Business Analyst Contract Job Trends

Business Analyst (BA)
UK

The median Business Analyst (BA) daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 40 51
Rank change year-on-year -17 +11 -14
Contract jobs requiring a Business Analyst 2,081 1,638 1,468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.79% 5.01% 3.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.11% 5.50% 4.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,374 1,110 1,072
10th Percentile £363 £350 £363
25th Percentile £426 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £616
90th Percentile £675 £750 £724
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +8.57% -2.78% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 9 11
10th Percentile £28.03 £27.13 £19.59
25th Percentile £34.87 £31.49 £25.92
Median hourly rate £58.50 £32.89 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +77.87% -22.61% -21.30%
75th Percentile £76.75 £40.00 £68.88
90th Percentile £104.00 £59.19 £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.90 £40.00 £34.80
% change year-on-year +67.25% +14.96% -42.01%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 50,606 29,766 35,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.04% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,920 18,783 21,484
10th Percentile £325 £276 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,907 1,587 1,616
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.79
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.69
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.97
% change year-on-year +69.49% -42.97% +0.50%

Business Analyst
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Business Analyst' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Business Analyst job vacancy trend in the UK

Business Analyst
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Business Analyst job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Business Analyst job vacancies in the UK

Business Analyst
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Business Analyst over the 6 months to 23 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Business Analyst in the UK

Business Analyst
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Business Analyst job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Business Analyst job vacancies in the UK

Business Analyst
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Business Analyst over the 6 months to 23 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Business Analyst in the UK

Business Analyst
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Business Analyst within the UK over the 6 months to 23 September 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -21 1,746 £520 +4.00% 1,053
London -16 1,016 £525 -8.70% 501
UK excluding London -15 852 £475 +8.57% 670
Work from Home -12 638 £500 -3.38% 440
North of England -29 251 £463 +10.45% 176
South East -5 178 £500 +5.26% 169
Midlands -4 167 £459 +19.87% 99
West Midlands +17 128 £450 -7.69% 60
North West -29 111 £440 +3.29% 89
Scotland +5 110 £465 +9.41% 66
Yorkshire -22 103 £475 +17.00% 59
South West -1 80 £494 +6.81% 63
North East -14 38 £525 +31.09% 28
East Midlands -28 38 £460 +28.49% 39
Wales 0 31 £448 -3.24% 12
East of England -22 30 £463 +2.78% 52
Northern Ireland +4 13 £444 -15.48% 36
Channel Islands -4 2 £550 +18.92%

Business Analyst Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 23 September 2026, Business Analyst contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Business Analyst in the job title.

1 777 (37.34%) Stakeholder Management
2 733 (35.22%) Business Analysis
3 700 (33.64%) Agile
4 690 (33.16%) Requirements Gathering
5 605 (29.07%) Workshop Facilitation
6 562 (27.01%) User Stories
7 409 (19.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 390 (18.74%) User Acceptance Testing
9 330 (15.86%) Acceptance Criteria
10 254 (12.21%) SQL
11 252 (12.11%) Problem-Solving
12 239 (11.48%) JIRA
12 239 (11.48%) Validation
13 234 (11.24%) Process Improvement
14 232 (11.15%) Data Analysis
15 220 (10.57%) Migration
16 212 (10.19%) AI
17 208 (10.00%) Decision-Making
18 191 (9.18%) Microsoft
19 184 (8.84%) Data Modelling
20 171 (8.22%) Scrum
20 171 (8.22%) Security Cleared
21 166 (7.98%) Confluence
22 159 (7.64%) Azure
22 159 (7.64%) Requirements Workshops
23 158 (7.59%) Degree
24 151 (7.26%) Translating Business Requirements
25 145 (6.97%) GAP Analysis
25 145 (6.97%) Project Delivery
26 137 (6.58%) Impact Assessments

