Armasourcing Research
Philippine VA Talent Map
Explore where Filipino virtual assistants are, what they ask to be paid and what they do, across 1,021 applicants. The national median is $714 a month, but that hides a 28 percent spread between regions. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom, click any region.
Drag to pan · scroll to zoom · click a region
- 30 to 52 applicants
- 86 applicants
- 138 to 141 applicants
- 204 to 221 applicants
- Under 30, not reported
- $625 median
- $714 median
- $800 median
- Under 30, not reported
- 2 to 13 admin & ea applicants
- 16 admin & ea applicants
- 33 admin & ea applicants
- 64 to 68 admin & ea applicants
- None recorded
- 1 to 5 customer support applicants
- 10 customer support applicants
- 20 customer support applicants
- 30 to 35 customer support applicants
- None recorded
- 1 to 7 marketing applicants
- 10 marketing applicants
- 14 to 16 marketing applicants
- 24 marketing applicants
- 32 marketing applicants
- None recorded
- 1 creative applicants
- 2 creative applicants
- 3 creative applicants
- 4 creative applicants
- 5 creative applicants
- None recorded
- 1 to 2 finance applicants
- 3 finance applicants
- 6 to 7 finance applicants
- 9 finance applicants
- None recorded
Middle 50%: $592 to $958
73.5% of those with salary data
At least 30 applicants each
Highest to lowest regional median
What the map shows
Where Filipino virtual assistants are actually located
Four findings that are hard to see in a national average and obvious on a map.
Four regions supply 69 percent of all applicants
Calabarzon, Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Central Visayas together account for 704 of the 1,021 mapped applicants. Luzon as a whole supplies 667, against 208 from the Visayas and 146 from Mindanao. Anyone recruiting Filipino virtual assistants through open job ads will meet Luzon candidates by default, which is a fact about where applications originate rather than about where capable people live.
Metro Manila carries a 28 percent premium over Western Visayas
Metro Manila and Calabarzon both post a $800 median expected salary. Western Visayas, Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao all sit at $625. That gap is real, but it is smaller than the cost of living difference between those places, which is the argument for hiring outside the capital rather than the argument against paying properly. For a full breakdown of what drives the number, see the Filipino virtual assistant salary report.
Cebu is the only genuine second hub
Central Visayas contributes 138 applicants at a $800 median, the only region outside Luzon with both the volume and the salary expectations of a mature market. Davao Region follows with 86 applicants but at $625, which makes it the value option rather than the premium one.
Customer support concentrates differently from admin work
Customer support is 42 percent of classified applicants in Davao Region against 26 percent in Metro Manila, where admin and executive assistant work dominates instead. Use the role filters above to see this directly: the map redraws for each role family. If you are staffing a phone or chat line specifically, the call centre outsourcing in the Philippines page covers how that team is built, and call centre attrition rates covers why the wrong location choice shows up as churn six months later.
Using this data
How to use the map when hiring a virtual assistant
Location is one input among several, and on its own it is a weak one.
Budget from the range, not the median. The middle 50 percent in most regions spans several hundred dollars, so a single median is a starting point rather than an offer. The virtual assistant cost calculator turns a role list into a monthly figure, and the call centre outsourcing cost calculator does the same for a support team.
Do not treat a low regional median as a discount. Paying the bottom of a regional range buys the bottom of that region's pool. The gap between a strong and a weak hire is far larger than the gap between two regions, which is what the customer service screening report found when only a small fraction of applicants cleared testing.
Check infrastructure before geography. Home internet quality varies more within a region than between regions, and it disqualifies more otherwise qualified candidates than any other single factor. Our contact centre research covers the connectivity gate in detail on the contact centre outsourcing hub.
More tools. Every calculator and interactive tool we publish is listed on the free hiring tools hub. For how AI assistants describe this industry, see the AI visibility index.
Full data
Every region, including the ones we will not report on
Applicant counts are shown for all 17 regions. Salary figures appear only where the sample clears 30.
