Power BI dashboard examples: real-world use cases by industry

Looking for real-world Power BI dashboard examples? You're in the right place. This comprehensive guide showcases how UK businesses across 12 industries are using Microsoft Power BI to turn raw data into actionable insights that drive better decisions.

Whether you're in healthcare, retail, finance, or manufacturing, you'll find practical examples and UK-specific case studies that demonstrate exactly how Power BI dashboards can transform your organisation's approach to data.

Power BI adoption in the UK: the numbers

Before we look at specific dashboard examples, let's set the scene with some UK-specific data. Microsoft Power BI has become the dominant business intelligence platform in the UK, and the numbers tell a compelling story.

The UK business intelligence market reached £1.57 billion in 2025 and is growing at 10.74% annually through 2033. Power BI commands 30.2% of the global analytics platform market - significantly ahead of Tableau (16.7%) and Qlik (4%). In the UK specifically, Power BI holds an 11.50% market share of all BI tools.

What's particularly striking is the adoption rates across UK sectors:

• Local government: 87% of UK councils use Power BI
• NHS healthcare: 84% of acute trusts have implemented Power BI
• Financial services: 83% adoption rate in 2025
• Retail: 44% of major UK retail chains
• SMEs: 39% of UK small and medium businesses

Perhaps most importantly, 52% of organisations see a return on their Power BI investment within 12 months. That's a quick payback for a tool that fundamentally changes how businesses understand and act on their data.

Now, let's look at how different industries are actually using Power BI in practice.

Power BI dashboard examples by industry

1. Healthcare (NHS and private sector)

Healthcare is one of the most data-intensive industries, and the NHS has been a major adopter of Power BI. With 84% of NHS acute trusts using the platform, healthcare analytics has been transformed.

NHS Power BI case studies:

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust was an early NHS adopter of Power BI, led by Professor Philip Dean in the Department of Pharmacy. The trust migrated from Crystal Reports to cloud-based Power BI, achieving an 80% time reduction in building data models (from 5 days to just 1 day). Using Power Query, they now integrate external GP activity data with weather patterns to understand respiratory disease frequency, something impossible with their previous tools. Professor Dean described Power BI as "far more visual than the tools we've been using and has more impact."

NHS England deployed COVID-19 and flu surveillance dashboards providing weekly heatmaps of ICU occupancy, achieving a 22% reduction in emergency department overload through improved predictive capacity. The East of England regional team uses the Urgent Community Response dashboard to understand demand for 2-hour crisis response services, enabling evidence-based service design and workforce planning.

In 2024, the NHS Confederation partnered with Beamtree to launch "The Evolve Collaborative," an AI-powered analytics platform for NHS trusts. Matthew Taylor, CEO of the NHS Confederation, explained the rationale: "The NHS is awash with data but short on actionable insight, with too much focus on looking back and assuring and not enough looking forwards, learning and improving."

Key dashboard uses across NHS trusts:

• Urgent Community Response monitoring: Real-time tracking of 2-hour crisis response compliance, reducing manual reporting by 70%.
• Patient flow analytics: Predictive modelling to optimise bed occupancy, with adult bed occupancy dashboards tracking utilisation in real-time.
• Catchment population tracking: Real-time visualisation of patient distribution across 226 NHS trusts.
• Clinical performance dashboards: A&E waiting times, bed occupancy, and readmission rates with drill-down to specific wards or time periods.

The NHS Community Health Services Data Plan (2024-2027) commits to deploying Power BI dashboards by April 2025, with Microsoft Fabric integration mandated by Q3 2026. The UK healthcare analytics market is projected to grow to £9.92 billion by 2033, and Power BI sits at the centre of this transformation.

2. Retail

UK retailers are under pressure to compete with online giants while managing complex omnichannel operations. 44% of major UK retail chains now use Power BI, and that number is growing as the sector embraces data-driven decision making.

UK retail case studies:

Tesco, the UK's largest grocer with 34% market share in online grocery, uses Power BI extensively for sales forecasting and performance tracking. The Clubcard programme has grown to 9 million active app users (up from 2 million in 2020), generating rich first-party data that feeds into Power BI dashboards. Tesco's forecasting dashboards analyse quarterly sales using moving averages, seasonal indices, and trend analysis. The platform processes transaction data from nearly 2,000 UK supermarkets plus online orders, with dashboards tiered by role: store managers see hourly sales and inventory, regional managers see portfolio aggregations, category managers analyse product-level trends, and executives track strategic KPIs.

John Lewis launched its retail media platform in 2024 powered by Epsilon technology. Power BI dashboards track campaign performance, customer engagement, and sales attribution for brand advertising campaigns. All advertisements undergo in-house review before publication, with this quality control workflow managed through dashboard interfaces. The retail media data feeds back into broader merchandising analytics, revealing which product categories generate highest engagement.

Key retail dashboard uses:

• Sales performance tracking: Real-time dashboards showing sales by store, region, product category, and time period with drill-down from national to individual store.
• Demand forecasting: Integration with Azure Machine Learning for inventory optimisation, with one major retailer reducing stockouts by 27%.
• Footfall analysis: 63% of UK retailers use Power BI geospatial analytics to visualise customer traffic patterns and optimise store layouts.
• Omnichannel analytics: Unifying online and offline sales data to measure true campaign ROI across channels.