Business Analyst Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 166 (7.98%) Confluence
2 24 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.38%) CMS
4 5 (0.24%) Jupyter
4 5 (0.24%) SAS
5 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.14%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.096%) Apache
6 2 (0.096%) Appian
6 2 (0.096%) Camunda
7 1 (0.048%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.048%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.048%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.048%) Moodle
7 1 (0.048%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.048%) PowerExchange
7 1 (0.048%) Totara
Applications
1 105 (5.05%) MS Visio
2 72 (3.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 33 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.19%) Notion
5 4 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.096%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.048%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.048%) Trello
8 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 38 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
2 31 (1.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 17 (0.82%) Salesforce CRM
4 13 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
5 12 (0.58%) Aladdin
5 12 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
6 11 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.48%) Endur
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.38%) Maximo
10 6 (0.29%) Workday HCM
11 5 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.24%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.24%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.19%) HFM
12 4 (0.19%) NetSuite
12 4 (0.19%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.19%) SAP SCM
13 3 (0.14%) PeopleSoft HCM
13 3 (0.14%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 159 (7.64%) Azure
2 129 (6.20%) Power Platform
3 77 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
4 55 (2.64%) Dynamics 365
5 54 (2.59%) AWS
6 35 (1.68%) SaaS
7 29 (1.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 23 (1.11%) Lucidchart
8 23 (1.11%) Snowflake
9 21 (1.01%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 20 (0.96%) Microsoft 365
11 19 (0.91%) Miro
12 13 (0.62%) SuccessFactors
13 12 (0.58%) GCP
13 12 (0.58%) Microsoft Copilot
14 11 (0.53%) Entra ID
15 10 (0.48%) Power Automate
16 9 (0.43%) Azure Data Factory
16 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Purview
17 8 (0.38%) IBM Blueworks
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.34%) Network Security
2 6 (0.29%) Intranet
3 4 (0.19%) Wireless
4 3 (0.14%) DNS
4 3 (0.14%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.096%) 802.11
5 2 (0.096%) Cisco ISE
5 2 (0.096%) Internet
5 2 (0.096%) VPN
5 2 (0.096%) WAN
5 2 (0.096%) Wireless Security
5 2 (0.096%) WLAN
6 1 (0.048%) Broadband
6 1 (0.048%) HTTP
6 1 (0.048%) LAN
6 1 (0.048%) PBX
6 1 (0.048%) Radio Access Network
6 1 (0.048%) SNMP
6 1 (0.048%) TETRA
6 1 (0.048%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.29%) Power BI
2 47 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
3 39 (1.87%) Metadata
4 32 (1.54%) Data Lake
5 21 (1.01%) Tableau
6 10 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
7 9 (0.43%) Relational Database
8 8 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
9 7 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (0.29%) Data Mining
10 6 (0.29%) GIS
10 6 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 6 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (0.24%) MongoDB
11 5 (0.24%) SQL Server
12 4 (0.19%) Electronic Patient Records
13 3 (0.14%) Big Data
13 3 (0.14%) Looker
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
13 3 (0.14%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 239 (11.48%) JIRA
2 2 (0.096%) Balsamiq
2 2 (0.096%) Eclipse
2 2 (0.096%) GitLab
2 2 (0.096%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.048%) Oracle Forms
3 1 (0.048%) Rational DOORS
3 1 (0.048%) SonarQube
General
1 732 (35.18%) Finance
2 642 (30.85%) Social Skills
3 440 (21.14%) Analytical Skills
4 290 (13.94%) Banking
5 169 (8.12%) Documentation Skills
6 163 (7.83%) Public Sector
7 140 (6.73%) Retail
8 99 (4.76%) Front Office
9 75 (3.60%) Investment Banking
10 72 (3.46%) Legal
11 58 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
12 54 (2.59%) Manufacturing
12 54 (2.59%) Presentation Skills
13 38 (1.83%) Local Government
14 36 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
15 35 (1.68%) Back Office
16 34 (1.63%) Financial Institution
