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 25 August 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 40 47
Rank change year-on-year -14 +7 -10
Contract jobs requiring a Business Analyst 2,091 1,631 1,591
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.90% 4.98% 4.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.22% 5.46% 4.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,382 1,121 1,135
10th Percentile £363 £350 £363
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £675 £750 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £439 £450
% change year-on-year +8.26% -2.50% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 10 13
10th Percentile £28.03 £27.17 £19.92
25th Percentile £34.19 £31.49 £26.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.45 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.45% -21.31% -25.44%
75th Percentile £78.55 £56.08 £68.00
90th Percentile £104.00 £74.13 £76.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.19 £51.80 £34.80
% change year-on-year -6.98% +48.87% -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 49,605 29,863 36,126
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.22% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,683 18,859 22,977
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,539 1,568 1,933
10th Percentile £14.99 £13.64 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.21 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.92 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.68% -41.51% -1.58%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 25 August 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 25 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Business Analyst in the UK

Business Analyst
Top 17 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 25 August 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 -18 1,751 £520 +1.96% 484
London -16 1,011 £550 -4.35% 251
UK excluding London -1 861 £475 +8.26% 284
Work from Home -7 659 £500 -4.31% 195
North of England -12 260 £463 +8.82% 86
Midlands -2 170 £465 +24.00% 50
South East -10 169 £500 +5.26% 44
West Midlands +14 130 £475 - 34
North West -26 122 £439 +2.39% 39
Scotland +14 115 £450 +5.39% 24
Yorkshire -11 102 £475 +16.56% 31
South West +3 81 £480 +1.69% 47
East Midlands -25 38 £460 +28.49% 16
North East -15 37 £525 +20.00% 18
East of England -11 33 £475 +5.56% 10
Wales -4 28 £448 -3.76% 3
Northern Ireland +3 14 £444 -15.48% 21

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

For the 6 months to 25 August 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.

1 710 (33.96%) Stakeholder Management
2 705 (33.72%) Business Analysis
3 694 (33.19%) Agile
4 635 (30.37%) Requirements Gathering
5 580 (27.74%) Workshop Facilitation
6 565 (27.02%) User Stories
7 411 (19.66%) User Acceptance Testing
8 410 (19.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 328 (15.69%) Acceptance Criteria
10 258 (12.34%) SQL
11 247 (11.81%) JIRA
12 243 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
13 239 (11.43%) Validation
14 227 (10.86%) Process Improvement
15 226 (10.81%) Data Analysis
16 220 (10.52%) Migration
17 199 (9.52%) AI
18 194 (9.28%) Decision-Making
19 181 (8.66%) Microsoft
20 177 (8.46%) Data Modelling
21 172 (8.23%) Scrum
21 172 (8.23%) Security Cleared
22 170 (8.13%) Confluence
23 167 (7.99%) Azure
24 160 (7.65%) Degree
25 150 (7.17%) Translating Business Requirements
26 141 (6.74%) Project Delivery
27 140 (6.70%) Requirements Workshops
28 139 (6.65%) GAP Analysis
29 138 (6.60%) Business Intelligence

