How 71 KSBs, 33 portfolio templates, and ten or more AI Buddies built and deployed using no-code and low-code tools combine into a programme that produces Business Analysts ready for tomorrow — not just qualified for yesterday.
Is this programme
right for you?
This guide is for anyone making a decision about the ST0117 Level 4 Business Analyst apprenticeship — whether you are investing your organisation’s levy funds, building a training programme, managing a team, or considering the qualification yourself. It sets out what the programme delivers, how it works, what it costs (and what the government pays), and what makes this particular programme different from every other provider in the market.
You are building or expanding an ST0117 offer and are evaluating partnership, content licensing, or co-delivery. This guide covers the full programme architecture.
You hold apprenticeship levy funds and need a high-quality BA qualification route. This guide covers funding, employer obligations, and the outcomes your organisation can expect.
You are sponsoring an apprentice and need to understand what they will be doing month by month, how much of your time is required, and what they will be capable of at the end.
You want the Level 4 BA qualification and want to understand whether this route — levy-funded, AI-integrated, practitioner-taught — is the right one for your career.
What you will find in this guide:
across 11 months
funding per apprentice
built during programme
and deployed
Beyond the bare minimum.
Every ST0117 provider covers the same standard. The difference is in how it is taught, who is teaching it, and what the apprentice can actually do at the end. Here is what sets this programme apart.
Not training theory.
No code required.
stop at 5 o’clock.
Portfolio from Day 1.
“A Business Analyst who can build the AI tool, not just recommend it — that is the professional your organisation needs now, and will need even more in five years.”
Industries currently served by this programme:
11 months. 71 KSBs. Two tracks.
Each month delivers a core BA competency alongside a parallel AI integration skill. Traditional BA skills and AI capabilities are developed simultaneously — not sequentially.
| Month & Theme | What your apprentice masters | AI Buddy introduced |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Foundations | Stakeholder mapping, BA value proposition, communication planning, the BA role within a change initiative | AI Stakeholder Matrix Builder — no-code AI tool deployed |
| 2 · Methodologies | Waterfall vs Agile selection, business change lifecycles, quality assurance frameworks, technology trends | Methodology Recommender — no-code AI decision support tool |
| 3 · Investigation | PESTLE analysis, structured investigation techniques, problem identification & definition, data protection compliance | Environmental Analysis Generator — prompt-driven AI research tool |
| 4 · Requirements | Elicitation techniques, functional & non-functional documentation, requirements prioritisation, traceability, validation | Requirements Capture & Validation Assistant — low-code AI document tool |
| 5 · Process Modelling | BPMN notation, process hierarchy, eliciting process information from stakeholders, process documentation standards | Process Documentation Generator — no-code AI writing and diagram tool |
| 6 · Process Analysis | Efficiency analysis, root cause analysis, UX & accessibility considerations, future-state process design | Process Improvement Recommender — no-code AI workflow analysis tool |
| 7 · Data & Modelling | Data requirements analysis, data modelling techniques, GDPR compliance, data quality governance | Data Quality Monitor — low-code AI data assessment dashboard |
| 8 · Gap Analysis | Current-state documentation, future-state design, technology assessment, transition roadmapping | Gap Analysis Generator — low-code AI document comparison tool |
| 9 · Testing & Acceptance | Acceptance criteria, testing phases, UAT facilitation, business readiness assessment, quality assurance | Test Case & Acceptance Criteria Generator — no-code AI testing tool |
| 10 · Stakeholder Mgmt | Stakeholder analysis, change impact assessment, cost-benefit analysis, benefits realisation frameworks | Stakeholder Comms & Change Impact Planner — low-code AI planning tool |
| 11 · Integration | All 71 KSBs applied in complex integrated scenarios, portfolio completion, EPA preparation, professional practice | 20+ Agentic AI Opportunities identified; 1–3 year implementation roadmap produced |
KSB coverage: 28 Knowledge areas · 30 Skills · 13 Behaviours · All assessed at End-Point Assessment
Foundations &
Core Analysis Skills
The first four months establish the professional BA mindset and build the analytical toolkit your apprentice will use throughout their career — structured investigation, stakeholder communication, and rigorous requirements management.
