Executive Assistant

An Executive Assistant (EA) works directly for one or more senior people — a chief executive, partner, director or founder — managing their time, information and communications so they can focus on decisions only they can make. The job mixes complex diary and travel management with meeting preparation, handling confidential information, and acting as a gatekeeper and point of contact between the executive and everyone else, inside and outside the organisation. EAs exist across almost every sector: corporates, law and finance, the NHS and wider public sector, universities, charities and startups.

Starting salary: £22k–£28k
Live graduate jobs: 26 open now
Main way in: Direct application to a junior administrative role
They usually ask for: A degree is often not required at all

Approximate graduate salary

Entry-level administrative and team assistant roles that lead into this career typically start somewhere around £22,000–£28,000, with EA roles supporting genuinely senior executives usually higher — often in the region of £30,000–£45,000 and above with experience. These are broad approximations only: London pay is noticeably higher than most of the rest of the UK, law, finance and private equity pay more than charities, universities and much of the public sector, and senior EA salaries in the City can go well beyond these ranges.

What you'd actually do

Running a complex diary: booking, moving and defending meetings across time zones, resolving clashes when three people all want the same hour, and building in travel and preparation time rather than back-to-back slots.
Triaging an inbox — often the executive's as well as your own — flagging what needs a decision, drafting replies for approval, and answering routine queries yourself so they never reach the executive.
Organising travel end to end: flights, trains, hotels, visas where relevant, transfers, and a printed or shared itinerary that holds together when a flight is cancelled at 6am.
Preparing for meetings: circulating agendas, chasing people for papers that are late, compiling briefing packs so the executive knows who they are meeting and why, and taking and circulating minutes or action points for board and committee meetings.

Show 3 more

Processing expenses, raising purchase orders, tracking invoices and sometimes managing a small budget for the executive's office or team events.
Co-ordinating events — team away days, client dinners, board meetings, all-staff sessions — including venues, catering, dietary requirements and the inevitable last-minute changes.
Being the human interface: greeting visitors, handling sensitive phone calls, and quietly relaying information between the executive and department heads, often knowing about decisions before they are announced.

How graduates get in

Direct application to a junior administrative role — team administrator, office assistant, receptionist, business support officer — and moving up to EA after proving you can handle pressure and confidentiality. This is by far the most common route; genuine graduate-entry EA jobs are not the norm.
Temping through an agency, particularly in London and other big cities. Many EAs got their first break covering someone's maternity leave or holiday, then being kept on. Agencies that specialise in business support are a realistic way in for a graduate with no experience.
Working as a team assistant or PA (personal assistant) supporting several mid-level managers, then stepping up to support one senior executive. The PA-to-EA move is the standard progression and the two titles overlap heavily.
Internal moves — joining an organisation on a graduate scheme or in an operations/coordination role and transferring into executive support when a vacancy appears. Less common deliberately, but it happens.

Show 2 more

Occasionally, employers advertise 'EA to the CEO' roles in small companies and startups that are open to bright graduates with strong organisational instincts, because the salary budget is modest and the founder wants someone who will grow with them. These are worth applying for but are a minority of listings.
Sector-specific administrative routes — NHS band-level business support, university faculty administration, civil service administrative officer grades — which can lead to EA-equivalent posts supporting directors or chief executives.

What employers ask for

A degree is often not required at all — this is one of the few professional office roles where demonstrated competence usually beats qualifications. Where a degree is asked for, the subject rarely matters.
Evidence of administrative or customer-facing experience. Part-time retail, hospitality, student union committee work, running a society's events — these genuinely count, because they show you can juggle people and logistics under time pressure.
Confident use of Microsoft Outlook (or Google Workspace), Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus increasingly tools like Teams, Zoom, Slack and expense systems. Some employers will test this at interview.
Fast, accurate written English. You will be drafting on someone else's behalf, so grammar and tone matter more than in many graduate roles.

Show 2 more

Discretion and a clean record of handling confidential information. Some roles — government, defence, finance, healthcare — require security clearance or specific background checks.
Optional professional credentials exist (for example qualifications and membership offered by professional bodies for administrative professionals, or shorthand and minute-taking courses), and a few employers value them, but they are not a standard entry requirement.

