What Does a Business Analyst Do? Daily Work, Deliverables, Skills and Pay in Canada
Nov 10, 2026
By Stephen Adindu, CBAP, BCS Diploma in Business Analysis, Lead Coach at The Career Accelerators. Last updated November 2026.
A business analyst works out what an organization needs to change, recommends the solution that will meet that need, and checks that the change delivers the value it promised. Day to day, that means interviewing the people affected, mapping how work flows today, writing requirements or user stories a delivery team can build and test, and answering questions until the change is live.
This guide uses IIBA's definition and the six BABOK knowledge areas as the frame, then makes the job concrete for anyone weighing up the career. If you already want the job and need the route in, read our guide to how to become a business analyst in Canada.
Key takeaways
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What is a business analyst?
The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) defines business analysis as the practice of "enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions" that deliver value to stakeholders. Technology is often how the change happens, but the job is about the change and its value.
IIBA also says a business analyst is anyone who performs business analysis tasks, whatever their title or role. That's encouraging for career changers: team leads, operations staff and project coordinators may already do some of this work.
What does a business analyst actually do?
IIBA's BABOK Guide (A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge) sorts the work into six knowledge areas. They're easiest to see through one project. Picture a regional insurer that wants customers to file simple car-insurance claims online instead of by phone.
| Knowledge area (tasks) | The question you answer | In the online claims project |
|---|---|---|
| Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring (5) | How will we run the analysis, with whom, and who decides? | Agree who signs off requirements and which workshops to hold. |
| Strategy Analysis (4) | What's the problem, where do we want to be, and what's the best route? | Map today's phone process, set targets, weigh fraud and privacy risks. |
| Elicitation and Collaboration (5) | What do people really need? | Interview claims agents, sit in on calls, play back what you heard. |
| Requirements Analysis and Design Definition (6) | What must the solution do, and which option is best? | Write user stories, model the new process, compare building a portal with buying one. |
| Requirements Life Cycle Management (5) | How do we keep requirements traced, prioritized and approved as things change? | Link each requirement to a test, rank the backlog, assess a late request from legal. |
| Solution Evaluation (5) | Did the change deliver the value we expected? | After launch, compare claim times and call volumes with the business case targets. |
These areas aren't phases: IIBA's Business Analysis Standard notes that the tasks don't have to follow a straight line and can run at the same time. Our guide to the BABOK Guide explains each area in depth.
What does a business analyst do day to day?
Most days mix time with people and time alone writing, and across a week the work moves from gathering to analysis, confirmation and support. The example below is an illustration, not a rule.
Example week: a business analyst in an Agile team on the online claims project
| Monday: plan After stand-up, answer the developers' open questions, then agree the week's analysis goals with the product owner and book sessions. |
| Tuesday: elicit Run a workshop with claims agents on how they spot suspicious claims, then send them a short summary to confirm. |
| Wednesday: analyze and model Turn the notes into a to-be process map, user stories and business rules, and list the open questions. |
| Thursday: confirm and refine Walk stakeholders through the stories, then refine them with the product owner, developers and a tester until each has clear acceptance criteria. |
| Friday: support and report Answer build questions, help test finished stories, and update stakeholders on decisions and risks. |
What does a business analyst produce?
A business analyst's work shows in what they write and draw. Here are the core outputs, with the matching BABOK technique where there is one.
| Deliverable | What it is | When you use it |
|---|---|---|
| Business case | The case for a change: the need, the options with their costs, benefits and risks, and a recommendation (Business Cases). | Early, when a sponsor decides whether to fund the work. |
| Process maps | Diagrams of how work flows now (as-is) and after the change (to-be), often drawn in BPMN, the Object Management Group's notation (Process Modelling). | To find where time and errors are lost, and show what will change. |
| Requirements document | A formal record of what the business needs and what the solution must do, including non-functional needs such as security. Often called a BRD or SRS. | Mostly in traditional projects, signed off before the build. |
| User stories and acceptance criteria | Short statements of what a user needs and why, each with testable conditions for "done" (User Stories; Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria). | In Agile teams, as product backlog items. |
| Traceability matrix | A table linking each requirement to its source and to the design and tests that cover it. | To prove nothing was missed and judge the impact of a change request. |
You won't produce all of these on every project: a small Agile team may work mostly in user stories, while a regulated project may need every document above.
Who does a business analyst work with?