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
1 170 (8.13%) Confluence
2 29 (1.39%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.33%) CMS
4 5 (0.24%) Jupyter
4 5 (0.24%) SAS
5 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.14%) Camunda
6 2 (0.096%) Apache
6 2 (0.096%) Appian
6 2 (0.096%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.096%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.096%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.048%) Moodle
7 1 (0.048%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.048%) PowerExchange
7 1 (0.048%) Totara
Applications
1 111 (5.31%) MS Visio
2 77 (3.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 33 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 30 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.19%) Notion
5 4 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.048%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.048%) InfoPath
6 1 (0.048%) Trello
Business Applications
1 32 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.77%) Salesforce CRM
4 14 (0.67%) Aladdin
5 10 (0.48%) Endur
5 10 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
6 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.43%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.33%) Maximo
7 7 (0.33%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.29%) Findur
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.29%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.24%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 5 (0.24%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.19%) Actimize
10 4 (0.19%) HFM
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.19%) SAP SCM
10 4 (0.19%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 167 (7.99%) Azure
2 130 (6.22%) Power Platform
3 75 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
4 52 (2.49%) AWS
5 49 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
6 30 (1.43%) SaaS
7 29 (1.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 25 (1.20%) Microsoft 365
9 24 (1.15%) Snowflake
10 19 (0.91%) Lucidchart
10 19 (0.91%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 16 (0.77%) Miro
12 14 (0.67%) SuccessFactors
13 13 (0.62%) Entra ID
13 13 (0.62%) GCP
13 13 (0.62%) Microsoft Copilot
14 11 (0.53%) Microsoft Purview
14 11 (0.53%) Power Automate
15 9 (0.43%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (0.38%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 11 (0.53%) Network Security
2 6 (0.29%) Wireless
3 5 (0.24%) DNS
3 5 (0.24%) Intranet
4 2 (0.096%) 802.11
4 2 (0.096%) Cisco ISE
4 2 (0.096%) Firewall
4 2 (0.096%) Internet
4 2 (0.096%) VPN
4 2 (0.096%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (0.096%) Wireless Security
4 2 (0.096%) WLAN
5 1 (0.048%) 5G
5 1 (0.048%) Broadband
5 1 (0.048%) LAN
5 1 (0.048%) PBX
5 1 (0.048%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.048%) SNMP
5 1 (0.048%) VoIP
5 1 (0.048%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (5.31%) Power BI
2 47 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
3 36 (1.72%) Metadata
4 31 (1.48%) Data Lake
5 25 (1.20%) Tableau
6 13 (0.62%) Relational Database
7 9 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
7 9 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
8 8 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
9 7 (0.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 6 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (0.24%) Data Mining
11 5 (0.24%) SQL Server
12 4 (0.19%) Big Data
12 4 (0.19%) GIS
12 4 (0.19%) MongoDB
12 4 (0.19%) RDBMS
13 3 (0.14%) Looker
13 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 247 (11.81%) JIRA
2 4 (0.19%) Balsamiq
3 3 (0.14%) Eclipse
4 2 (0.096%) GitLab
4 2 (0.096%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.048%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.048%) SonarQube
General
1 734 (35.10%) Finance
2 649 (31.04%) Social Skills
3 449 (21.47%) Analytical Skills
4 284 (13.58%) Banking
5 171 (8.18%) Documentation Skills
6 159 (7.60%) Public Sector
7 137 (6.55%) Retail
8 100 (4.78%) Front Office
9 78 (3.73%) Legal
10 77 (3.68%) Investment Banking
11 57 (2.73%) Presentation Skills
12 49 (2.34%) Manufacturing
13 46 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
14 39 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
15 37 (1.77%) Financial Institution
16 35 (1.67%) Back Office
16 35 (1.67%) Local Government
17 32 (1.53%) Billing
