Where business analyst jobs in India are growing in 2026

Naukri's 2026 readings show hiring growing mainly in insurance, retail and e-commerce, and finance functions, while IT services has swung between growth and decline. Naukri's JobSpeak for September 2026 had merchandising, retail and e-commerce roles up 18% year on year and IT and software services down 4%. Naukri counts sectors and functions, not analyst vacancies, so the figures show direction only.

Is business analyst still a safe career bet in India in 2026?

The role is established, and hiring for it is uneven. IIBA, the business analysis professional body, published its 2026 Global State of Business Analysis Report on 25 June 2026, drawing on 2,120 professionals in 122 countries. In that survey 81% said business analysis is formally recognised in their organisation, the same share as in each of the two previous years. It is a global, membership-linked sample, so it speaks to how settled the role is and not to vacancies in India.

The India picture comes from hiring trackers. Naukri's JobSpeak put its overall hiring index for September 2026 at 3053 against 3002 a year earlier, a 2% rise, while AI and ML roles grew 20%. A market that grows 2% overall and 20% in one specialist family is one where the answer depends on the sector and on the skills a candidate brings.

The trackers measure postings, surveys and projections, so they show where hiring is rising or falling, not how many analysts lost jobs. The nearest thing to displacement data is global: the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects 170 million jobs created and 92 million displaced worldwide by 2030.

For the outlook, the same WEF report has an India economy profile built on surveyed employers operating in India. It projects net growth to 2030 of 54% for data analysts and scientists and 17% for business intelligence analysts, against 176% for AI and machine learning specialists. These are employer-survey projections for the roles listed. The WEF profile lists the two analyst roles above and no general business analyst role, so the two figures are the nearest proxies and not a forecast of vacancies.

The question of whether the field suits a long career is taken up in a separate piece on whether business analytics is a good career in India.

Which sectors are hiring business analysts in India, month by month?

Naukri's JobSpeak reports sector hiring each month. The table lines up four of its 2026 releases, with every reading measured year on year.

Insurance is the steadiest line. It was up in each of the three months with a figure, then largely stable in September, so the direction is positive with the pace cooling. Retail was up 14% in February and 15% in August, with no May reading, before settling into the stable band in September. Naukri classifies by sector and by function, which is why retail as a sector was largely stable in September while the merchandising, retail and e-commerce function grew 18%.

Banking and IT are the swing readings. Banking went from down 15% in May to up 10% in August. IT went from down 7% to up 11% over the same months and was down 4% in September. Naukri itself says August was flattered by festive-season timing, which is why the September reading is the better guide to the trend. In Naukri's September release hiring also fell in pharma and biotech (-4%), FMCG (-4%) and healthcare (-3%).

The belief that analyst work sits only in IT services does not match these readings. Insurance, retail and finance functions each had double-digit growth in at least one month of 2026, while IT hiring fell in two of the four readings. Sector totals are still a proxy for analyst demand, since they count every role in the sector. Analysts weighing client-facing work against in-house roles can read the comparison of a business analyst and a consultant.

How bad is the market really, and where did hiring hold?

The picture depends on the tracker. Naukri's headline releases put white-collar hiring up 12% in February 2026 and 14% in August 2026, while its September index reading was 2%, so the three are separate readings and not one series. In May, banking was down 15% and telecom down 12%, and IT was down 7%.

A second tracker points the same way from the other side of the year-end. Indeed Hiring Lab's update of 2 December 2025 found Indian postings on Indeed down 5.6% in October 2025 and 19.8% lower than a year earlier, though still 60% above pre-pandemic levels. Over the three months to October 2025, banking and finance postings fell 25.6%, legal 22.4% and retail 16.7%. Indeed says its India data skews towards tech, management and sales and does not represent the whole labour market.

The two trackers disagree on retail. That is a reminder that they measure different things in different periods: Naukri's 2026 readings are year-on-year changes in its own hiring index, while Indeed's late-2025 figures count postings on its site.

Employers and candidates describe the same market in different terms. In the NASSCOM and Indeed report of 19 May 2026, 58% of employers cited low applicant volume as a key hiring challenge and 50% cited skills mismatch. LinkedIn's Skills on the Rise 2026 for India, as reported by Storyboard18 on 24 February 2026, found 74% of recruiters in India had difficulty finding qualified talent, while 38% of Indian job seekers felt unprepared for how fast technology is reshaping required skills.

Remote roles are the thinner end of the market. Indeed Hiring Lab found 9.1% of Indian postings mentioned work from home or remote work in October 2025, up from 7.6% a year earlier, with the highest share, 18.2%, in IT infrastructure, operations and support in the October 2025 quarter. That is an all-occupation figure and not an analyst one, but it shows why a search limited to remote roles narrows the pool.

Internships are one way in. CXOToday's coverage of a NASSCOM and Indeed report, published on 21 May 2026, says internship postings in India rose 103% over the past three years, with analytical skills, Microsoft Excel and Python among the skills asked for. That is a direction and not a precise count.

What do global capability centres and the tech sector add to analyst demand?

The tech sector sets the backdrop. NASSCOM's Strategic Review 2026, released on 23 February 2026, expects India's tech sector to cross USD 315 bn in FY26, with direct employment of about 6 mn, up 2.3% on the year for a net addition of 135,000 people. Those are NASSCOM estimates, and the headcount growth is slow.

