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 8 January 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 48 37
Rank change year-on-year 0 -11 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Business Analyst 1,693 1,318 2,071
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.59% 4.08% 4.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.03% 4.41% 5.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,192 971 1,514
10th Percentile £350 £369 £386
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +0.96%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £615
90th Percentile £700 £731 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% +3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 12 6
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.26 £23.51
25th Percentile £27.97 £29.26 £27.50
Median hourly rate £35.75 £38.38 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.85% -8.63% +53.54%
75th Percentile £67.32 £71.06 £64.11
90th Percentile £87.25 £80.18 £68.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.69 £31.52 £67.56
% change year-on-year +63.98% -53.35% +451.51%

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 33,689 29,904 39,536
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.29% 92.67% 93.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,326 18,317 26,399
10th Percentile £300 £293 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,972 925 1,611
10th Percentile £14.35 £15.57 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.00 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.54 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.35% -26.97% +34.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.41 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.10 £45.88
% change year-on-year -19.13% -32.21% +69.13%

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 8 January 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 8 January 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 8 January 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 +3 1,492 £500 -4.76% 364
London -1 928 £525 -7.28% 139
UK excluding London +12 634 £450 - 299
Work from Home +2 555 £500 - 154
North of England +7 205 £425 -5.56% 79
Midlands +9 133 £435 -8.42% 44
South East -3 101 £478 -2.05% 97
Yorkshire +8 93 £475 +5.56% 28
North West -8 90 £400 -6.43% 41
West Midlands -11 81 £475 -5.00% 29
South West +30 80 £469 -1.32% 29
Scotland -9 63 £447 +5.18% 13
East Midlands +9 53 £358 -10.50% 15
North East +20 36 £425 +3.03% 11
East of England -14 24 £500 -2.44% 19
Wales +18 23 £425 +2.41% 13
Northern Ireland -3 13 £525 +75.00% 6

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

For the 6 months to 8 January 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.