17 32 (1.54%) Billing
18 28 (1.35%) Marketing
19 26 (1.25%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
2 20 (0.96%) Middleware
3 16 (0.77%) JSON
4 15 (0.72%) XML
5 11 (0.53%) ADO
6 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
7 5 (0.24%) FHIR
7 5 (0.24%) Gherkin
7 5 (0.24%) Terraform
8 4 (0.19%) 802.1X
8 4 (0.19%) NumPy
8 4 (0.19%) Pandas
8 4 (0.19%) STL
8 4 (0.19%) VML
9 3 (0.14%) EDI
9 3 (0.14%) FIX Protocol
9 3 (0.14%) OpenAPI
9 3 (0.14%) Swagger
10 2 (0.096%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.096%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 212 (10.19%) Product Ownership
2 93 (4.47%) Onboarding
3 59 (2.84%) Derivative
4 50 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
5 37 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
5 37 (1.78%) Data Structures
6 36 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
7 35 (1.68%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 32 (1.54%) Fixed Income
9 30 (1.44%) Management Information System
10 28 (1.35%) NHS
11 27 (1.30%) Credit Risk
12 24 (1.15%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.11%) Reference Data
14 22 (1.06%) Equities
15 19 (0.91%) FMCG
16 18 (0.86%) AI Agents
16 18 (0.86%) Market Risk
17 17 (0.82%) Hedge funds
18 15 (0.72%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 16 (0.77%) Windows
2 4 (0.19%) Android
3 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.048%) Linux
4 1 (0.048%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 777 (37.34%) Stakeholder Management
2 733 (35.22%) Business Analysis
3 700 (33.64%) Agile
4 690 (33.16%) Requirements Gathering
5 605 (29.07%) Workshop Facilitation
6 562 (27.01%) User Stories
7 409 (19.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 390 (18.74%) User Acceptance Testing
9 330 (15.86%) Acceptance Criteria
10 252 (12.11%) Problem-Solving
11 239 (11.48%) Validation
12 234 (11.24%) Process Improvement
13 232 (11.15%) Data Analysis
14 220 (10.57%) Migration
15 212 (10.19%) AI
16 208 (10.00%) Decision-Making
17 184 (8.84%) Data Modelling
18 171 (8.22%) Scrum
19 159 (7.64%) Requirements Workshops
20 151 (7.26%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 254 (12.21%) SQL
2 33 (1.59%) Python
3 14 (0.67%) Korn
4 8 (0.38%) Java
5 5 (0.24%) PL/SQL
6 3 (0.14%) R
7 2 (0.096%) C#
7 2 (0.096%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.096%) VBA
8 1 (0.048%) ABAP
8 1 (0.048%) C
8 1 (0.048%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.048%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.048%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.048%) Ruby
8 1 (0.048%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.048%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 171 (8.22%) Security Cleared
2 158 (7.59%) Degree
3 134 (6.44%) SC Cleared
4 45 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
5 37 (1.78%) IIBA
6 31 (1.49%) CBAP
7 25 (1.20%) PMI Certification
8 23 (1.11%) ACCA
9 22 (1.06%) CIMA
10 17 (0.82%) PMP
11 13 (0.62%) DV Cleared
12 12 (0.58%) FFIEC
13 10 (0.48%) ISEB
14 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.34%) ISTQB
16 6 (0.29%) CSPO
16 6 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 6 (0.29%) Master's Degree
17 5 (0.24%) Computer Science Degree
18 4 (0.19%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (6.54%) Data Quality
2 108 (5.19%) QA
3 34 (1.63%) GDPR
4 26 (1.25%) NIST
5 22 (1.06%) MiFID
6 20 (0.96%) PMO
7 18 (0.86%) EMIR
8 16 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 15 (0.72%) Accessibility
10 14 (0.67%) GRC
10 14 (0.67%) IFRS
10 14 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.58%) COBIT
12 11 (0.53%) Basel III
13 10 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 7 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 5 (0.24%) GxP
15 5 (0.24%) SEPA
16 4 (0.19%) FINREP
16 4 (0.19%) ISO 15022
System Software
1 13 (0.62%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.096%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (0.14%) HP ALM
1 3 (0.14%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.048%) Autotask
2 1 (0.048%) Control-M
2 1 (0.048%) Grafana
2 1 (0.048%) Kibana
Vendors
1 191 (9.18%) Microsoft
2 131 (6.30%) SAP
3 123 (5.91%) Salesforce
4 75 (3.60%) ServiceNow
5 70 (3.36%) Oracle
6 34 (1.63%) Murex
7 24 (1.15%) Databricks
8 22 (1.06%) Workday
9 18 (0.86%) CyberArk
10 15 (0.72%) IBM
11 14 (0.67%) Ariba
12 13 (0.62%) Bloomberg
12 13 (0.62%) Guidewire
13 12 (0.58%) IFS
14 11 (0.53%) Charles River
15 10 (0.48%) Pega
16 8 (0.38%) Calypso
16 8 (0.38%) OpenLink
17 7 (0.34%) Avaloq
17 7 (0.34%) Informatica