Business Analyst Salary Trends and Job Profile in the UK 2021

business analyst salary trends in uk

While the UK may not be the first place that comes to one’s mind when you speak of job opportunities for Business Analysts, some of the top companies in the UK, working in the consultancy, financial, banking, oil and gas, and the IT industry hire thousands of analysts every year. This includes big names like Shell, Accenture, Capital One, American Express, Experian, and Barclays. All of these companies have offices at multiple locations in the UK, where they employ business analysis to help analyze data and boost business productivity.

Business Analysts in the UK bring skills like data modeling, project management, SQL, Business Intelligence, and Scrum to the table which help companies in tackling internal and partner-based issues using data, effectively.

Salary trends for Business Analysts

As per the data at hand, Business Analysts start off at a salary of around 25-30k pounds per year. This figure rises steadily till around 4-5 years of experience. The max salary at this level is close to 50k whereas the lower limit is around 40k.

The values after this follow irregular trajectories. 

business analyst salary trends in UK
Fig: Salary in £ vs Years of experience for Business Analyst in the UK, Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

The minimum value keeps falling until it flattens out at around 6-10 years. The maximum salary falls after the 4-5 years mark but rises again from the 6-10 years to the 11-15 years. The maxima here is close to 55k pounds. After this, the salary figures fall again.

Search results for Business Analysts

The search results for the job position of business analysts produced almost 175k job positions in the current year in the UK. These jobs were posted by more than 13k companies on different job boards and job sites.

business analyst Job posting trends in UK
Fig: Search results for Business Analyst job posts in the UK from Jan-October, 2021. Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

The companies in the top 5k list had posted requirements of around 31 business analysts in this year alone. The number of unique job titles stood at almost 25k and the unique skills keywords at 5000.

Top skills in demand for Business Analysts

Due to the varied industries in the UK that hire Business Analysts in the UK, from Finance to Fossil Fuels, the skills required are also varied. The ones at the top are skills that are common to multiple industries– basic skills that would be a must-have no matter which sector you want to work in as a Business Analyst.

business analyst skills trends in UK
Fig: Top skills mentioned in Business Analyst job posts in the UK, Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

Management, design, and business analysis have battled it out for the top position among skills asked for by companies for the post of a Business Analyst. There is no clear leader, although business analysis mostly stands at 3rd. These skills are necessary for Business Analysts to master no matter which company they work for. Understanding of Business requirements came at 4th position, followed by Project Management.

As more of a Business Analysts job moves to the processing and analysis of data– be it financial data or geopolitical data, data processing and visualization tools are also quickly becoming a must-have for many job positions. Although coding skills still fall under the “good to have section” for Business Analysts, their importance is fast-growing thanks to the growing push for automation in every sector.

Job Types for Business Analysts

In the UK, more than 3/4th of the jobs for Business Analysts are at the entry level. The rest are mostly mid-level whereas only 1-2% of the jobs are at the executive level. This is unlike the US and Canada where the majority of jobs are at mid-level. This can be due to two reasons:

  1. The Business Analytics job sector in the UK is at a rather nascent stage.
  2. Most employees move on to specialized roles after a few years of domain specific work experience.

The second option is most likely to be the real answer but we would need to evaluate more data to provide a conclusive reason.

business analyst seniority levels in uk
Fig: Business Analyst Jobs based on seniority, Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

The negligible executive-level positions are in sync with the scenario in the US and Canada, as in all three countries Business Analysts are expected to take on Managerial or Leadership positions in the Business team after having crunched numbers for some years.

The UK and Business Analyst Jobs

Walking the thin line between businesses and their IT teams, Business Analysts helps companies from different sectors improve their bottom lines in the UK. They are tasked with using data to improve software, processes, products, workflows, and more. 

As per some data, although the job concentration for business analysts is highest in the capital city of London, many job options for the particular position also exist in:

  • Yorkshire
  • Leeds
  • Surrey
  • Berkshire and
  • Hertfordshire

As per this report published by the UK government, financial and related industries today employ almost 2.3 million people. The UK being a major hub for financial and fintech companies (companies that stand at the intersection of finance and technology), one can expect these industries to add hundreds of new positions for Business Analysts at different seniority levels in the coming years.

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