1 634 (37.45%) Agile
2 549 (32.43%) Stakeholder Management
3 529 (31.25%) Business Analysis
4 440 (25.99%) Requirements Gathering
5 365 (21.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 356 (21.03%) Workshop Facilitation
7 350 (20.67%) User Stories
8 284 (16.77%) Problem-Solving
9 238 (14.06%) JIRA
10 236 (13.94%) User Acceptance Testing
11 217 (12.82%) Migration
12 203 (11.99%) SQL
13 175 (10.34%) Confluence
14 169 (9.98%) Security Cleared
15 168 (9.92%) Degree
16 165 (9.75%) Data Analysis
17 161 (9.51%) Acceptance Criteria
18 160 (9.45%) Scrum
19 158 (9.33%) Process Improvement
20 157 (9.27%) Microsoft
21 146 (8.62%) Waterfall
22 140 (8.27%) Decision-Making
23 139 (8.21%) Project Delivery
24 138 (8.15%) GAP Analysis
24 138 (8.15%) SC Cleared
25 133 (7.86%) Data Modelling
25 133 (7.86%) Project Management
26 130 (7.68%) Change Management
27 128 (7.56%) Analytics
27 128 (7.56%) 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
1 175 (10.34%) Confluence
2 29 (1.71%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.53%) SAS
4 6 (0.35%) CMS
5 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
6 3 (0.18%) Camunda
7 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.059%) Mule
8 1 (0.059%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 119 (7.03%) MS Visio
2 114 (6.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 62 (3.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 57 (3.37%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.41%) Trello
7 5 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.24%) Autodesk Inventor
8 4 (0.24%) Notion
9 1 (0.059%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.059%) Sketch
9 1 (0.059%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 39 (2.30%) Endur
2 29 (1.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.71%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.65%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.59%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.24%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.18%) FIS Private Capital Suite
10 3 (0.18%) Markit EDM
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.18%) SAP HR
11 2 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
11 2 (0.12%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.12%) SAP GTS
11 2 (0.12%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 127 (7.50%) Power Platform
2 84 (4.96%) Azure
3 66 (3.90%) AWS
4 34 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
5 33 (1.95%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (1.89%) Dynamics 365
7 31 (1.83%) SaaS
8 30 (1.77%) Lucidchart
9 26 (1.54%) Miro
10 18 (1.06%) GCP
11 15 (0.89%) GitHub
12 14 (0.83%) Power Automate
12 14 (0.83%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 14 (0.83%) Snowflake
13 13 (0.77%) PowerApps
14 11 (0.65%) Figma
15 10 (0.59%) Entra ID
16 8 (0.47%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 8 (0.47%) SuccessFactors
17 7 (0.41%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.24%) Firewall
1 4 (0.24%) Network Security
2 3 (0.18%) Internet
3 2 (0.12%) Broadband
3 2 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
3 2 (0.12%) Intranet
3 2 (0.12%) NAS
3 2 (0.12%) SD-WAN
3 2 (0.12%) WAN
3 2 (0.12%) X.25
4 1 (0.059%) ATM
4 1 (0.059%) DNS
4 1 (0.059%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.059%) LAN
4 1 (0.059%) Softphone
4 1 (0.059%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (6.44%) Power BI
2 45 (2.66%) Tableau
3 28 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.24%) Metadata
5 14 (0.83%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.35%) Data Lake
6 6 (0.35%) Power Query
6 6 (0.35%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.30%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.30%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.24%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (0.24%) Big Data
8 4 (0.24%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.18%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.18%) SAP BW
10 2 (0.12%) GIS
10 2 (0.12%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 238 (14.06%) JIRA
2 13 (0.77%) Jenkins
3 12 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (0.35%) Postman
5 4 (0.24%) Git
6 2 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.12%) Charles Proxy
6 2 (0.12%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.059%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.059%) Axure RP
7 1 (0.059%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.059%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.059%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.059%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 690 (40.76%) Social Skills
2 599 (35.38%) Finance
3 375 (22.15%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (15.12%) Banking
5 174 (10.28%) Public Sector
6 115 (6.79%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (3.78%) Influencing Skills