18 29 (1.39%) Marketing
19 26 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
2 20 (0.96%) Middleware
3 19 (0.91%) XML
4 15 (0.72%) JSON
5 14 (0.67%) ADO
6 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
7 6 (0.29%) FHIR
8 5 (0.24%) STL
8 5 (0.24%) Terraform
9 4 (0.19%) 802.1X
9 4 (0.19%) NumPy
9 4 (0.19%) Pandas
9 4 (0.19%) REST
9 4 (0.19%) VML
10 3 (0.14%) EDI
10 3 (0.14%) FIX Protocol
10 3 (0.14%) OpenAPI
10 3 (0.14%) Swagger
11 2 (0.096%) Gherkin
11 2 (0.096%) SAP ALE
Miscellaneous
1 206 (9.85%) Product Ownership
2 87 (4.16%) Onboarding
3 61 (2.92%) Derivative
4 51 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
5 44 (2.10%) Analytical Mindset
6 36 (1.72%) Data Structures
7 35 (1.67%) Fixed Income
7 35 (1.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 35 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
8 34 (1.63%) Management Information System
9 30 (1.43%) NHS
10 25 (1.20%) Credit Risk
11 24 (1.15%) Operational Technology
12 22 (1.05%) Hedge funds
12 22 (1.05%) Reference Data
13 21 (1.00%) Equities
14 20 (0.96%) Market Risk
15 19 (0.91%) AI Agents
16 17 (0.81%) FMCG
16 17 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 8 (0.38%) Windows
2 4 (0.19%) Android
2 4 (0.19%) Apple iOS
2 4 (0.19%) Unix
3 1 (0.048%) Linux
3 1 (0.048%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.048%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 710 (33.96%) Stakeholder Management
2 705 (33.72%) Business Analysis
3 694 (33.19%) Agile
4 635 (30.37%) Requirements Gathering
5 580 (27.74%) Workshop Facilitation
6 565 (27.02%) User Stories
7 411 (19.66%) User Acceptance Testing
8 410 (19.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 328 (15.69%) Acceptance Criteria
10 243 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
11 239 (11.43%) Validation
12 227 (10.86%) Process Improvement
13 226 (10.81%) Data Analysis
14 220 (10.52%) Migration
15 199 (9.52%) AI
16 194 (9.28%) Decision-Making
17 177 (8.46%) Data Modelling
18 172 (8.23%) Scrum
19 150 (7.17%) Translating Business Requirements
20 141 (6.74%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 258 (12.34%) SQL
2 35 (1.67%) Python
3 14 (0.67%) Korn
4 8 (0.38%) Java
5 3 (0.14%) R
6 2 (0.096%) PL/SQL
6 2 (0.096%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.096%) VBA
7 1 (0.048%) ABAP
7 1 (0.048%) C
7 1 (0.048%) C#
7 1 (0.048%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.048%) Groovy
7 1 (0.048%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.048%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.048%) Ruby
7 1 (0.048%) SOQL
7 1 (0.048%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 172 (8.23%) Security Cleared
2 160 (7.65%) Degree
3 135 (6.46%) SC Cleared
4 38 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 35 (1.67%) IIBA
6 32 (1.53%) CBAP
7 27 (1.29%) PMI Certification
8 17 (0.81%) PMP
9 16 (0.77%) ACCA
9 16 (0.77%) CIMA
10 13 (0.62%) FFIEC
10 13 (0.62%) ISEB
11 12 (0.57%) DV Cleared
12 7 (0.33%) ISTQB
12 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (0.29%) CSPO
13 6 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 6 (0.29%) Master's Degree
14 4 (0.19%) Azure Certification
14 4 (0.19%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (6.31%) Data Quality
2 116 (5.55%) QA
3 39 (1.87%) GDPR
4 34 (1.63%) NIST
5 23 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (1.05%) MiFID
6 22 (1.05%) PMO
7 20 (0.96%) EMIR
8 17 (0.81%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.72%) GRC
10 14 (0.67%) COBIT
11 13 (0.62%) ISO 20022
12 10 (0.48%) IFRS
13 8 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
13 8 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.38%) SLA
14 7 (0.33%) Basel III
14 7 (0.33%) Solvency II
15 6 (0.29%) HL7
15 6 (0.29%) SEPA
System Software
1 14 (0.67%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.096%) Docker
5 1 (0.048%) RACF
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%) Jamf Pro
2 1 (0.048%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (0.048%) RSA Archer
2 1 (0.048%) SCCM
Vendors
1 181 (8.66%) Microsoft
2 133 (6.36%) SAP
3 128 (6.12%) Salesforce
4 87 (4.16%) ServiceNow
5 66 (3.16%) Oracle
6 32 (1.53%) Murex
7 26 (1.24%) Databricks
8 22 (1.05%) Workday
9 17 (0.81%) CyberArk
10 14 (0.67%) Ariba
11 12 (0.57%) Bloomberg
11 12 (0.57%) Guidewire
11 12 (0.57%) IBM
11 12 (0.57%) Pega
12 11 (0.53%) Charles River
13 10 (0.48%) Planon
13 10 (0.48%) Zscaler
14 9 (0.43%) IFS
14 9 (0.43%) OpenLink
15 8 (0.38%) Avaloq