Skills that matter

Prioritisation under conflicting demands

On any given day several people will want the executive's time and you decide what gets the slot, so you need judgement about what is genuinely urgent versus what feels urgent to the person asking.

Anticipation

The best EAs solve problems before the executive notices them — booking the earlier train because the meeting is likely to overrun, or printing the contract because they always want it on paper.

Discretion and emotional neutrality

You will see redundancy plans, salary data, performance issues and unguarded emails, and the role collapses the moment anyone suspects you repeat things.

Saying no politely to senior people

A large part of gatekeeping is declining meeting requests from directors and clients without causing offence, which takes diplomacy rather than simple assertiveness.

Attention to detail in logistics

A wrong postcode, a mis-booked time zone or a missing dial-in number wastes the time of a room full of senior people, and those errors are highly visible.

Composure when plans collapse

Flights are cancelled, executives fall ill before board meetings and documents arrive an hour late, and your job is to rebuild the day calmly rather than escalate the panic.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Team administrator or team assistant supporting a group of people, learning systems, diaries and office processes. Often where graduates start.
PA or EA to a mid-level director or department head, with your own single principal and more responsibility for their external relationships.
EA to a C-suite executive (chief executive, chief financial officer and similar) or to a senior partner. At this level the work includes board paper co-ordination, managing other assistants, and more involvement in how the executive's office is run.
Chief of Staff, Business Manager or Office Manager/Head of Business Support — roles that move from supporting one person to running projects, managing budgets or leading an administrative team. The Chief of Staff route is more common in startups, consultancies and tech than in traditional corporates.
Sideways moves are genuinely common and often deliberate: EAs move into HR, operations, project management, events, facilities, communications or practice management, because they already understand how the organisation actually works. Timelines across all of this vary enormously — some people reach C-suite support within a few years, others stay happily at one level for a long career, and experienced EAs to high-profile principals are often paid more than middle managers.

What people get wrong

“It's secretarial work — typing, filing and fetching coffee — and therefore a dead end.”

At senior level an EA controls access to one of the most powerful people in the organisation, sees confidential strategy before most directors do, and makes judgement calls daily about what the executive sees and who gets time with them. Experienced EAs to chief executives are well paid and hard to replace.

“A good degree will get you straight into an EA role supporting a chief executive.”

Most EA jobs are filled on proven track record rather than academics. Employers hiring support for a senior leader want someone who has already demonstrated they won't crumble when a board meeting goes wrong, which usually means a few years in administrative or team-support roles first.

“Technology and AI scheduling tools are making the role obsolete.”

Software handles the mechanical parts of booking, but the valuable part of the job is judgement — deciding whose request matters, reading the politics of a situation, and knowing that a particular meeting needs to happen in person. That has, if anything, become a bigger share of the work.

“EA and PA mean the same thing everywhere.”

The titles overlap and some employers use them interchangeably, but broadly a PA supports a person with their working life, while an EA is expected to operate more at a business level — board governance, budgets, project co-ordination, managing other support staff. Check the actual duties in the advert rather than the title.

Where this varies

The role changes shape a lot depending on where you do it. In a startup or small charity, an EA is often also the office manager, HR administrator and events organiser rolled into one, with broad scope and little formality. In a large corporate, law firm or bank, the role is more defined, there may be a team of EAs with a shared structure and a hierarchy between those supporting partners and those supporting junior directors, and hours can be long and unpredictable. In the NHS, universities and the civil service, the equivalent posts sit on published pay bands or grades, are more process-driven, and involve a lot of formal committee and governance work — minute-taking and papers for boards and committees can be a large part of the job. Hours and expectations around availability also vary sharply: some EAs work predictable office hours, while others are expected to be contactable in the evening or while their executive travels. Finally, hybrid working has changed things unevenly — some EA roles are now largely remote, but many employers still want the EA physically present when the executive is in the office.

See all 26 live Executive Assistant jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.