For FY27, the same review expects technology spending to stay range-bound at 5-7% year on year, with hiring shifting from volume to skill mix. For an analyst that means employers screen harder for specific skills, such as the AI skills covered below. Gartner's November 2025 forecast, as reported by IBEF, put India's IT spending in 2026 at USD 176.3 billion, up 10.6% on 2025, with software spending up 17.6%. That is spending on IT as a whole and not on analytics.

Global capability centres (GCCs) are the India-based units that multinational companies run for their own technology, analytics and operations work. The Zinnov-NASSCOM report for 2026 counts 2,117 GCCs in FY2026, with 3,728 units, a workforce of 2.36 million and revenue of USD 98.4 bn. The report calls India the number one AI hiring market globally, which is its own claim.

How has AI changed what analyst postings ask for?

Analytics postings mention AI more often than software postings do. Indeed data reported by Storyboard18 on 16 October 2025 had almost 39% of data and analytics roles mentioning AI in September 2025, against 23% of software development postings. Indeed's India report, as covered by IANS on 10 March 2026, put the January 2026 figures at 40% and 29%.

Across all postings the share is smaller but rising. The same IANS coverage says about 14% of Indian postings referenced AI in January 2026, up from 12.8% three months earlier, and that 55% of occupational categories now reference AI, up from 36% a year earlier. Indeed's India postings skew towards tech roles, so this is not an all-economy reading.

Employers say the change is already inside roles. In the NASSCOM and Indeed report, 86% of employers had seen some impact of AI on job roles and 35% had seen significant redefinition. CXOToday's coverage adds that 63% of employers across industries reported a year-on-year rise in AI-related hiring, led by BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and telecommunications. For analysts in banking and insurance, that is the closest reading to their own sector.

On the analyst side, 69% of respondents to IIBA's 2026 survey said AI is positively affecting their careers, down from 74% in 2025, and 5% reported a negative view. Whether that adds up to replacement is examined in a separate post on whether AI will replace business analysts. Supply is thin at the AI end: TeamLease Digital estimates that only 16% of IT professionals in India hold AI skills.

Regulation adds its own work. India notified the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules on 14 November 2025, with an 18-month phased compliance timeline, so teams that handle personal data are building consent, purpose and audit practices.

For a fuller account of the role itself, the blog's guide to what a business analyst does covers the daily work, and its comparison of a business analyst and a data analyst sets out where the roles overlap.

Where does a business analytics certification fit for graduates aiming at business roles?

Employers split on how they weigh credentials. In the NASSCOM and Indeed report, 40% of employers preferred demonstrable AI skills or certifications over a degree, and CXOToday's coverage says 32% weigh skills, certifications and degrees equally. WEF's Future of Jobs Report 2025 adds that 30% of employers operating in India expect to remove degree requirements, against 19% globally. Degrees still count for many employers, and a certificate is one signal among several, next to work samples and domain knowledge.

Commerce graduates face the same screening, and their route is covered in business analyst after BCom.

For readers aiming at business roles, Certification Program in Business Analytics with Gen & Agentic AI is one structured route. It is an online certification from BITS School of Management (BITSoM), offered in partnership with Masai, with live online classes and an optional campus workshop. It covers business analytics, SQL and Python, data visualisation in Tableau and Power BI, machine learning, generative AI, prompt engineering and building AI agents, with modules such as Foundations of Business Analytics & Data Science and Data Visualization & Case Studies.

Frequently asked questions

Is business analyst in demand in India in 2026?

Demand is uneven but present. Naukri's JobSpeak for September 2026 put overall hiring up 2% year on year, with merchandising, retail and e-commerce roles up 18% and IT and software services down 4%. IIBA's 2026 survey found 81% of respondents say business analysis is formally recognised in their organisation. Naukri's figures are sector totals, not analyst counts.

Which industries are hiring business analysts in India?

Naukri's 2026 readings show the strongest growth in insurance, retail and e-commerce, and BFSI functions, while IT hiring moved between down 7% and up 11% across four months. Business analysts also work in global capability centres, which Zinnov and NASSCOM count at 2,117 in FY2026. These are sector totals and not analyst counts.

What is the scope of a business analyst in India?

WEF's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects net growth to 2030 of 17% for business intelligence analysts and 54% for data analysts and scientists among surveyed employers operating in India. Indeed data as covered by IANS found 40% of data and analytics postings referenced AI in January 2026, so the scope increasingly includes AI skills.

How much does a business analyst earn in India?

Indeed India shows an average base salary of Rs 8,90,431 a year from 631 salaries in postings over 36 months, updated on 16 October 2026. AmbitionBox's 2026 employee-reported data shows Rs 7.3 lakh at 1-3 years of experience and Rs 12 lakh at 6-9 years. These are market averages, not a fresher offer or a promise.

Is a degree still required for analyst roles?

Not uniformly. NASSCOM and Indeed found 40% of employers prefer demonstrable AI skills or certifications over a degree in their May 2026 report, and WEF found 30% of employers operating in India expect to remove degree requirements. CXOToday's coverage says 32% weigh skills, certifications and degrees equally, so degrees remain a factor for many.

Next step

The Certification Program in Business Analytics with Gen and Agentic AI, BITSoM page sets out the curriculum and how to apply.