What is a Business Analyst?
Business Analysts are in charge of bridging the gap between IT and the business by assessing processes, determining needs, and delivering data-driven recommendations and reports to executives and stakeholders using data analytics.
Business Analysts work with company executives and users to figure out how data-driven improvements to processes, products, services, software, and hardware may save time and money. They must express those concepts while also balancing them against what is technologically viable, financially feasible, and operationally practical. As a Business Analyst, you could work with data sets to enhance goods, technology, equipment, software, services, or processes, depending on your function. The position of a Business Analyst is always expanding and changing, particularly as businesses increasingly rely on data to guide their operations.
A Business Analyst may help with a variety of difficulties, including obsolete legacy systems, changing technology, broken processes, low client or customer satisfaction, and siloed huge enterprises. If you enjoy dismantling systems and putting them back together again, you could be a good fit for a career as a Business Analyst. Because you’ll be spending most of your time gathering information on how a product or service should appear and work, you should be consistent and detail-oriented.
Responsibilities
The Business Analyst’s primary tasks include identifying and prioritising technical and functional needs.
These responsibilities will vary based on the sort of organisation or industry in which they work, but there will be certain commonalities, these include:
- Outlining business consequences and identifying difficulties, risks, and advantages of current and potential solutions.
- Gathering, verifying, and documenting business needs.
- Modelling business processes and discovering process optimisation possibilities.
- Examining financial information such as budgets, sales figures, and projections
- Estimating expenses and discovering cost-cutting opportunities.
- Simplifying material and interpreting technical jargon so that the entire team can understand it.
- Creating solution functional specs.
- Solution implementation and testing
- Assisting with company transformation and management change where applicable.
Salary
The average salary in the UK for a Business Analyst varies according to location and type of company/industry.
On average, Business Analysts in the UK make £37,092, ranging from £54,000. The average salary for Business Analyst in the London Area is £47,302 per year, ranging from £28,000 to £81,000.
Working hours and work location
In an office setting, a Business Analyst’s average work hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Many Business Analysts, on the other hand, work more than 40 hours a week and must travel to meet with customers.
What to expect
BAs are in charge of developing new models to assist business decisions by collaborating with financial reporting and IT departments to develop initiatives and strategies to enhance functionality and reduce costs. As A Business Analyst, you will need a thorough awareness of regulatory and reporting standards as a Business Analyst.
You’ll also require a lot of forecasting, budgeting, and financial analysis skills, as well as an awareness of key performance metrics. Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access, SQL, Google Analytics, and Tableau are common tools used by Business Analysts. These tools aid BAs in the collection and sorting of data, the creation of graphs, the writing of papers, and the creation of visualisations to illustrate their results.
Programming and database skills aren’t required for a Business Analyst role, but they won’t hurt if you already have them. The software and resources you’ll need may vary depending on your job title and the needs of the company. Given the growing number of tasks placed on the job of a Business Analyst, some companies have developed product manager positions that work with BAs or have teams of BAs reporting to them. Similarly, the expansion of software development and it’s faster, more developmental pace has altered the timing of the BA’s participation in a specific development project. In a traditional waterfall development system, a BA is more active in the front end, gathering, assessing, and prioritizing customer needs before passing them on to developers and moving on to the next software development project.
BAs working on agile projects, on the other hand, are more likely to stick with the project throughout its execution and even many versions. Although some Business Analysts may report directly to the senior executive team or the Chief Technology Officer, most report through a project manager or a program manager.
Qualifications
A bachelor’s degree in a field such as business, finance, or information technology is required to become a Business Analyst. For individuals wishing to advance their expertise, postgraduate study choices such as an MSc in Information Technology are accessible and will provide you with the opportunity for better-paid jobs with the best companies.
Skills
The profession of Business Analyst necessitates both hard and soft skills. Business Analysts must be able to pull, evaluate, and report data patterns, as well as communicate and apply that knowledge on the business side.