Your apprentice learns what Business Analysis actually is — not as a job title but as a discipline. They map stakeholders, plan communications, build a BA Value Proposition Canvas, and understand how the BA role fits within a business change initiative. By the end of Month 1 they can hold a structured stakeholder conversation and document the results professionally.
AI Buddy AI Stakeholder Matrix Builder — a no-code AI tool that auto-generates stakeholder maps and communication matrices from a project brief. First working application built and deployed.
Waterfall and Agile are not abstract concepts here — your apprentice learns to select the right methodology for a given context, understand business change lifecycles, develop quality assurance frameworks, and work across multidisciplinary teams. They can advise on methodology choice with evidence-based reasoning.
AI Buddy Methodology Recommender — a no-code AI decision support tool that analyses project characteristics and recommends the appropriate development approach with evidence-based rationale.
Your apprentice masters structured investigation — running PESTLE analyses, conducting interviews and workshops, identifying root problems rather than symptoms, and building compliance awareness around data protection legislation. They produce a professional problem definition that stakeholders trust.
AI Buddy LLM-driven environmental analysis pipelines; AI-assisted investigation and data analysis; building awareness of data ethics and responsible AI practice.
Requirements elicitation, documentation, prioritisation, and validation — the core of BA practice. Your apprentice learns to distinguish requirements from solution descriptions, manage functional and non-functional requirements, prioritise using structured techniques, and maintain traceability throughout a change initiative. The 33 portfolio templates begin here.
AI Buddy Requirements Capture & Validation Assistant — a low-code AI tool that converts workshop notes and interview outputs into structured, categorised, prioritised requirements with gap alerts.
Process, Data &
Solution Design
The middle months build the deep analytical skills that distinguish a good BA from an excellent one — process thinking, data literacy, and the ability to design solutions that are technically grounded and commercially realistic.
Your apprentice learns BPMN notation to international standards — creating process maps that any stakeholder can follow. They build process hierarchy models, elicit process information from subject-matter experts, and understand the relationship between processes and data. Output: a professional process model portfolio.
AI Buddy Process Documentation Generator — a no-code AI tool that produces draft BPMN process narratives and structured process documentation from stakeholder descriptions.
From mapping to improving — your apprentice analyses existing processes for inefficiency, applies root cause analysis, considers user experience and accessibility, and designs future-state processes that are measurably better. They can present improvement proposals to both technical and non-technical audiences with confidence.
AI Buddy Process Improvement Recommender — a no-code AI analysis tool that reviews existing process documentation, identifies inefficiencies and bottlenecks, and generates prioritised improvement recommendations.
Data is the foundation of modern BA practice. Your apprentice learns to elicit business data needs, build simple data models, assess data quality, and apply GDPR compliance requirements to real projects. They can specify data requirements that development teams can act on without further clarification.
AI Buddy Data Quality Monitor — a low-code AI dashboard that assesses data sets against defined quality rules, flags GDPR compliance issues, and produces governance-ready reports.
The full analytical cycle: documenting the current state, designing the future state, identifying the gaps, and building a transition roadmap. Your apprentice applies technology trend awareness and develops the commercial judgement to assess which solutions are viable. They produce a gap analysis and solution design that would stand up in a board presentation.
AI Buddy Gap Analysis Generator — a low-code AI document comparison tool that ingests current-state and future-state documents and surfaces key gaps with recommended transition actions.
Advanced Practice &
Professional Qualification
The final three months integrate everything and raise the bar. Your apprentice works on complex, multi-strand business analysis scenarios, completes their portfolio, and prepares for the End-Point Assessment with evidence that is already built — not assembled at the last minute.
Your apprentice learns to define rigorous acceptance criteria, plan and support user acceptance testing, assess business readiness for change, and ensure that what gets built matches what was specified. They work directly with test teams and business stakeholders — the classic BA gateway role.
AI Buddy Test Case & Acceptance Criteria Generator — a no-code AI testing tool that converts acceptance criteria into test scenarios and test cases, covering both functional and edge cases.
The human side of BA — your apprentice develops deep stakeholder analysis capability, maps areas of interest and resistance, conducts cost-benefit analyses, builds change impact assessments, and structures benefits realisation plans that give sponsors the evidence they need to justify investment.
AI Buddy Stakeholder Comms & Change Impact Planner — a low-code AI planning tool that produces tailored stakeholder communications and structured change impact assessments from project data.