Job Bank describes business systems specialists (NOC 21221) as the link between business, technology and support teams. IIBA's Business Analysis Standard names sponsors, project managers, subject matter experts, regulators, customers, operational support and testers among the stakeholders; Agile teams add the product owner and developers.
| Who | What you need from them | What they need from you |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsor | The goal, the budget and final decisions | Clear options and honest progress on value |
| Subject matter experts and end users | How the work really happens and where it hurts | Well-run sessions and proof you understood them |
| Project manager or product owner | Plans, priorities and deadlines | Requirements ready on time and early warning of risks |
| Developers, testers and support teams | What's feasible, and confirmation that each requirement is covered | Clear, testable requirements and quick answers |
How is the role different in Agile and traditional teams?
IIBA's Business Analysis Standard describes predictive (traditional) work, which plans everything up front, and adaptive (Agile) work, which delivers in small, prioritized increments. Business analysis happens in both, but the rhythm and the paperwork change.
| Traditional (predictive) | Agile (adaptive) | |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements | Gathered and approved before the build starts | Kept in a backlog and detailed shortly before each piece is built |
| Documents | Scope statement, requirements and design documents | "Just enough and just-in-time", usually user stories and light models |
| Rhythm | Phases with formal reviews and sign-offs | Short iterations (in Scrum, sprints of one month or less), with ongoing backlog refinement |
| Where you sit | Between the business and the delivery team, often in a separate analysis stage | Inside the team, working with the product owner and developers every day |
| Best fit, per IIBA | Well-defined, heavily regulated or sequential work | Complex, uncertain or poorly defined needs |
Scrum has no "business analyst" role. The Scrum Guide (2020) names one Scrum Master, one product owner and the developers, and lets the product owner hand backlog work to others while staying accountable. So a business analyst in a Scrum team usually counts as one of the developers and does much of the backlog refinement with the product owner. IIBA also describes hybrid approaches, so expect to work both ways.
What job titles do business analysts have, and where do they work in Canada?
Because IIBA defines the role by the work, titles vary. One IIBA chapter lists titles such as business systems analyst, requirements engineer, process analyst, business architect, data analyst, product owner and change manager. Job Bank files the common Canadian titles under two occupations:
| Titles you'll see | Usual focus | Job Bank occupation |
|---|---|---|
| IT business analyst, business systems analyst, information systems business analyst, business systems consultant | Requirements for new or changed software and systems | NOC 21221, business systems specialists |
| Management analyst, business methods analyst, organizational analyst, business management consultant | How the organization is structured and run: methods, procedures, policies | NOC 11201, business management consulting |
| Business analyst | Either of the above | Read the duties to tell which |
Job Bank says business systems specialists work in IT departments across the private and public sectors and in IT consulting firms. About 34,900 people in Canada worked in the occupation in 2023. Management analysts work in management consulting firms, across the public and private sectors, or for themselves. In Ontario, Job Bank's industry breakdown shows where business systems specialists work:
| Ontario, NOC 21221: share of workers by industry | |
| Computer systems design services |
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| Banking, securities and other financial intermediation |
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| Insurance carriers |
|
| Information and cultural industries |
|
| Other industries |
|
Source: Job Bank, Ontario job outlook for business systems specialists (NOC 21221), updated 10 December 2025. "Other industries" is the remainder.
What skills does a business analyst need?
The BABOK Guide groups the skills behind the work into six sets of underlying competencies. On the job they look like this:
- Analytical thinking and problem solving: getting past symptoms to causes.
- Behavioural characteristics: being trusted with sensitive information and staying steady when priorities shift.
- Business knowledge: understanding the industry, the organization and your team's methods.
- Communication skills: listening well, and writing requirements others can build and test without calling you.
- Interaction skills: running workshops, negotiating, and influencing without authority.
- Tools and technology: office tools, a diagramming tool such as Visio, requirements tools such as Jira and Confluence, and sometimes basic SQL.
IIBA's Business Analysis Standard singles out five competencies that matter on almost any initiative: adaptability, facilitation, leadership and influencing, problem solving, and systems thinking. If you're judging whether the career suits you, those five are a good test.
What does a business analyst job description usually include?
Most ads read like a version of Job Bank's main duties for NOC 21221: meet business users or clients to identify and document their requirements, analyze current processes and systems and propose improvements, act as the link between business, technology and support teams, and help test and implement the solution. Job Bank says employers usually ask for a bachelor's degree in computer science, business administration, information systems or a related field, or a college computer science program. The job isn't regulated in Canada.
