The Level 4 Business Analyst Apprenticeship (ST0117): What It Covers, How It Is Assessed and What Changes in April 2027

Part of our topic guides on Data & AI Apprenticeships and AI Skills for Business.

By James Cotton, Founder, iO-Sphere

The work the standard describes

Skills England's register, which we read on 8 October 2026 along with every listing and price quoted here, describes business analysts as "change professionals that help organisations deliver business and digital change successfully". In the standard's words, the work means "investigating business situations, and analysing problems and opportunities for improvement", analysing business processes, and "understanding data and business information needs, and documenting requirements for digital and business change solutions".

It is set out as 15 duties, all core, with no options, running from applying "structured techniques to investigate wants, needs, problems and opportunities", through modelling, analysing and redesigning business processes and eliciting and managing requirements, to assessing "the drivers, costs, benefits and impacts of a proposed business change". Behind them sit the knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs) an apprentice must show: 28, 30 and 13 of them.

Two of the duties name data: to "Identify data requirements relating to business improvement" and to "Support the creation of data models to illustrate how data is represented within a business system". The knowledge statements add "The value of data to an organisation" and data protection regulation. A side-by-side comparison with the data analyst apprenticeship sets out where the two standards overlap and where they part.

The current standard's text does not mention AI or name any software product. Tools appear only in general terms, as "relevant techniques, standards, notation and software tools", and new technology appears in a knowledge statement on "Technology and industry trends across the digital sector".

Skills England titles the standard "Business analyst" (reference ST0117, level 4), yet version 1.2, the current one, lists no job titles. The revised version published on the register on 6 October 2026 lists seven, including "Agile business analyst" and "Requirements analyst".

The test of who it suits is therefore the duties: a role in which the standard's duties and KSBs exist qualifies, with an analytics team as likely a home for its transformation work as any; the comparison with the data analyst standard takes the title question further.

We deliver the standard as AI Transformation (Level 4), with weekly coaching sessions online and realistic case studies and simulations, which we call Prism, for what a workplace cannot supply.

Length, funding band and hours

The register gives version 1.2 a typical duration of "18 months (this does not include assessment period)". The assessment it leaves out is the end-point assessment (EPA), in which an independent assessor grades the apprentice against the standard once the training is done. Against that typical 18 months of training, AI Transformation runs as 15 months of training, then a 3-month end-point assessment.

The end-point assessment follows the gateway, the point at which the employer decides the apprentice is ready for it. The apprenticeship funding rules for August 2026 to July 2027, published by the Department for Work and Pensions, add that the apprenticeship's practical period must last at least 8 months once prior learning and experience are taken into account (para 77).

Off-the-job training, which the rules call "a statutory requirement" (para 82), is training received in normal working hours, meaning "the hours for which the apprentice would normally be paid, excluding overtime" (para 82.1). The register sets 348 hours, the full content for someone with no relevant prior learning (para 85.1). Prior learning can bring that down, but "No programme must fall below 187 hours of evidenced delivery" (para 86.2).

The funding band, the most government funding will pay towards one apprenticeship's training and assessment, is £18,000. The government's course listing, Find apprenticeship training, calls it "Maximum government funding for apprenticeship training and assessment costs". The price agreed with a provider can be lower.

For an apprentice aged 19 or over at the start, English and maths are optional, and the apprentice "will not be required to achieve English and / or maths in order to achieve the apprenticeship" (para 50.5). At 16 to 18, an approved level 2 in both must be held or achieved before the apprenticeship can be completed (para 55).

How the current version is assessed

Under version 1.2, assessment follows an end-point assessment plan dated December 2025. It has two methods, each graded fail, pass or distinction and weighted equally: a project proposal with presentation and questioning, and a professional discussion underpinned by a portfolio. There is no knowledge test or exam; the graded written work is the proposal.

The employer makes the gateway decision: it "may take advice from the apprentice's training provider(s), but the decision must ultimately be made solely by the employer". Before it, the apprentice builds a portfolio of typically at least 10 pieces of evidence, which is not marked, and sends a project title and summary, typically no more than 500 words, to the assessment organisation (the body that runs the EPA).

The proposal is for "a relevant and defined piece of work that has a real business benefit", with "evidence of management/leadership support". The apprentice writes it unaided within 6 weeks, at 5,000 words (plus or minus 10%), covering its scope, plan, approach, research, findings and recommendations. Implementation must begin during the assessment period, though the project does not need to be fully implemented by its end.

The presentation typically lasts 15 minutes and the questioning 30, with at least 10 questions on themes including "Stakeholder Analysis and Management" and "Business impact assessment". The professional discussion lasts 60 minutes, with at least 10 open questions, and draws on the portfolio. Both can take place online or at the employer's premises.

