How many hours did you spend on admin last week?

According to UK SME Business Barometer 2026* the average UK business owner spends around 11 hours a week on admin and finance, roughly six working days a month. Compare this to the average 3.6 days spent on sales and growth. If you are personally managing your admin, as well as running your company, it’s likely the cost for your small business is far greater than you realise.

It’s worth repeating that statistic. Most owners spend nearly twice as long on paperwork as on the things that grow their business.

The real cost of admin for a small business

When asked to list out admin costs, many people refer to software licences, maybe stationery. Few reflect on:

Time – it takes to schedule meetings, answer emails, plan a work plan, or do expenses and that’s all on top of you running your business, let alone trying to grow it.

Growth – every hour spent on admin is an hour not spent on activities that will bring in new customers or upsell existing ones. The same research shares that 54% of SME owners say paperwork gets in the way of running the business, and 36% name their own capacity as their biggest barrier to growth. The ceiling for many small businesses isn’t demand, it’s the number of hours the owner has left to spend on growth activities.

Wellbeing – One in five owners report working 60 hours or more a week. When you’re exhausted, or don’t have time to think and strategise, then it will impact the business as well as your productivity and health.

Knowing all this, the question changes from ‘can I afford to get some help’ to ‘how can I afford not to get help!”

Outsourcing a PA

Once you decide to find help, the first thought is often to hire somebody.

But in today’s climate, the full cost of hiring a PA in the UK is quite high and far more than the salary that’s expected. There’s:

● Employer National Insurance (now 15% above the secondary threshold)
● Employer pension contributions
● Holiday, sick pay and bank holidays
● Equipment, software and desk space
● Time to recruit and train

Then there’s the often overlooked point. Most small businesses don’t have a steady 37.5 hours of admin every week. Admin work ebbs and flows. There may be a lot to do in the run-up to month end, there may be a lull in mid-December or during August. Hiring someone permanently gives you a fixed cost for work no matter how much there is to do.

As well as all this, you’ve also got someone to manage too – which can be time consuming in itself.

The pros and cons – outsource vs hire personal assistant

When you weigh up the pros and cons of outsourcing vs hiring a PA, you not only need to compare the hourly rate (plus all the additional costs listed above), you need to look at how each option impacts your business model.

Hiring – this option adds a fixed monthly overhead no matter how much work there is to do. And what happens if your PA is ill or is on holiday? How will you cover this or will the work just pile up? What about if the person turns out to be the wrong fit with your business?

Outsourcing – this option lets you buy the hours you need, when you need them. There’s no additional admin associated with payroll, pensions, or recruitment. It’s easy to turn and turn off the support as you need it. You’ll be hiring a professional used to working on different systems and adapting to different processes.

Whilst outsourcing is likely to be a more cost effective option in itself, it’s also that outsourcing fixes your initial problem – not enough time – and doesn’t introduce additional tasks such as different administrative paperwork and managing an employee.

This is how you can reclaim time as a small business

When deciding whether to outsource or hire in admin support, this is a useful exercise that we recommend to all our clients.

Make a note of all the tasks over one week that you could hand over to someone else. You may be surprised by how much someone else could do for you. Consider:

● Managing your diary – setting up appointments, blocking time for strategising or family activities
● Overseeing your inbox – deleting spam, popping emails into folders, answering standard questions
● Booking travels or investigating options
● Chasing invoices or payments
● Preparing documents and presentations
● Customer feedback, follow ups and CRM systems
● Research and can you ‘just find out’ tasks

There may be more specifically for your business. Once you have this information, you have a brief for an outsourced PA agency.

What would you do with those extra hours each month? How many new contracts could you win with that time? Or how many days could you finish a little earlier in order to unwind and think.

It’s very straightforward to outsource tasks to Hour Hands. Our team of professionals will listen to what you want to achieve and why, before suggesting a package or a one-off activity investment. This is a personal service delivered by a dedicated team that is keen to build a strong relationship with you and your business.

To get started, you can either email us on hello@hourhands.co.uk or call 01727 818262 or even complete the form on our website. Why not contact us today? It will lead to a no obligation conversation and it will definitely lead to you discovering additional time and energy.

Let’s speak soon.

---

The research cited comes from Amex’s annual SME Business Barometer, run with Small Business Saturday UK, published on 20th July, 2026.

It surveyed 1,000 owners of UK micro, small and medium-sized businesses. Respondents estimated they spend an average of 11 hours a week on admin or finance tasks, about six working days a month, and just over half that time, 3.6 days a month, on sales and business development.

54% say paperwork gets in the way of running their business, and 36% name their own lack of capacity as the biggest barrier to growth.