Career profile · SOC ESC-F2B00878

business journalist

Business journalists research and write articles about economy and economic events for newspapers, magazines, television and other media. They conduct interviews and attend events.

business journalist business journalists research and write articles about economy and economic events for newspapers, magazines, television and other media. They conduct interviews and attend events. The role shows moderate AI exposure (0.50 on a 0-1 scale) — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. The most in-demand skills for the role include digital journalism, interview techniques, editorial standards, economics, writing techniques.

AI exposure
5.0/10
automation risk

Pay in the UK

UK: median £44,534 a year for Newspaper and periodical journalists and reporters (ONS ASHE 2025, full-time)

UK jobs are grouped differently; this is the closest UK occupation group (ONS SOC 2020 2492). ONS rates this estimate acceptable: it rests on a small sample, so treat it as a rough guide. 2025 provisional figures; ONS revises them a year later. Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Open Government Licence)

Pay in India (occupation group)

Average monthly earnings of salaried employees in the occupation group “Professionals” in India, from the Government of India's Periodic Labour Force Survey (January–December 2025). It covers everyone in this group, not only business journalist, and it is not US pay converted to rupees.

Urban India
₹42,717 a month
Rural India
₹30,424 a month
All India
₹38,466 a month

Source: MoSPI (Government of India), Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2025, Table 51 — average wage/salary earnings of regular wage/salaried employees, NCO-2015 division 2. Official India data gives one average per occupation group: there are no official India figures for single careers, experience levels or cities. Read the report

Top skills

digital journalism interview techniques editorial standards economics writing techniques rhetoric spelling grammar copyright legislation participate in editorial meetings

Knowledge you'll build

  • English Language
  • Communications and Media
  • Law and Government
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Telecommunications
  • Customer and Personal Service
  • Geography
  • Public Safety and Security

What you'd actually do

  • Write commentaries, columns, or scripts, using computers.
  • Coordinate and serve as an anchor on news broadcast programs.
  • Examine news items of local, national, and international significance to determine topics to address, or obtain assignments from editorial staff members.
  • Analyze and interpret news and information received from various sources to broadcast the information.
  • Receive assignments or evaluate leads or tips to develop story ideas.
  • Research a story's background information to provide complete and accurate information.

Tools & technology you'd use

Adobe After Effects hot Adobe InDesign hot Adobe Photoshop hot Facebook hot Hypertext markup language HTML hot IBM SPSS Statistics hot Microsoft Access hot Microsoft Excel hot Microsoft Office software hot Microsoft Outlook hot Microsoft PowerPoint hot Microsoft SQL Server hot

Frequently asked questions

What does business journalist do?

Business journalists research and write articles about economy and economic events for newspapers, magazines, television and other media. They conduct interviews and attend events.

What skills does business journalist need?

The most in-demand skills for this role include digital journalism, interview techniques, editorial standards, economics, writing techniques, rhetoric. These are the skills O*NET identifies as most important for competent performance.

Will AI replace business journalist?

Our AI-durability model gives business journalist a score of 0.50 on a 0-1 scale (higher = more exposure). That places it at moderate AI exposure — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. Learning to work with AI tools rather than against them is the path forward.

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