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 15 January 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 48 39
Rank change year-on-year 0 -9 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Business Analyst 1,710 1,292 2,050
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.61% 4.06% 4.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.05% 4.38% 5.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,205 961 1,496
10th Percentile £350 £363 £381
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% +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% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 10 7
10th Percentile £25.00 £24.58 £20.77
25th Percentile £27.97 £26.59 £23.51
Median hourly rate £35.75 £33.39 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.07% +5.98% +35.72%
75th Percentile £67.32 £69.33 £60.66
90th Percentile £87.25 £82.68 £68.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.69 £29.32 £44.17
% change year-on-year +76.26% -33.61% +260.53%

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 33,883 29,520 39,341
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.34% 92.72% 93.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,433 18,105 26,194
10th Percentile £300 £288 £280
25th Percentile £405 £408 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,985 889 1,660
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.24 £21.05 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.30 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.08% -23.53% +21.43%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.29 £45.00
% change year-on-year -19.62% -30.47% +55.17%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +2 1,507 £500 -4.76% 327
London +3 935 £525 -5.62% 111
UK excluding London +11 643 £450 - 297
Work from Home 0 556 £500 - 117
North of England +10 203 £410 -4.65% 75
Midlands +10 136 £425 -10.53% 52
South East +3 105 £475 -2.56% 91
Yorkshire +7 94 £450 - 27
North West -8 88 £395 -7.06% 39
West Midlands +1 84 £475 -5.00% 41
South West +22 82 £463 -2.63% 31
Scotland -2 64 £447 +5.18% 12
East Midlands +7 52 £358 -10.50% 11
North East +20 35 £425 +6.25% 11
Wales +18 24 £425 +2.41% 12
East of England -13 24 £500 - 19
Northern Ireland -2 13 £525 +82.61% 8

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 641 (37.49%) Agile
2 564 (32.98%) Stakeholder Management
3 534 (31.23%) Business Analysis
4 461 (26.96%) Requirements Gathering
5 375 (21.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 368 (21.52%) Workshop Facilitation
7 356 (20.82%) User Stories
8 286 (16.73%) Problem-Solving
9 242 (14.15%) JIRA
10 238 (13.92%) User Acceptance Testing
11 223 (13.04%) Migration
12 204 (11.93%) SQL
13 179 (10.47%) Security Cleared
14 178 (10.41%) Confluence
15 169 (9.88%) Data Analysis
16 164 (9.59%) Degree
17 163 (9.53%) Acceptance Criteria
17 163 (9.53%) Scrum
18 158 (9.24%) Process Improvement
19 155 (9.06%) Microsoft
20 148 (8.65%) SC Cleared
21 146 (8.54%) Waterfall
22 143 (8.36%) Project Delivery
23 142 (8.30%) Decision-Making
24 136 (7.95%) Change Management
24 136 (7.95%) Data Modelling
25 134 (7.84%) Validation
26 132 (7.72%) GAP Analysis
26 132 (7.72%) Project Management
27 127 (7.43%) 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
1 178 (10.41%) Confluence
2 30 (1.75%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.58%) SAS
4 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 4 (0.23%) CMS
5 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
5 3 (0.18%) Camunda
6 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.058%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.058%) Appian
7 1 (0.058%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.058%) Mule
7 1 (0.058%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 123 (7.19%) MS Visio
2 115 (6.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 62 (3.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 54 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
5 10 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.29%) Trello
7 4 (0.23%) Autodesk Inventor
7 4 (0.23%) Notion
8 1 (0.058%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.058%) Sketch
8 1 (0.058%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 39 (2.28%) Endur
2 26 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.70%) Aladdin
4 12 (0.70%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.64%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.29%) Loan IQ
8 4 (0.23%) NEC Housing
9 3 (0.18%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 3 (0.18%) Markit EDM
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 3 (0.18%) SAP HR
10 2 (0.12%) BASE24
10 2 (0.12%) Fidessa
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 125 (7.31%) Power Platform
2 88 (5.15%) Azure
3 68 (3.98%) AWS
4 34 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
5 33 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
6 30 (1.75%) Lucidchart
7 29 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
7 29 (1.70%) SaaS
8 23 (1.35%) Miro
9 18 (1.05%) GCP
10 16 (0.94%) GitHub
10 16 (0.94%) Snowflake
11 14 (0.82%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 13 (0.76%) Power Automate
13 12 (0.70%) PowerApps
14 11 (0.64%) Figma
15 10 (0.58%) Entra ID
16 8 (0.47%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 8 (0.47%) SuccessFactors
17 7 (0.41%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.23%) Firewall
2 3 (0.18%) Internet
2 3 (0.18%) Network Security
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 (0.058%) ATM
4 1 (0.058%) DNS
4 1 (0.058%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.058%) LAN
4 1 (0.058%) Softphone
4 1 (0.058%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (6.26%) Power BI
2 44 (2.57%) Tableau
3 28 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.23%) Metadata
5 14 (0.82%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.35%) Data Lake
6 6 (0.35%) Power Query
7 5 (0.29%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.29%) Oracle Database