A fail in either method is a fail overall; two passes give a pass, a pass and a distinction a merit, and two distinctions a distinction. An apprentice who fails a method may re-sit it, if the employer agrees, typically within six months of the result, and can still reach "a maximum EPA grade of distinction". A re-sit is not offered to turn a pass into a higher grade.

Choosing the assessment organisation is also the employer's decision under version 1.2. That organisation must appoint independent assessors who have knowledge of business analysis and "hold a relevant professional qualification", with recent or significant experience of the work.

The revised version, for starts from 13 April 2027

A revised version, published on the register on 6 October 2026, will replace version 1.2 for new starts from 13 April 2027. Its page says the revised assessment plan "is approved by Skills England under the 2025/2026 apprenticeship assessment reforms and is available for information only", while its key information reads "Status: Standard in development".

The start date settles which version applies: a start made now is on version 1.2, listed as "Approved for delivery (available for starts)", and a start from 13 April 2027 is on the revised one. The funding band, the typical 18 months before assessment and the 348 hours stay the same, but the revision reaches the occupational standard as well as the assessment.

It has 13 duties to version 1.2's 15. On our reading, it adds a first duty, to "Communicate and collaborate with stakeholders", merges the process analysis and redesign duties into one and the two requirements-management duties into another, and moves data modelling into the knowledge statements. Process modelling names notation "such as UML and BPMN", and the example progression routes are "Digital and technology solutions professional" and "Service designer".

AI appears for the first time, in two of its 19 knowledge statements. One adds "the ethical implications and limitations of emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence" to the statement on technology trends; the other reads "The role of software and AI tools in improving the efficiency and quality of business analysis work."

The first of its eight assessment outcomes, professional practice, asks for "awareness of digital and technology trends, including AI, while using tools and professional practices to support effective and responsible business analysis". The occupation summary and the 13 duties do not mention AI; the job stays business analysis, with AI in how it is done.

That makes it a standard for the person asked to take an AI change through a process, technical background or not. On AI Transformation, an apprentice typically redesigns one of their own organisation's processes with AI in it, end to end. Training for that change outside an apprenticeship is covered in the guide to AI transformation courses, and every AI-facing standard in our overview of AI apprenticeships.

Under the revised plan, assessment organisations "must design apprenticeship assessments to include a professional discussion" and should consider a portfolio; any other method comes from a list of portfolio, project, presentation, and question and answer session, so the 5,000-word proposal is no longer required. "Apprentices may be assessed at any appropriate point during their apprenticeship programme", and all eight outcomes must be assessed.

Annex B of the funding rules sets the terms once a plan is reformed. The provider selects the assessment organisation and engages it at the start of the apprenticeship (paras 382 and 383.1). The cost of the apprenticeship assessment "must not exceed 20% of the funding band maximum" (para 383.2.1), which is £3,600 on this band, and "gateway" becomes "gateway to completion" (para 387).

Who starts it, and how many finish

Apprenticeship statistics published by the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions in July 2026 showed starts on the standard rising every year, from 800 in 2021/22 to 3,620 in 2024/25, about 4.5 times as many. The first nine months of 2025/26, August 2025 to April 2026, brought 4,730 on provisional figures. Each figure counts starts, not people.

In 2024/25, 3,400 of the 3,620 starts were by people aged 25 or over, about 94%, and from August 2025 to April 2026, 4,490 of the 4,730. Starts by people under 19 numbered 20 in each period.

The release's national achievement rate tables, as published in March 2026, cover all providers. In 2024/25, of 1,470 leavers, 850 completed and 820 achieved, an achievement rate (achievers as a share of leavers) of 55.8%, after 57.0% in 2023/24 and 55.7% in 2022/23. Across all apprenticeships it was 65.4% on 299,510 leavers, on the Digital route 64.2%, and on the level 4 data analyst standard (ST0118) 58.2%.

Retention, the share of leavers who completed, was 57.9% on this standard against 66.7% across all apprenticeships, and the pass rate among those who completed 96.3% against 98.0%. By age at start, the 2024/25 achievement rate was 90.2% for 40 leavers aged 16 to 18, 66.3% for 190 aged 19 to 23 and 53.1% for 1,240 aged 24 or over.

Who delivers it

Find apprenticeship training listed 78 training providers for the standard on 8 October 2026, each with its course listing, and the register's version log and assessment plan are the documents any provider delivers against.

