Business Analyst & Product Owner Market September 2022
The demand for business analysts has remained consistent throughout the first half of 2022. Some organisations have shifted to a more agile and product-driven approach to requirement gathering and software building which has increased the opportunities for product owners and product managers.
Despite there being some software companies that have slowed growth or even made some changes to the shape of their team in recent months the trend has continued up and to the right. There has been a maturing of role definitions in the product owner and product manager arena which has helped to standardise job titles and salary ranges a little but it continues to be the case that companies use product titles in the product area in creative and different ways.
The future of remote working continues to be a point of discussion. More companies have been declaring their longer-term plans for being fully or partially office based with only a small proportion of companies committing to a long-term full remote strategy. This can be a divisive topic for candidates and certainly something important to be clear about from the beginning. Taking the approach of being in the office for the “moments that matter” rather than having a rigid stance on 3 or 4 days a week in the office every week can be far more appealing to candidates. Commuting to an office to spend the day on video calls is an unfulfilling prospect for many candidates.
The approach companies are taking at this stage is to entice their employees back to the office with carrots, it will be interesting to see if this works and if the carrot gets replaced with a stick in time by some companies. The trend is swayed by the more bullish and high-paying companies in any domain with the majority following the trend.
Having a technical background or strong technical appreciation is a particularly attractive trait for a BA or product owner/manager since it helps build credibility with technical teams which can be incredibly helpful. There has been a modest amount of growth in salaries in these areas over the first two quarters of the year but companies continue to be willing to pay a premium for experience in the financial services or FinTech domains.
There has been an indication of positive trends for senior-level product management positions in Ireland by US-based software product (particularly) SaaS businesses that had historically kept these roles in the US.
The demand for Contract Business Analysts has been increasing steadily throughout the first half of 2022. The vast majority of organisations have now shifted to an Agile approach and Business Analysts with Agile experience have become more desirable than the traditional waterfall approach.
In addition to this, Business Analysts with previous Scrum Master experience are very desirable, especially to less mature agile organisations. There has been a considerable jump in daily rates for Business Analysts from 2021 to 2022. This will likely plateau for the rest of the year.