7 5 (0.29%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.23%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (0.23%) Big Data
8 4 (0.23%) 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%) Electronic Patient Records
10 2 (0.12%) Looker
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 242 (14.15%) JIRA
2 14 (0.82%) Jenkins
3 13 (0.76%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (0.35%) Postman
5 4 (0.23%) Git
6 2 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.12%) Charles Proxy
6 2 (0.12%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.058%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.058%) Axure RP
7 1 (0.058%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.058%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.058%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.058%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.058%) Toad
General
1 693 (40.53%) Social Skills
2 600 (35.09%) Finance
3 382 (22.34%) Analytical Skills
4 254 (14.85%) Banking
5 172 (10.06%) Public Sector
6 118 (6.90%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
7 64 (3.74%) Retail
8 63 (3.68%) Legal
9 57 (3.33%) Investment Banking
10 56 (3.27%) Front Office
11 52 (3.04%) Presentation Skills
12 47 (2.75%) Back Office
13 46 (2.69%) Telecoms
14 41 (2.40%) Marketing
15 30 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
16 26 (1.52%) Local Government
17 25 (1.46%) Manufacturing
18 24 (1.40%) Financial Institution
18 24 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (1.93%) REST
2 27 (1.58%) XML
3 16 (0.94%) SOAP
4 14 (0.82%) SailPoint
5 13 (0.76%) JSON
6 10 (0.58%) OAuth
7 9 (0.53%) ADO
7 9 (0.53%) Swagger
8 7 (0.41%) SAML
8 7 (0.41%) VML
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
10 5 (0.29%) Oracle Fusion
11 4 (0.23%) FHIR
11 4 (0.23%) Gherkin
11 4 (0.23%) HTML
11 4 (0.23%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 135 (7.89%) Product Ownership
2 76 (4.44%) Onboarding
3 42 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
4 40 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
5 37 (2.16%) Analytical Mindset
6 33 (1.93%) PMI
7 32 (1.87%) Management Information System
8 28 (1.64%) Data Structures
8 28 (1.64%) Fixed Income
9 27 (1.58%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 26 (1.52%) Derivative
10 26 (1.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 21 (1.23%) Credit Risk
11 21 (1.23%) Equities
11 21 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.11%) NHS
13 17 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.88%) Data Centre
15 13 (0.76%) Mobile App
16 12 (0.70%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 17 (0.99%) Linux
2 11 (0.64%) 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 (0.058%) AIX
5 1 (0.058%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.058%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 641 (37.49%) Agile
2 564 (32.98%) Stakeholder Management
3 534 (31.23%) Business Analysis
4 461 (26.96%) Requirements Gathering
5 375 (21.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 368 (21.52%) Workshop Facilitation
7 356 (20.82%) User Stories
8 286 (16.73%) Problem-Solving
9 238 (13.92%) User Acceptance Testing
10 223 (13.04%) Migration
11 169 (9.88%) Data Analysis
12 163 (9.53%) Acceptance Criteria
12 163 (9.53%) Scrum
13 158 (9.24%) Process Improvement
14 146 (8.54%) Waterfall
15 143 (8.36%) Project Delivery
16 142 (8.30%) Decision-Making
17 136 (7.95%) Change Management
17 136 (7.95%) Data Modelling
18 134 (7.84%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 204 (11.93%) SQL
2 47 (2.75%) Python
3 8 (0.47%) JavaScript
4 7 (0.41%) Korn
5 5 (0.29%) Java
5 5 (0.29%) R
5 5 (0.29%) VBA
6 4 (0.23%) C#
7 3 (0.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (0.12%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.058%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.058%) Bash
9 1 (0.058%) C++
9 1 (0.058%) COBOL
9 1 (0.058%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 179 (10.47%) Security Cleared
2 164 (9.59%) Degree
3 148 (8.65%) SC Cleared
4 61 (3.57%) CBAP
5 45 (2.63%) PMI Certification
6 33 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
7 31 (1.81%) IIBA
8 16 (0.94%) Master's Degree
8 16 (0.94%) PMP
9 15 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
10 13 (0.76%) CSPO
11 11 (0.64%) ISEB
12 9 (0.53%) DV Cleared
13 8 (0.47%) CFA
14 5 (0.29%) ACCA
14 5 (0.29%) MBA
15 4 (0.23%) CIMA
16 3 (0.18%) AWS Certification
16 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (5.38%) QA
2 71 (4.15%) Data Quality
3 59 (3.45%) GDPR
4 31 (1.81%) MiFID
5 20 (1.17%) EMIR
6 16 (0.94%) PSD2
7 14 (0.82%) ISO 20022
8 13 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 12 (0.70%) GRC
10 11 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 10 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.53%) ISO 8583
12 9 (0.53%) PMO
12 9 (0.53%) SEPA
13 8 (0.47%) NIST
14 7 (0.41%) Basel III
14 7 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 7 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 6 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.35%) IFRS
System Software
1 9 (0.53%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.058%) Docker
2 1 (0.058%) Hyper-V
2 1 (0.058%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (0.058%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 14 (0.82%) Ansible
2 6 (0.35%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.12%) SCCM
5 1 (0.058%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 1 (0.058%) Terraform
Vendors
1 155 (9.06%) Microsoft
2 105 (6.14%) Salesforce
3 90 (5.26%) SAP
4 58 (3.39%) Oracle
5 35 (2.05%) ServiceNow
6 24 (1.40%) Murex
7 18 (1.05%) Bloomberg
7 18 (1.05%) MuleSoft
8 16 (0.94%) Google
9 15 (0.88%) OpenLink
10 13 (0.76%) Pega
11 12 (0.70%) Adobe
11 12 (0.70%) Workday
12 11 (0.64%) Sonatype
13 9 (0.53%) OneTrust
14 8 (0.47%) Atlassian
14 8 (0.47%) Avaloq
14 8 (0.47%) CyberArk
14 8 (0.47%) eFront
14 8 (0.47%) Guidewire