8 63 (3.72%) Retail
9 62 (3.66%) Legal
10 58 (3.43%) Investment Banking
11 54 (3.19%) Front Office
12 51 (3.01%) Presentation Skills
13 46 (2.72%) Back Office
14 45 (2.66%) Telecoms
15 44 (2.60%) Marketing
16 30 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
17 25 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 25 (1.48%) Local Government
18 24 (1.42%) Financial Institution
18 24 (1.42%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (1.95%) REST
2 28 (1.65%) XML
3 16 (0.95%) SOAP
4 14 (0.83%) SailPoint
5 13 (0.77%) JSON
6 10 (0.59%) OAuth
6 10 (0.59%) Swagger
7 9 (0.53%) ADO
8 7 (0.41%) SAML
9 6 (0.35%) .NET
9 6 (0.35%) JWT
9 6 (0.35%) Middleware
9 6 (0.35%) OpenAPI
9 6 (0.35%) RESTful
9 6 (0.35%) VML
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Fusion
11 4 (0.24%) Anaconda
11 4 (0.24%) FHIR
11 4 (0.24%) Gherkin
11 4 (0.24%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 131 (7.74%) Product Ownership
2 79 (4.67%) Onboarding
3 42 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
4 38 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
5 37 (2.19%) Analytical Mindset
6 34 (2.01%) Management Information System
7 32 (1.89%) PMI
8 29 (1.71%) Fixed Income
9 28 (1.65%) Derivative
10 27 (1.59%) Data Structures
10 27 (1.59%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 25 (1.48%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 24 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
13 22 (1.30%) Equities
14 19 (1.12%) Credit Risk
14 19 (1.12%) NHS
15 17 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (0.95%) Data Centre
17 13 (0.77%) Mobile App
18 12 (0.71%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 17 (1.00%) Linux
2 11 (0.65%) Windows
3 6 (0.35%) VMS
4 2 (0.12%) Android
4 2 (0.12%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.12%) Solaris
4 2 (0.12%) Unix
5 1 (0.059%) AIX
5 1 (0.059%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.059%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 634 (37.45%) Agile
2 549 (32.43%) Stakeholder Management
3 529 (31.25%) Business Analysis
4 440 (25.99%) Requirements Gathering
5 365 (21.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 356 (21.03%) Workshop Facilitation
7 350 (20.67%) User Stories
8 284 (16.77%) Problem-Solving
9 236 (13.94%) User Acceptance Testing
10 217 (12.82%) Migration
11 165 (9.75%) Data Analysis
12 161 (9.51%) Acceptance Criteria
13 160 (9.45%) Scrum
14 158 (9.33%) Process Improvement
15 146 (8.62%) Waterfall
16 140 (8.27%) Decision-Making
17 139 (8.21%) Project Delivery
18 138 (8.15%) GAP Analysis
19 133 (7.86%) Data Modelling
19 133 (7.86%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 203 (11.99%) SQL
2 45 (2.66%) Python
3 8 (0.47%) JavaScript
4 7 (0.41%) Korn
5 5 (0.30%) C#
5 5 (0.30%) Java
5 5 (0.30%) R
5 5 (0.30%) VBA
6 3 (0.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.12%) PowerShell
8 1 (0.059%) Apex Code
8 1 (0.059%) Bash
8 1 (0.059%) C++
8 1 (0.059%) COBOL
8 1 (0.059%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 169 (9.98%) Security Cleared
2 168 (9.92%) Degree
3 138 (8.15%) SC Cleared
4 61 (3.60%) CBAP
5 44 (2.60%) PMI Certification
6 29 (1.71%) IIBA
7 28 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (0.95%) Master's Degree
8 16 (0.95%) PMP
9 15 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
10 13 (0.77%) CSPO
11 11 (0.65%) ISEB
12 9 (0.53%) DV Cleared
13 8 (0.47%) CFA
14 5 (0.30%) ACCA
14 5 (0.30%) MBA
15 4 (0.24%) CIMA
16 3 (0.18%) AWS Certification
16 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (5.26%) QA
2 74 (4.37%) Data Quality
3 60 (3.54%) GDPR
4 32 (1.89%) MiFID
5 21 (1.24%) EMIR
6 16 (0.95%) PSD2
7 15 (0.89%) ISO 20022
8 13 (0.77%) GRC
9 12 (0.71%) Accessibility
10 11 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 10 (0.59%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.59%) SEPA
12 9 (0.53%) ISO 8583
12 9 (0.53%) PMO
13 8 (0.47%) NIST
14 7 (0.41%) Basel III
14 7 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 6 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 5 (0.30%) IFRS
System Software
1 8 (0.47%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.059%) Docker
2 1 (0.059%) Hyper-V
2 1 (0.059%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (0.059%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (0.77%) Ansible
2 6 (0.35%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.12%) SCCM
5 1 (0.059%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 1 (0.059%) Terraform
Vendors
1 157 (9.27%) Microsoft
2 104 (6.14%) Salesforce
3 85 (5.02%) SAP
4 55 (3.25%) Oracle
5 34 (2.01%) ServiceNow
6 21 (1.24%) Murex
7 19 (1.12%) MuleSoft
8 17 (1.00%) Bloomberg
9 16 (0.95%) Google
10 14 (0.83%) OpenLink
11 13 (0.77%) Adobe
11 13 (0.77%) Pega
12 11 (0.65%) Workday
13 10 (0.59%) Sonatype
14 9 (0.53%) Guidewire
14 9 (0.53%) OneTrust
15 8 (0.47%) Atlassian
15 8 (0.47%) CyberArk
16 7 (0.41%) Avaloq
17 6 (0.35%) IBM