Become a Personal Assistant

If you become a Personal Assistant or PA, you’ll support a person who has care and support needs to live independently in their own home and local community.  

Types of support you may offer as a Personal Assistant

  • personal care – washing, dressing and toileting
  • preparing meals and support with eating
  • household tasks such as cleaning, laundry or gardening
  • paying bills
  • leisure and social activities
  • shopping
  • accessing work or college
  • driving someone to wherever they need to go
  • participating in hobbies

For more information on what it’s like to be a Personal Assistant, please visit:

Skills for care website

Video: What is the role of a Personal Assistant? (duration, 12:11)

The benefits of working as a Personal Assistant

  • Flexibility – you can:
    • find hours to fit around your other responsibilities
    • work for more than one person
  • Shaping your own career:
    • the work will be unique to you and the person you are supporting
    • no two days are likely to be the same
    • opportunities to use your current skills and interests as well as developing new ones
    • often better paid than working through an agency

Skills and experience

You don’t necessarily need any qualifications to become a PA, as you may have personal lived experience of caring and supporting someone.

It is important though, that you are someone who is: 

  • reliable, dependable and trustworthy
  • kind and patient
  • caring 
  • respectful of other people’s privacy, dignity, values and beliefs and wants a job that makes a positive difference to other people’s lives
  • a good listener

If you've looked after someone and now want to get back into work, you’ll have gained a lot of knowledge which means you could be ideally suited to being a PA.

Terms and conditions of employment

In most cases, you’ll be recruited and employed by the person you’ll be supporting. As an employee you’ll have employment rights. 

Your employer will interview you and provide you with a job description.

If you’re offered the position, they will:

  • arrange for you to have a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check if you don’t already have one
  • decide and agree what work you will do and your working pattern
  • give you a written contract of employment of your terms and conditions, e.g. holidays, notice periods and redundancy
  • provide you with an induction programme
  • agree your hourly rate of pay
  • pay your wages into your bank account and be responsible for tax and NI contributions to HMRC
  • arrange for you to opt in or out of a workplace pension
  • provide access to any training you may need and specialist training related to a disability or health condition

Learning and training

Skills for Care

You can find lots of information about training and courses on the Skills for Care website for PA’s and their employers.  

Skills for Care also provide a fund for employers to help with the cost of training.

Find work as a Personal Assistant

Register your interest with Adult social care on our PA Noticeboard

If you’d like us to contact you about opportunities to work as a PA, please visit the Personal Assistant (PA) Jobs Noticeboard and also register online.

You will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions, including the terms of use when you register. Please note our digital noticeboard is available in over 100 languages.

If you have any further queries or need support to register on the noticeboard then email DPSOemploymentsupport@leics.gov.uk 

Apply for a job

Our careers site also advertises current personal assistant vacancies.