virtual assistant
Virtual Assistant: someone who handles admin, emails, scheduling or research for a client remotely, usually paid hourly or per task, often for people abroad.
In plain English
Can you really earn a living sitting in your room in Lagos or Enugu, working for someone you have never met, who lives in London or Toronto? That question has probably crossed your mind if you have ever seen someone post a screenshot of a dollar payment and wondered what exactly they did to earn it.
A virtual assistant, often shortened to VA, is someone who does the behind the scenes work that keeps a business running, but does it from anywhere with a laptop and steady internet. This could mean replying to emails, booking flights, managing someone's calendar, posting on social media, organising spreadsheets, or doing research for a report. The work is real work. It is just not done in the same building as the person paying for it.
Take Ngozi, who used to work as an office administrator in Abuja. She now works fifteen hours a week for a small property business in the United Kingdom, managing tenant emails and updating rent schedules on a spreadsheet. She never meets her boss in person, they talk through video calls and a shared calendar, and she gets paid in pounds, which she converts to naira through a transfer app whenever the rate looks decent.
This is one of the calm ways the diaspora economy and the local economy now touch each other. A busy dentist in Manchester does not have time to sort her own invoices, so she pays someone in Ibadan a fair hourly rate to do it, and both sides win. No visa, no relocation, no jet lag, just a shared calendar and clear instructions.
The pay varies a lot depending on skill and client. A beginner doing simple data entry might charge ₦1,500 to ₦2,500 an hour, while someone skilled in bookkeeping, content writing or project management for overseas clients can charge much more. The real skill is more than typing fast, it is being reliable, organised and easy to trust from a distance, since your client cannot see you working, only the results you send back.
Tunde works as a virtual assistant for an estate agent in Leeds, spending about twenty hours a week answering client emails and updating property listings. He charges £8 an hour, which comes to roughly £160 a week, and after converting to naira through a transfer app, he uses part of it to pay his younger sister's school fees this term.
Questions people ask
Do I need a certificate to become a virtual assistant?
No formal certificate is required, though short courses in tools like Google Workspace, Trello or bookkeeping software can make you more attractive to clients. What matters most to employers is reliability, good communication and proof that you can handle tasks without constant supervision.
How do virtual assistants usually get paid from abroad?
Most clients pay through international transfer platforms, PayPal, Wise, or direct bank transfers, often in dollars or pounds. The money is then converted to naira, and it is worth comparing rates across platforms since they can differ and affect how much actually lands in your account.
Is virtual assistant work stable or just a side gig?
It can be either. Some people do it part time alongside another job, while others build it into a full time career by working with several clients at once. Stability usually comes from having more than one client, so losing one does not mean losing all your income.
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