source
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	120,700.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	122,700.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	129,300.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	4,400.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	6,600.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	133,700.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)
4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	None	2026-03	2,000.00	ONS, Annual Population Survey - employment by occupation (SOC 2020)

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Region	Measure	Hours	Value	Period
East	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	16,800.00	2026-03
East Midlands	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	8,100.00	2026-03
London	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	28,100.00	2026-03
North East	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	2,000.00	2026-03
North West	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	13,100.00	2026-03
Northern Ireland	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	4,400.00	2026-03
Scotland	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	6,600.00	2026-03
South East	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	23,000.00	2026-03
South West	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	12,400.00	2026-03
Wales	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	2,000.00	2026-03
West Midlands	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	10,100.00	2026-03
Yorkshire and The Humber	4215 : Personal assistants and other secretaries	None	7,100.00	2026-03

Common questions

Does pay for personal assistants and other secretaries vary by region?

ONS publishes regional pay for this occupation where the survey sample supports it — 12 of 12 cells on this page. The rest are withheld by ONS, and are shown as withheld with the reason, rather than left out.

Where do these pay figures come from?

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, published by the Office for National Statistics. Figures are shown exactly as ONS publishes them — we do not adjust, model or fill them in, and every number on this page carries the series and period it came from.

Classified alongside this

Company secretaries and administrators · Legal secretaries · Medical secretaries · Receptionists · School secretaries · Typists and related keyboard occupations