PA training in the UK: how to choose a course that is worth your time
Good PA training in the UK should make a real difference to how you work on the Monday after the course. It should be written for the Personal Assistant role as it really is, taught by someone who has done the job, and built around the things that make a PA so valuable to the leader they support, such as judgement, anticipation, influence and the ability to protect someone’s time. There is a lot of choice out there and it isn’t always easy to tell from a brochure which courses will do that, so I’d like to share how I would go about choosing.
I spent fifteen years as a senior Executive Assistant, much of it in FTSE 100 chief executive offices, and went on to manage a global team of 60 EAs with a training budget to look after, so I have thought about training both as an EA and as the person signing it off. I now build every programme eavolve delivers, and I hope this is useful wherever you end up booking.
Firstly, know what kind of training you’re looking at
In my experience, PA training in the UK tends to fall into three kinds, and the name on the brochure won’t always tell you which is which.
1. Core skills courses.
These cover things like minute-taking, Office software and diary management, and they can be really useful if you’re new to the role or want to fill a specific gap (much of this is also available free online, so it’s worth having a look first). They give you a good foundation, although they won’t necessarily help you develop the judgement, influence and anticipation that experienced PAs rely on.
2. General professional development.
Communication skills, time management and assertiveness are all worthwhile subjects and a good trainer can teach them well, but if a course has been designed for a general audience, the examples won’t reflect your work, which can make it difficult to bring what you’ve learnt back to your desk.
3. Development built for the role.
This is training that starts with a leader’s inbox, diary and priorities, is taught by people who have done the job themselves and recognises the PA as the strategic partner they are. It’s the kind I would always encourage you to look for, although it can be harder to find.
What PA training should actually cover
If you’re investing in a course, I would want to see at least four of these covered:
- Judgement about what matters, because you are deciding many times a day what deserves your leader’s attention, which is really the heart of the role.
- Understanding the business, so that you have enough commercial awareness to follow the conversations your leader is having and to spot when something in a paper doesn’t add up.
- Influence without authority, which means holding a line with people more senior than you whilst keeping the relationship intact (something PAs do every day and are rarely taught).
- Briefing and writing in your leader’s voice, whether that’s turning a long document into one page or drafting a reply that gets signed without changes.
- Working with AI without losing your judgement, including where the tools help with the inbox, the diary and repeated tasks, where they can be confidently wrong, and what should never be pasted into them.
- Articulating your own value, so that you can describe your impact in terms the business recognises and be paid and promoted for the role you actually do.
We have written about all of these in the skills a modern Executive Assistant needs in 2027, and every one of them applies to PAs too.
Online or in person?
Both can work really well, but I think they suit different things. Online is ideal for one-to-one coaching, where the subject is your own situation and the value is in the conversation, which is why our coaching runs online and a PA in Edinburgh gets exactly the same session as a PA in London. Group training on how you influence, how you brief and how you use your judgement under pressure is a little different, because you really benefit from having other PAs in the room, working through real scenarios and getting feedback as you go. That’s why our training days run in person in London and Manchester, and if a full training day is being offered over a video call, I would ask how the practical work will be handled.
Does accreditation matter?
It can, particularly when your L&D team needs CPD hours to approve the spend, or when you’re early in your career and would like a recognised certificate on your CV. Both of our training days are CPD accredited, and I know that can make a real difference when you’re making the case to the business. However, accreditation on its own doesn’t tell you whether a course is right for you, so I would always look first at who is teaching and what you will leave with.
Five questions to ask before you book
I would ask these before booking anything, whether you’re looking at a training day, a coaching series or a membership:
- Who is teaching or coaching me, and have they done the PA or EA job themselves?
- Was this written for PAs and EAs, or adapted from something generic?
- Will I be working on my own role and my own challenges, rather than examples written for someone else?
- If it is a group, how many people will be in it, and will I get genuine attention?
- What should be different in my work afterwards, and how will I know?
A good provider will be very happy to answer all five, and for the first one in particular, I would look for a PA or EA career in the biography.
What eavolve offers PAs
Our EA and PA programmes are for both roles together, because they overlap far more than the titles suggest. The EA & PA Strategy Training Day is the deeper investment in how you operate, and it’s CPD accredited, in person and in a small group. The Future Ready EA & PA Training Day is a CPD accredited day on AI built only for our roles, working in the tools you already have. Coaching is one to one and online from £195 plus VAT, and The Secret Club is a peer group for EA and PA professionals. You can see everything under EA and PA training, and we have also set out how our prices compare with the rest of the UK market.
Getting it paid for
Many of the PAs who attend our days are funded by their employer, and I think the case is easier to make than you might expect when you frame it around what your leader gets back. We have set it out step by step in how to ask your employer to fund your training. If you would like to talk through which option suits you (and that includes when the answer is none of ours!), please book a free 30-minute Discovery Call.
Frequently asked questions
There is no single qualification that employers require. Some providers offer Ofqual-regulated awards and university-level certificates, and these can help early in a career or where an employer wants a certificate for its records. CPD accreditation can also help when your organisation needs evidence of CPD hours to approve the spend. I would always look first at what the training will change in your work, because that is what will make the biggest difference to your career.
Yes, and it depends what you need. One-to-one coaching works well online, which is how our EA and PA coaching runs, because it is a conversation about your specific situation. Group training on how you operate, influence and use your judgement works far better in person, where you practise on real scenarios with other PAs and get real feedback. Our training days run in person in London and Manchester for that reason.
From around £200 for a single coaching session to more than £4,000 for a week-long course. Most specialist in-person training days sit between £500 and £1,750 plus VAT. We have compared the main UK providers’ prices in how much EA training costs in the UK, and the same figures apply to PAs because the good providers train both roles together.
Read more from us…
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PA training in the UK: how to choose a course that is worth your time
Good PA training should make a real difference to how you work on the Monday after. Emily Partridge on the three kinds of PA training you'll find in the UK, what a course should really cover, online versus in person, and five questions to ask before you book.
How to write an executive assistant CV that gets you interviews
A recruiter's guide to the executive assistant CV: what employers look for, how to turn duties into evidence, the details that quietly cost interviews, and when a CV needs to change for a Chief of Staff role. From Lily Shippen.