A background in IT is not required for all Business Analysts as long as they have a broad grasp of how systems, products, and tools function, but as previously noted it can be advantageous.
Some Business Analysts, on the other hand, have a solid IT background but no business expertise and are interested in transitioning from IT to this hybrid function. Regardless of your current position, a career in Business Analysis entails skills. The following are some of the most crucial abilities and experiences for a Business Analyst:
must have skills:
- Problem-solving and analytical thinking
- Attention to detail and the ability to achieve a high degree of accuracy
- Communication abilities, both verbal and written
- Knowledge of cost-benefit analysis
- Analysis of stakeholders
- Engineering requirements
- Consultative and interpersonal abilities
- Ability to facilitate
- Ability to organise
- Understanding of the company structure
- Process modelling – Networks, databases, and other technical knowledge
Work experience
Strong business and commercial acumen are required for most projects nowadays, and strong technical expertise, particularly in relation to system interconnections.
Despite the fact that Business Analysis is a relatively young IT profession, a few companies now provide certificates to assist you in improving your CV and verifying your worth as a Business Analyst.
A strong grasp of the business analysis ideas and methodologies contained in the worldwide recognized International Institute of Business Analysis BABOK Guide, as well as membership in the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), can help you advance in your career.
Career prospects
Everything about a profession as a Business Analyst is adaptable. While a business Analyst’s talents are ever-present, how and where they use them varies greatly depending on the industry, company, goods, and the project they’re working on. Business Analysis is an appealing career path for ambitious people willing to devote themselves to mastering the skills required for the position. The capacity to turn data insights into practical solutions is one of the most important of these talents. To do so, they must develop into effective communicators, smooth facilitators, exact analysts, and team participants.
Depending on your area of interest and competence, Business Analyst job pathways might be highly diverse. Within a few years, most Business Analysts advance to the position of Senior Business Analyst. The larger and more difficult the projects you might be allocated to work on, the more experience you gain. They might go on to become a business architect, a product owner, or work in project management or IT.
In reality, to work as a Business Analyst, you must have at least a bachelor’s degree. A Business Analyst’s undergraduate degree might be in a variety of fields, including business, economics, finance, marketing, and psychology. Some businesses may favour job applicants with a master’s degree in business administration or IT.
Industry/domain expert, developer, and/or quality assurance are examples of entry-level positions. Once you decide on your area of interest it’s time to focus on the topics that most interest you and acquire skills that will help you advance into higher management roles.
Those who want to advance in their careers usually start making moves after three to five years in the field. Project management, IT jobs such as senior/lead Business Analyst, product manager, and consultancy roles are all options at that time. You might move to chief technology officer, chief operating officer, project management office director, or serve as a consultant after eight to ten years in various Business Analysis jobs.
Read more: What can I do with an IT Degree?
Related Courses
BA (Hons) International Business
For this full-time program offered by the University of the West of Scotland London over the course of two years and eight months, students can pick from a choice of start dates.
Students at UWS London can learn from industry experts, guest speakers, and seasoned professionals. The best part about this course is that it takes place on the London Campus, right in the heart of the United Kingdom’s economic metropolis.
Other related courses
Delivered by the University of the West of Scotland, this course is delivered at the London Campus which means you will be studying at the centre of the UK tech industry. This one-year, full-time curriculum is designed for students who do not already have a background in IT or computing. The course will help you build much needed business-relevant IT knowledge and abilities and help you land that dream job in Business Analysis.
FAQ Summary
Business Analysts are in charge of bridging the gap between IT and the business by assessing processes, determining needs, and delivering data-driven recommendations and reports to executives and stakeholders using data analytics.
“The average salary in the UK for a Business Analyst varies according to location and type of company/industry.
On average, Business Analysts in the UK make £37,092, ranging from £54,000. The average salary for Business Analyst in the London Area is £47,302 per year, ranging from £28,000 to £81,000.”
A bachelor’s degree in a field such as business, finance, or information technology is required to become a Business Analyst.
