How to Hire a Business Analyst

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Indeed’s Employer Resource Library helps businesses grow and manage their workforce. With over 15,000 articles in 6 languages, we offer tactical advice, how-tos and best practices to help businesses hire and retain great employees.

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1 min read

Does your growing business need a business analyst?

Understanding the steps behind hiring a business analyst, including data about candidates looking for business analyst jobs, salaries and key terms to include in your job description, can help you stand out from the competition to reach, attract and hire quality candidates.

Hire your next Business Analyst today.

Post a Job

Hire your next Business Analyst today.

Post a Job
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Our mission

Indeed’s Employer Resource Library helps businesses grow and manage their workforce. With over 15,000 articles in 6 languages, we offer tactical advice, how-tos and best practices to help businesses hire and retain great employees.

Read our editorial guidelines

Business Analyst: What is the cost of hiring?

2025-10-0141000.00104143.41195000.00YEARLY

Why hire a business analyst?

Hiring a business analyst is essential for an organisation when it comes to implementing and supporting business information systems and data across various departments. A skilled business analyst identifies problems and opportunities within the business and provides solutions that help achieve the company’s goals and ultimately improve reporting and reduce costs.

Contributions of a great business analyst:

  • Liaises closely with other departments, primarily IT and financial reporting
  • Identifies problems, solutions and opportunities for the business
  • Provides reports and presentations to all relevant internal and external stakeholders to keep them informed at all times

Deciding between a full-time vs freelance business analyst

Business analysts can be employed full-time or hired as contractors. If you want to review and improve specific processes in your organisation as part of a one-off project, then hiring an independent business analyst as a consultant or contractor is the way to go. They typically bring highly specialised expertise to the table, and you can budget in advance because you will know their engagement fee.

If you want to continually improve your corporate processes, on the other hand, you may want to recruit a full-time business analyst. Being on-site permanently allows them to gain more in-depth insights into your operations and systems, which may lead to faster improvements. Full-time business analysts can also monitor your company’s processes and track the implementation of suggested changes on an ongoing basis. This can be well worth the investment.

What are the different types of business analyst?

When hiring a business analyst, it’s important to understand the specific analyst you need for your business. Depending on the project you want to implement or process you need to improve, you may want to consider these types of analyst:

  • Reporting business analyst: Ascertains reporting requirements, devises appropriate reporting structures and provides useful data analytics to stakeholders.
  • IT business analyst: Analyses data to inform business decisions, improves the quality of IT systems and provides technological solutions to business needs.
  • Business process analyst: Focuses on the actual processes and workflows within the organisation rather than the IT side of things.
  • Data business analyst: Is more specialised than a general business analyst and independently identifies problems, data to analyse and opportunities to improve the business.
  • Business systems analyst: Combines business knowledge with IT expertise, and focuses on the technical aspects of reporting.

Where to find a business analyst

To find the right business analyst for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

  • Networking events: Local business networking events are perfect for expanding your network and spreading the word that you’re looking for an analyst.
  • Conferences: Most professionals worth their salt regularly attend industry conferences, so this is a great way to meet potential new hires.
  • Trade associations: Qualified business analysts will often be a member of a relevant trade association; enquire about advertising there or ask for recommendations.
  • Word of mouth: Ask your industry peers if they can personally recommend a skilled analyst; they have likely used one themselves in the past, so you may get a hot tip, especially if you’re looking for a contractor.

Post your job online: Try posting your business analyst job on Indeed to find and attract quality business analyst candidates.

Skills to look for in a great business analyst

A great business analyst candidate will have the following skills and attributes as well as work experience that reflects:

  • a degree in business, business management or a related field
  • a high level of proficiency in standard office applications (especially Excel) and database management
  • excellent analytical skills
  • advanced technical skills
  • experience in creating reports and presenting to stakeholders

Writing a business analyst job description

A thoughtful description is important for finding qualified business analyst candidates. A business analyst job description includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities and the required and preferred skills for the position.

When writing your job description for a business analyst, consider including some or all of the following keywords to strengthen the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on business analyst jobs, according to Indeed data:

  • business analyst
  • analyst
  • data analyst
  • junior business analyst
  • ICT business analyst
  • graduate business analyst
  • finance
  • consultant

Interviewing business analyst candidates

Strong candidates for business analyst positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

  • experience with business analysis
  • relevant studies and/or professional qualifications
  • confidence in presenting to stakeholders
  • technical know-how
  • interpersonal relationships with colleagues and stakeholders

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of business analyst interview questions for examples (with sample answers).

Hire your next Business Analyst today.

Post a Job

Indeed’s Employer Resource Library helps businesses grow and manage their workforce. With over 15,000 articles in 6 languages, we offer tactical advice, how-tos and best practices to help businesses hire and retain great employees.