All 71 KSBs applied in integrated, complex scenarios. Agile BA practices. Portfolio completion. Professional development planning. Your apprentice demonstrates that they can handle a full end-to-end business analysis engagement independently — not just individual tasks in isolation.
AI Buddy Agentic AI Opportunity Map — 20+ Agentic AI use cases identified and prioritised across the apprentice’s organisation. A 1–3 year implementation roadmap produced and presented as part of the EPA portfolio.
A real workplace BA project — scoped, analysed, and presented to an independent assessor. The 33 portfolio templates provide the evidence base. Typically 45–60 minutes including Q&A.
A structured discussion underpinned by the portfolio — designed to probe all 71 KSBs. Because the portfolio is built progressively from Month 1, there are no gaps to scramble to fill at the end.
Fail, Pass, Merit, or Distinction. This programme is designed from Day 1 to target Merit or Distinction — evidence quality is the differentiator, and evidence quality is built throughout.
Ten AI Buddy types.
Three industries.
Ninety-one opportunities.
The AI Buddies in this programme are not invented for a curriculum. They are grounded in real analytical work: across a multi-site dental group, a premium cabinetry studio, and a regional insurance brokerage, ninety-one AI opportunities were identified in the first four months alone — seven months of the programme still remaining.
Ten AI Buddy types appeared independently across all three businesses — different sectors, different sizes, different customer profiles, the same underlying problems and the same categories of solution. Every Buddy your apprentice builds maps to one of these types.
across 3 businesses
of an 11-month programme
no build required
API & workflow integrations
full agentic applications
Twenty to thirty-four
opportunities. One roadmap.
Your organisation.
Month 11 goes beyond building Buddies. Every apprentice conducts a structured Agentic AI audit of their own organisation — identifying between twenty and thirty-four specific AI opportunities across their processes, prioritising them by business impact, and producing a 1–3 year implementation roadmap their leadership can act on.
Across the three case study businesses, ninety-one opportunities were identified at Month 4 alone — thirty-four in the dental group, thirty-three in the cabinetry studio, twenty-four in the insurance brokerage. Your apprentice’s organisation will not be different. The opportunities are there. The programme produces the person who can find them.
“Most organisations have no idea how many AI opportunities are sitting untouched in their day-to-day processes. Your apprentice will find them, quantify them, and hand you the roadmap to act on them. An external consultancy charges £100,000–£250,000 for the same output. The levy has already paid for yours.”
What your apprentice
holds at the end.
30 Skills, 13 Behaviours
completed & evidenced
and deployed
EPA externally assessed
Programme industries served — this programme has been designed for and deployed in:
Your levy funds this.
Completely.
The ST0117 Level 4 Business Analyst apprenticeship is fully funded through the apprenticeship levy — up to £18,000 per apprentice. For organisations that do not pay the levy, the government covers 95% of the cost. Here is how it works.
Eligibility — who can enrol:
You can recruit someone specifically into an apprenticeship role. The programme begins from their start date. You train and qualify them from scratch.
You can put an existing employee through the programme — regardless of how long they have worked for you. This is one of the most cost-effective upskilling routes available.
The ST0117 standard applies across all industries. Dental, legal, manufacturing, insurance — Business Analysis is a cross-sector discipline and this programme is designed to reflect that.
Apprentices must be employed in England, aged 16 or over, and not already in full-time education. There is no upper age limit. The apprentice must spend at least 6 hours per week in off-the-job learning — this programme’s blended structure is designed to make that time productive, not administrative.
Ready to talk?
Let us start with
a discovery call.
A 30-minute discovery call costs nothing and clarifies everything — what the programme would look like for your specific context, how your levy funding works, what your apprentice’s starting point requires, and what a realistic timeline to qualification looks like. No pressure. No obligation.
Partnership, content licensing & co-delivery options
Levy guidance, enrolment process & employer obligations
What supporting an apprentice actually looks like day-to-day
Whether this route is right for your background & ambitions
This programme is delivered by Master Agentic AI Academy — an independent specialist in AI-integrated Level 4 Business Analyst apprenticeship delivery. The AI Tutor-Buddy, the ten or more AI Buddies built using no-code and low-code tools, and the Distinction-first portfolio approach are not features borrowed from another provider. They are built into the programme architecture from the ground up.
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