Requirements

Personal assistant - requirements

Personal assistants, also known as executive assistants or secretaries, use their strong communication, multitasking, and time-management skills to help senior figures with a variety of administrative tasks. Here we explore what this job involves and what you might need to study.

Know what you'll need to land a job below.

What qualifications do you need to be a personal assistant or other secretary?

A degree can go a long way. Subjects to consider include:

While you don’t need a degree to become a personal assistant or secretary, it can help when it comes to applying for jobs. Otherwise, career progression without the necessary skills and knowledge can be much harder.

Please note this is a beta version. We'll continue to improve our suggestions here so that we show you the most relevant subjects.

Do you need a postgraduate qualification to be a personal assistant or other secretary?

A postgraduate degree isn’t always needed to become a personal assistant, but it definitely helps to have one. Degrees from all disciplines are usually accepted for personal assistant roles.

Examples of taught MAs and research degrees at postgraduate level include MAs in:

Business
Masters in business administration
Public administration
Finance
Economics
International relations
Law
Communications

What skills do you need to be a personal assistant or other secretary?

As well as managing a busy diary and keeping up to date with administrative tasks, you’ll also need to have good time-keeping and communication skills.

Hard skills usually include:

Sales
Finance
Microsoft Office
Customer relationship management
Administrative support
Data management

Soft skills include:

Communications
Public speaking
Listening
Multi-tasking
Organisation

Do you need work experience to be a personal assistant or other secretary?

It’s always a good idea to get some work experience under your belt, especially if you don’t have a degree. If you decide to go to university, we recommend getting some work experience or doing an internship while studying to give yourself an advantage over other candidates. This normally takes place in the summer of the second year at uni.