Three of the most common support titles in private life are used almost interchangeably. A principal says they need a PA. The brief describes an EA. The role as hired turns out to be a Chief of Staff. The wrong title on the door produces the wrong hire within the office.
This article explains what each role actually does at UHNW and family office level, how scope and authority differ, where salaries sit, and how to decide which one your office needs. The distinction matters because the candidate pools are not the same. A strong PA is rarely a strong Chief of Staff. A strong EA rarely wants to be a PA. Hiring the wrong title wastes six months and usually costs a placement.
For current opportunities, see our job board. To discuss a search, see our Executive & Administrative Support page.
A useful shorthand, before the detail.
A Personal Assistant supports a person. The remit is personal life. The relationship is intimate and practical.
An Executive Assistant supports a principal in their working capacity. The remit is professional. The relationship is structured around the principal's external commitments, correspondence, and schedule.
A Chief of Staff runs an office. The remit is strategic and operational. The relationship is with the principal as leader of a team, not as an individual.
In real life, these lines blur. One hire often covers more than one role. A senior EA at a UHNW principal's office may also carry elements of Chief of Staff. A long-tenured PA may quietly become the office's Chief of Staff without the title changing. That drift is where most of the confusion comes from.
Scope. A PA's world is the principal's personal life. Diary for personal commitments, travel (private jets, villas, yachts, hotels), correspondence with friends and family, health appointments, shopping, gifting, household coordination, and the hundreds of small logistical matters that fill a principal's day-to-day life.
Reporting line. Direct to the principal. The PA is rarely a manager of other staff, though they often coordinate with household staff on behalf of the principal.
Nature of the work. Immediate, reactive, and personal. A PA anticipates the principal's preferences, adapts to shifting priorities, and holds a running mental map of the principal's life.
The availability reality. "Flexible hours" means something different to every candidate. If you cannot define what urgent means at 10pm on a Saturday, you will lose this hire within a year. PA roles at UHNW level are long hours, always on, and inherently boundary-blurring. Candidates who thrive are the ones who know this before they accept and who have arranged their own lives around it.
Candidate profile. Long-tenured experience supporting a single principal. Discretion, instinct, and a service orientation. PAs rarely come from corporate EA backgrounds. The mindset is different.
Typical salary (UK, UHNW level). £55,000 to £90,000 for a career PA. £90,000 to £130,000 plus for long-tenured senior PAs with broad scope. Discretionary bonuses can be significant at the senior end.
Scope. An EA supports the principal's professional life. External meetings, board or advisory commitments, professional correspondence, conference calls, document preparation, briefing notes, and the choreography of business travel and engagements.
Reporting line. Direct to the principal in most UHNW settings. In larger family offices, the EA may report to the Chief of Staff or Family Office Director, with direct access to the principal as needed.
Nature of the work. Structured, anticipatory, and information-dense. A strong EA filters what reaches the principal, frames it, and holds the lines between competing claims on the principal's time. They are a judgement role dressed in an administrative title.
Senior EAs overlap with Chief of Staff territory. At the top of the EA market, the remit extends into meeting design, external stakeholder management, project coordination, and occasional representation. This overlap is where titles stop being reliable and scope becomes the only useful conversation.
Candidate profile. Previous EA experience at a senior principal, whether corporate, entrepreneurial, or family office. Clear written communication, organisational rigour, and the temperament to hold confidential information without visibly carrying the weight.
Typical salary (UK, UHNW level). £70,000 to £120,000 for strong EAs. £110,000 to £180,000 plus bonus for senior EAs at principal level. In some cases significantly higher, especially where the EA has grown into a quasi Chief of Staff role.
Scope. A Chief of Staff runs the principal's office. They convene advisers, drive initiatives, coordinate between the principal and external stakeholders, manage the flow of decisions, and hold accountability for outcomes the principal has delegated. In family offices, they often sit across private life, business life, and philanthropic activity.
Reporting line. Direct to the principal. The Chief of Staff typically has authority over other office staff, advisers on specific projects, and external vendors engaged by the office.
Nature of the work. Strategic, coordinating, and political. The Chief of Staff is not the principal's assistant. They are the principal's right hand, expected to frame decisions, close issues on the principal's behalf, and manage the team that supports the principal's life and work.
Authority is the defining feature. A Chief of Staff without real authority cannot do the job. Most families think they decide by committee. In practice, one person decides and the others find out later. Write down how it actually works, not how it should work. The Chief of Staff needs that document, because without it the role has no frame.
