United Kingdom Advisor

Caroline Wylie

United Kingdom Advisor

I’m excited to be part of such a diverse group of VAs and be representing the UK in establishing a professional standard for the virtual assistant industry. As well as building trust amongst clients, it will also encourage VAs to expand their knowledge and continue their professional development in a structured way.

Caroline has been a VA since 2004 in her business, Virtually Sorted, which is based in Glasgow, Scotland.  With a background in the music and advertising industries, she has worked in creative industries for over 10 years as a PA both in London and Glasgow.  Trying to escape climbing the corporate ladder and avoid wearing a suit every day, Caroline switched into entrepreneur mode to challenge her thirst for learning and knowledge.

Virtually Sorted works with over 40 clients from throughout the UK, served by a pool of assistants who perform call answering, audio typing, bookkeeping and general PA tasks.  Caroline lives between Scotland and England enjoying the benefits of working virtual office to spend time with her family in Glasgow and her boyfriend in London – along with her Burmese cat, Lottie, who also travels extensively!

As the virtual assistance in the UK was a fledgling industry in 2004, she worked with a collection of Scottish virtual assistants to educate businesses about virtual working.  It rapidly grew to include many virtual assistants from outside Scotland, which prompted a name change to the Society of Virtual Assistants in 2006.

As a VA who runs a “real business which pays the mortgage” rather than a lifestyle business, she’s keen to promote the professionalism of virtual assistants and the value they add to their clients businesses.

Further Highlights About Caroline Wylie:

The Society of Virtual Assistants is a free-to-join organisation offers advice, support, training, listings and a forum to UK based VAs.  UK VAs found that much of the information available was aimed specifically at the US market and was not relevant to the UK, given the different legal, accounting and technology systems.  So SVA provides advice specific to the UK industry.

It also improves standards within the industry by establishing ground rules which members must follow.  These include an agreed 24 hour response time to any email or phone message received from clients within normal business hours; a professional quality email address/website and a self-certified competence to complete the tasks they accept.