A full-time assistant for about £1,500 a month.

No. The Philippines is 7 hours ahead of the UK in summer and 8 in winter. Your remote professional works a 3pm–11pm Manila shift, which is 8am–4pm in your money — you're working live, in the same day. They're on your Slack, they answer your calls, they join your Monday meeting. If you'd rather have work landing in your inbox at 7am, you can choose an overnight shift instead. It's your call.

English is an official language of the Philippines and the language of instruction in schools and universities. Every candidate is degree-educated and assessed by the provider on written and spoken English before reaching your shortlist. More importantly: you interview them. If the English isn't right for you, you don't hire them.

You aren't employing anyone, and neither is Loomo. The professional is employed by a registered employer in the Philippines who handles their contract, payroll, statutory benefits and local compliance. You pay an invoice for a service — a supplier relationship like any other. That means no overseas payroll registration, no permanent establishment risk and no visa questions. As with any new supplier arrangement, it's worth a quick word with your own accountant.

The provider signs NDAs as standard. Access runs through your systems and your permissions and is revocable instantly, with password managers rather than shared spreadsheets, background-checked staff and a managed office environment rather than someone's kitchen table. Because personal data may move outside the UK, appropriate international transfer safeguards are put in place, and we'll walk you through what that means for your business.

Usually one of three things went wrong: you hired on a freelance marketplace and got someone juggling six clients; there was no onboarding, just a login and hope; or you hired for tasks rather than a role, so nobody owned anything. What's different here is a full-time, dedicated person, structured onboarding, a defined role with real ownership, and a managed employer handling HR and performance behind them.

You won't manage HR, payroll, IT, contracts, holiday, sick leave, performance reviews or discipline — that's all handled on the ground. What you manage is the work: a 15-minute daily check-in for the first fortnight, then weekly. If you can run a Monday morning meeting, you can do this.

The provider replaces them, with no replacement fee. You can scale hours up or down as your workload changes, and if you need to stop entirely you give notice and stop — there's no long lock-in. Compare that to a UK hire leaving: another recruitment fee, a three-month notice period and six weeks of ramp-up.

No, and it matters that it isn't. The people placed are degree-educated professionals on properly employed contracts with benefits and progression, earning a genuinely good salary in their own economy. The gap is cost of living, not exploitation — £1,500 a month is a professional salary in Manila. The UK business gets capacity it couldn't otherwise afford; the professional gets a career with an international company.