Business Analyst
Bridge the gap between business needs and technology solutions. Use data and analytical tools to drive strategic decisions.
What a typical day looks like
I sit between business stakeholders and the engineering team. Mornings usually start with a 1:1 or workshop — interviewing a department head to understand their needs, or running a requirements-gathering session with a future user group. I take a lot of notes and ask 'why' a lot. By 11 I'm usually at my desk writing up findings: user stories, process diagrams, acceptance criteria. Lunch is often a working lunch with a stakeholder. Afternoons mix more meetings (sprint planning, story refinement with engineers) with hands-on analysis work — pulling data from databases, building simple dashboards, or process modelling. A good BA is a translator. The hardest part of the job is not the analysis, it's getting two people who don't speak the same language to agree on what 'done' means.
Hour-by-hour
Skills you need
Required
Nice to have
Build these to stand out
Hands-on projects beat any CV bullet point. Pick one and finish it.
Process Analysis Case Study
Pick a real process you know (your university's registration, your old company's onboarding). Map it 'as-is', identify 5 pain points, propose 3 improvements 'to-be'. Write up as a 5-page case study.
Shows you can analyse processes and communicate clearly. Best entry-level portfolio piece for BA.
Requirements Document for a Real App
Pick an app you use (Spotify, Notion, a bank's app). Write a full requirements document as if you were the BA on a new feature: user stories, acceptance criteria, mockups, edge cases.
Demonstrates the core BA skill: turning ideas into shippable requirements.
Data Analysis Dashboard
Take a public dataset (e.g. UK government open data, World Bank). Use SQL or Excel to analyse it. Build a Power BI dashboard. Write 3 'business insights' for an imaginary stakeholder.
Many BAs cannot do data analysis. Doing it well sets you apart from average BAs.