How much does a business analyst earn in Canada?
Job Bank has no single "business analyst" occupation. Its closest match, and the one TCA's course page uses, is NOC 21221 (Analyst, Business - Computer Systems), with a national median of $45.13 an hour. At 37.5 hours a week for 52 weeks, that's about $88,000 a year before tax (wages updated 19 November 2025, from Statistics Canada's 2023-2024 Labour Force Survey). For process and management roles, the stand-in NOC 11201 (Analyst, Business Management) has a similar median of $44.10 an hour.
Job Bank also publishes low and high figures. They're roughly the 10th and 90th percentiles of all workers and don't track experience, so the low figure isn't a starting salary and the high figure isn't a senior salary. For the full breakdown by province, with Job Bank's job prospects, see our post on the outlook for business analysts in Canada.
How we teach the role at TCA
The Career Accelerators is an IIBA Endorsed Education Provider. Our business analyst course is a 12-week coaching program built around the work described above. This program includes:
- Live classes: every session runs live online, taught by practising senior business analysts.
- A 12-week live project on a real tech product, producing deliverables you can talk through in interviews.
- The core deliverables: problem statements, business cases, BRDs, SRSs, as-is and to-be process models, and UML diagrams (use case, activity, sequence and class).
- The tools: Jira and Confluence for requirements, Zephyr for test management, MockFlow for mock-ups, MS Visio for process models, and SQL fundamentals.
- Ways of working: the BA's role across Waterfall, Agile and Scrum, and in every testing phase.
- Career support: one-on-one mentorship, a CV review and interview preparation. No prior experience is required.
Business analyst FAQs
Is a business analyst an IT job?
Not always. IIBA's definition is about enabling change, and Job Bank splits the title between an IT occupation (NOC 21221) and a management consulting one (NOC 11201).
Do business analysts need to code?
Writing code isn't one of the BABOK Guide's tasks. You do need to understand systems and data well enough to write testable requirements and talk with developers. Basic SQL helps when you need to check data yourself, which is why our business analyst course covers SQL fundamentals.
What's the difference between a business analyst and a product owner?
In Scrum, the product owner is one person, accountable for maximizing the product's value and for the backlog. A business analyst often does much of the analysis behind that backlog, but the product owner makes the final call on priorities.
How is AI changing the business analyst's job?
Mostly by speeding up the writing. So far, most say it's helping: in IIBA's 2026 survey of 2,120 professionals in 122 countries, 69% said AI is having a positive impact on their careers and 5% a negative one. The top uses were faster drafting and formatting (28%), communication and documentation (25%), and idea generation or problem-solving (22%). IIBA expects human skills such as judgment and influence to matter more as AI takes on routine work.
Stephen's tip: Before you commit to the career, try the core of the job on something you know. Map one process at work as-is and to-be, then write five user stories with acceptance criteria to improve it. If you enjoyed that, business analysis will probably suit you.
Want to try the work for real?
Our business analyst course teaches the core of the role through live classes and a 12-week live project, with mentorship and interview preparation. Not sure if business analysis fits your background? Book a free call and we'll talk it through.
Related reading: the top business analyst skills and how to learn them, how to master business process modelling and a comparison of all business analysis certifications.
Sources
- IIBA: What is business analysis? (BABOK Guide 1.2) and Who is a business analyst? (1.3), for the definitions
- IIBA: Structure of the BABOK Guide, for the knowledge areas, task counts and 50 techniques
- IIBA: BABOK Guide underlying competencies, for the six competency groups and technique names
- IIBA: The Business Analysis Standard (2025), for non-linear tasks, predictive and adaptive approaches, stakeholders and the five key competencies
- IIBA Bluegrass Chapter: What is business analysis?, for example job titles
- IIBA: The 2026 Global State of Business Analysis Report, for the AI survey figures
- The Scrum Guide (2020), for Scrum accountabilities, the product owner and sprint length
- Object Management Group: BPMN, for the process notation
- Job Bank: Analyst, Business - Computer Systems (NOC 21221), for titles, duties and employers; its wages, requirements, national outlook and Ontario outlook, for pay, education, employment and industries
- Job Bank: Analyst, Business Management (NOC 11201) and its wages, for titles, duties, employers and pay
- Job Bank: Wage methodology, for what the low and high figures mean