What an employer pays

Two things set the employer's share: the apprentice's age at the start, and whether the employer pays the apprenticeship levy and still has funds in the apprenticeship service account that holds them. The size of the business does not come into it. A levy payer with funds available pays from its account (funding rules, para 189.1).

For a start from 1 August 2026 at a non-levy employer or a levy payer whose funds have run out, the government funds all the training and assessment costs, up to the funding band maximum, for an apprentice aged 16 to 24, and 95% or 75% respectively for one aged 25 or over. Our guide to apprenticeships for existing employees works through the employer's share.

A non-levy employer receives a £2,000 hiring payment for an apprentice aged 16 to 24 whose practical period starts from 1 October 2026, who is on its PAYE scheme and who had not worked there more than 90 days. Half is paid at 90 days and half at 365 (paras 133 and 137), and it can be changed or withdrawn with at least three months' notice (para 135.1).

Under HMRC's rates for 2026 to 2027, employer National Insurance on an apprentice under 25 is 0% on earnings up to £967 a week (£50,270 a year) and 15% above that. With most starts on this standard at 25 or over, the hiring payment and this relief reach a small share of its apprentices. Our employer guide to data analyst apprentices covers a new hire in more detail.

Other ways into business analysis

For someone whose job already holds the work this standard describes, our recommendation is the apprenticeship: the training is done on that work, in paid time, and assessed against a national standard. An adult in that position can apply to us first, and our admissions team helps them build the case and prepare the conversation with their employer.

Skills Bootcamps were described in DWP's funding allocations for 2026 to 2027, updated 1 June 2026, as "employer co-designed, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, with an offer of a job interview for eligible participants on completion of the course".

Uptrail's Business Analysis Bootcamp runs "Over 12 weeks of 100% online, live classes", states "No specific degree required" and lists £1,995, which can be spread across monthly instalments.

Fortray sells its London business analyst programme with "Guaranteed Job OR Your Program Fees Back"; under its UK terms as published on 1 October 2026, eligible candidates "may qualify for a conditional refund" if they do not find qualifying employment within six months (excluding 15 December to 15 January) of completing the programme requirements and an interview with the placement specialist.

The BCS Foundation Certificate in Business Analysis has no entry requirements. Classroom courses "normally last three days", and the exam is one hour, closed book, with 40 multiple-choice questions and a pass mark of 65%. BCS lists the exam at £200, including a £35 remote proctoring fee, with VAT added at purchase.

The BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis takes four modules, two of them core ("Business Analysis Practice" and "Requirements Engineering"), then an oral examination of up to 50 minutes. The oral is listed at £350 plus VAT; module courses, typically three days of classroom study each, are priced by training providers.

IIBA prices its certifications in US dollars. Its CCBA asks for "Two to three years of work experience in the last seven years (3,750 hours)" and its CBAP "five or more years of work experience in the last 10 years (7,500 hours)". The fee table shows the CBAP exam as "$505 / Members $350", with a $145 application fee.

The apprenticeship's assessment plan gives two of these, the BCS diploma and the CBAP, as examples of the "relevant professional qualification" its independent assessors must hold.

Frequently asked questions

Is the business analyst apprenticeship only for people in IT?

No. The occupation, in the standard's words, "exists in almost every sector, from not-for-profit organisations through to retail and the financial services", and the employers involved in creating the standard include BUPA, National Grid, Virgin Atlantic and Yorkshire Water. The standard reads as an IT one partly because version 1.0, for starts from 2017 to May 2021, was titled "IS business analyst", and because it sits on the Digital route.

Do I need a degree?

No. Skills England's record for the standard lists no entry requirements, and Find apprenticeship training puts the training at level 4, "Equal to higher national certificate (HNC)".

Can an operations manager do it?

Yes, if the role holds the work. An operations manager who maps and redesigns how work flows, consults the people a change affects and assesses its costs, benefits and impacts is doing work several of the 15 duties describe. The provider must still evidence that the person "requires significant new knowledge, skills and behaviours in order to be occupationally competent in their job role" (funding rules, para 63).

What does RITTech registration give?

An entry on the Register of IT Technicians (RITTech) kept by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, at level 4, which the standard is aligned with; it is a register entry, not a qualification. BCS's page for apprentices, as published on 8 October 2026, says those who successfully complete a digital or IT apprenticeship are eligible for "complimentary BCS Professional membership (MBCS) and RITTech registration for one year".

What happens to someone who starts before April 2027?

They are on version 1.2 and its end-point assessment. Skills England's version log gives 12 April 2027 as the last start date for version 1.2, and the revised version replaces it "for new starts", so an apprentice who starts on or before that date writes the 5,000-word project proposal and takes the two methods described above, with their employer choosing the assessment organisation.