| Region | Applicants | Median ask | Middle 50% | Top roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CalabarzonRegion IV-A (Calabarzon) | 221 | $800 | $600 to $960 | Admin & EA 68, Customer Support 35, Marketing 32 |
| Metro ManilaNCR | 204 | $800 | $625 to $1,000 | Admin & EA 64, Customer Support 34, Marketing 24 |
| Central LuzonRegion III (Central Luzon) | 141 | $714 | $536 to $893 | Admin & EA 33, Customer Support 30, Marketing 16 |
| Central VisayasRegion VII (Central Visayas) | 138 | $800 | $600 to $1,000 | Admin & EA 33, Customer Support 20, Marketing 14 |
| Davao RegionRegion XI (Davao) | 86 | $625 | $536 to $803 | Customer Support 20, Admin & EA 16, Marketing 10 |
| Western VisayasRegion VI (Western Visayas) | 52 | $625 | $472 to $800 | Admin & EA 13, Customer Support 10, Marketing 5 |
| Northern MindanaoRegion X (Northern Mindanao) | 30 | $625 | $536 to $803 | Marketing 10, Admin & EA 8, Customer Support 1 |
| CordilleraCAR | 29 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Marketing 7, Admin & EA 6, Customer Support 1 | |
| BicolRegion V (Bicol) | 24 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Admin & EA 7, Customer Support 5, Marketing 3 | |
| IlocosRegion I (Ilocos) | 21 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Admin & EA 5, Marketing 4, Customer Support 2 | |
| Cagayan ValleyRegion II (Cagayan Valley) | 18 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Admin & EA 4, Finance 3, Marketing 2 | |
| Eastern VisayasRegion VIII (Eastern Visayas) | 18 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Admin & EA 6, Marketing 2, Finance 2 | |
| SoccsksargenRegion XII (Soccsksargen) | 13 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Marketing 5, Admin & EA 2, Customer Support 1 | |
| MimaropaMimaropa | 9 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Admin & EA 2, Finance 2, Customer Support 1 | |
| CaragaRegion XIII (Caraga) | 9 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Admin & EA 3, Marketing 2, Customer Support 1 | |
| Zamboanga PeninsulaRegion IX (Zamboanga) | 8 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | Marketing 4, Admin & EA 2 | |
| BangsamoroBARMM | 0 | Below the 30 applicant threshold | None | |
Methodology and limits
What this data is, and what it is not
This is an applicant pool, not a census. Every row is someone who applied to an Armasourcing role between 2025-10 to 2026-07. It describes who applies to these jobs, not the whole Philippine remote workforce. Regions where we recruited harder are better represented, and that is a property of our hiring, not of the country.
These are asks, not wages. Every salary figure is what a candidate said they expected, normalised to US dollars per month. It is not what any employer paid and it is not an Armasourcing rate. For what a role costs to staff, use the virtual assistant cost calculator.
Coverage is 73.5 percent. Of 1,390 applicants with usable salary data, 1,021 named a location specific enough to resolve to a region. Most of the shortfall wrote only "Philippines". Non Philippine locations, and rows where contact details were typed into the location field, were removed before analysis.
Boundaries follow the 2023 PSA region set. The Negros Island Region was re-established in 2024 and is absent from that boundary file, so Negros Occidental is reported within Western Visayas and Negros Oriental within Central Visayas.
The 30 applicant floor applies to salary, not to counts. Below it a median swings on one response and a region plus role plus salary can start to describe a person. Headcounts carry no such risk, so role filters work in every region.
Sources
Sources and reuse
Region definitions follow the Philippine Statistics Authority standard geographic classification. Boundary geometry and the licence are linked below so the map can be reproduced or republished.
- Region boundaries. Philippine administrative boundaries, 2023 set, from the philippines-json-maps dataset, simplified for web rendering.
- Region definitions. Philippine Statistics Authority Philippine Standard Geographic Code, which is the authority for the 17 regions used here.
- Industry context. The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines publishes sector-level workforce figures for the wider outsourcing industry.
- Licence. This dataset is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, so it is free to reuse commercially with credit.
Questions
Common questions about this data
Where are most Filipino virtual assistants located?
Across 1,021 mapped applicants, Calabarzon (221), Metro Manila (204), Central Luzon (141) and Central Visayas (138) supply the largest shares.
How much do Filipino virtual assistants expect to be paid?
The national median expected salary is $714 per month, with a middle 50 percent range of $592 to $958. These are amounts candidates ask for, not amounts employers pay.
Does location change what a Filipino VA asks for?
Yes. Metro Manila and Calabarzon both sit at a $800 median while Davao Region, Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao sit at $625, a spread of about 28 percent.
Why are some regions greyed out on the map?
Any region with fewer than 30 applicants is left unshaded. Publishing a median from a handful of responses would be unreliable and could make individuals identifiable. Applicant counts are still shown.
Is this a census of Filipino virtual assistants?
No. It is an applicant pool from Armasourcing job applications, so it reflects who applied to these roles rather than the whole Philippine remote workforce.
Cite this data
Free to reuse with attribution, including the map and the regional figures. If you publish from it, a link back lets readers check the methodology. We refresh quarterly, so a link stays current.
Armasourcing, "Philippine VA Talent Map," 1,021 applicants, 2025-10 to 2026-07. https://armasourcing.com/philippine-va-talent-map/Hiring from one of these regions?
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