Candidate profile. Previous Chief of Staff experience at a comparable scale, or senior EA who has already drifted into Chief of Staff territory. Strategic thinking, political judgement, project management, and the confidence to carry the principal's authority into rooms the principal does not enter.
Typical salary (UK, UHNW level). £130,000 to £250,000 base, plus discretionary bonus often 25% to 100% of base. At the senior end, with equity, carry, or deal participation, total compensation can be significantly higher.
Roles in private life rarely stay fixed. A PA takes on professional matters while the principal's EA is on leave, and the work sticks. An EA steadily absorbs Chief of Staff responsibilities over several years without the title ever changing. This drift is common, unavoidable to some extent, and often the cause of later hiring mistakes.
The scenario is familiar. A founder's long-tenured EA has been with them since the business had five employees. Now there are family office staff, advisers, philanthropic activity, and a growing team. The EA is quietly doing all the coordinating. The title eventually changes to Chief of Staff. The seat becomes harder. The incumbent sometimes grows into it. Often they do not, and the office starts to run into coordination problems that no amount of hours will fix.
The other side of the same problem: hiring a Chief of Staff into an office that still runs like a PA's world. The Chief of Staff arrives expecting authority, framework, and delegation. What they find is a principal who still wants to decide everything and an EA who still wants to be the sole gatekeeper. The Chief of Staff is blocked at every turn and usually leaves within eighteen months.
Senior support salaries do not follow a market curve. They follow contribution. In support roles, salary follows contribution, not a career ladder. A PA who has spent five years with a principal and holds every relationship is worth far more than the open market would pay. They know it. So does the principal. That is why these roles rarely come to market.
This dynamic shapes both hiring and retention. It is hard to poach a senior PA or EA because they would take a pay cut to move. It is hard to hire at the senior end because the best are in-seat, often have been for a decade, and are not looking. When they do move, the move is driven by the principal's circumstances (death, divorce, succession, business sale) rather than career progression.
For clients hiring at this level, two implications.
Do not expect public salary data to reflect the UHNW market. Published EA and PA ranges are a mid-market signal. The top of the private segment is often double.
Do not underpay to match a corporate benchmark. A PA or Chief of Staff under-paid relative to the principal's expectations will be lost to a peer household within two years. The cost of replacing them, including the loss of institutional knowledge, exceeds the cost of paying market rate.
Three questions clarify the decision.
Is the role primarily about the principal's personal life or professional life? Personal = PA. Professional = EA. If the answer is both, and the scope is large, the real role may be Chief of Staff.
Does the role carry authority to close decisions on the principal's behalf? If yes, it is a Chief of Staff. If the role can only prepare, organise, and anticipate, it is an EA or PA.
Does the role manage other people? A PA rarely does. An EA sometimes does. A Chief of Staff almost always does.
If the answers point to Chief of Staff but the principal is not ready to delegate authority, hire an EA and let the role evolve. A Chief of Staff hired into an office that cannot support the role will leave. An EA hired into an office that eventually needs a Chief of Staff can often grow with it.
Calling the role a PA when it is actually an EA. Produces candidates who can organise a villa but cannot draft a briefing note.
Calling the role an EA when it is actually a Chief of Staff. Produces candidates who will diarise well but will not convene advisers or close decisions.
Calling the role a Chief of Staff when it is actually a senior EA. Produces disappointed candidates who wanted strategic scope and found themselves running the inbox.
Hiring an EA to replace a Chief of Staff who left. Usually the wrong move. If the office needed a Chief of Staff before, downgrading the seat creates new problems.
Promoting a long-tenured EA to Chief of Staff without assessment. Sometimes works. More often the incumbent struggles with the new scope. Honest assessment, including external benchmarking, is worth the discomfort.
Oplu starts every support-staff search with a scoping conversation, not a job description. We ask what the role actually does day to day, what authority it carries, who it reports to, and who reports to it. The title usually becomes clear in that conversation, and so does the candidate profile.
We have placed PAs who became Chiefs of Staff and Chiefs of Staff who transitioned back into senior EA roles when the office structure changed. The title is a signal. The scope is the real brief. We focus on the second.
For current opportunities, see our job board. To discuss a search, get in touch.
A PA supports the principal's personal life: diary, travel, household coordination, and day-to-day logistics. An EA supports the principal's professional life: external meetings, correspondence, briefing notes, and business travel. At UHNW level, senior PAs and EAs often carry elements of each role, but the orientation is different.
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