Research suggests UK retailers will automate 60% of operational tasks using AI-driven analytics by 2035. Power BI dashboards are the foundation for this transformation, providing the visibility needed to identify automation opportunities.

3. Financial services

With 83% adoption in UK financial services, Power BI has become the standard for banking, insurance, and investment analytics. The FCA's 2022 Data Strategy mandates "digital and intelligence-led regulation," making strong analytics a compliance requirement as much as a business advantage.

UK banking case studies:

HSBC has deployed Microsoft Power Platform across 50+ countries, serving over 20,000 users. The bank's client query management system processes over 8 million queries annually. Richard Lord, Managing Director and Regional CIO for Wholesale Asia Pacific, explained their citizen development approach: "We take the tooling for innovation out to the hands of the people who know the problems best." One Hong Kong-based analyst, trained on Power Platform, created an application saving the business 117,000 hours annually. HSBC's creative lending solution was deployed across 11 markets in just 90 days with 50% cost savings compared to traditional development.

Barclays deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot to 70% of employees in 2024, with users saving 30-60 minutes daily. Business risk reviews that previously took 3 weeks can now be completed in 1 day. Training programme creation dropped from 3 weeks to 1 day. The bank also uses AI-powered "Smart Assistants" that reduced client inquiry resolution time by 50% and escalation time by over 30%.

Metro Bank, the first new UK high street bank licensed in over 100 years, has built over 100 Power BI reports. The CEO famously described Power BI as "a bank in his pocket" because with a few clicks the company can visualise and investigate company data. Metro Bank uses Power BI across call centre operations (call volume, service levels, demographics), mobile and internet banking (transaction analysis), customer service (complaint tracking and resolution times), and staffing (peak activity identification).

Key financial services dashboard uses:

• Real-time liquidity monitoring: Dashboards tracking capital adequacy and liquidity positions for PRA and FCA compliance.
• Customer analytics: Comprehensive views of customer behaviour, transaction patterns, and cross-selling opportunities.
• Risk assessment: Visualising credit risk, market risk, and operational threats across portfolios.
• Consumer Duty compliance: The FCA's Consumer Duty Act requires firms to demonstrate good customer outcomes. Power BI dashboards provide the evidence.

4. Manufacturing

Manufacturing SMEs show the strongest Power BI adoption among UK small businesses at 29%. The sector uses dashboards for everything from production monitoring to supply chain visibility.

Manufacturing dashboard examples:

• Production monitoring: Real-time OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) dashboards showing machine uptime, performance, and quality metrics.
• Quality control: Track defect rates, scrap percentages, and quality KPIs with drill-down to specific production lines or shifts.
• Supply chain visibility: Monitor inventory levels, supplier performance, and delivery times across multiple sites.
• Energy consumption: Track utility costs by production line, helping identify efficiency opportunities and meet sustainability targets.

UK manufacturers are using Power BI as part of Industry 4.0 initiatives, connecting IoT sensor data to create comprehensive operational dashboards. Plant managers report that having all this information in one place has reduced time to market and improved efficiency substantially.

5. Construction

The construction industry benefits enormously from Power BI's ability to consolidate data from multiple projects and systems. Dashboard use cases include:

• Project tracking: Visualise progress against milestones, budget spend, and resource allocation across all active projects.
• Health and safety: Monitor incident rates, near-misses, and compliance with safety requirements.
• Materials management: Track material usage, waste, reuse rates, and CO2 emissions - increasingly important for sustainability reporting.
• Labour analytics: Monitor workforce allocation, productivity, and contractor performance.
• Pre-financing risk: Identify cash flow risks and project financing issues before they become critical.

Construction firms use Power BI to gain an overview of company performance, spotting issues like unresolved service orders and work with longer lead times before they impact project delivery.

6. Education

UK universities are embracing Power BI for student success analytics and operational management. Several Russell Group institutions have deployed comprehensive analytics platforms.

UK university case studies:

University of Manchester maintains 14 Power BI applications produced by the Directorate of Planning, based on verified Office for Students datasets. These include HESA benchmark dashboards comparing student numbers across the sector, Russell Group attainment and entry qualification comparisons showing how Manchester compares on average tariff scores and degree classifications, student destination metrics revealing progression to further study, access and participation tracking against targets, and league table analysis covering six rankings (Complete University Guide, Guardian, Times, ARWU, QS, THE). The university also uses application funnel analysis to visualise recruitment across multiple admission cycles, including widening participation applicants.

University of Wolverhampton implemented a student attendance tracking dashboard in late 2024, created by the university's own MSc students as a practical project. The prototype was delivered within weeks and allows staff to break down attendance by course, department, and student characteristics including home postcode and part-time employment status. Rather than manually sifting through spreadsheets, tutors can now quickly visualise which student groups are showing concerning patterns, enabling early intervention before students reach crisis points.

Key education dashboard uses:

• Student engagement tracking: Pooling data from VLE access, library usage, assignment submissions, and support services to create comprehensive engagement scores with automated alerts.
• Admissions analytics: Track application volumes, conversion rates, and demographic data across multiple cycles to improve recruitment strategies.
• League table monitoring: Track rank and score trends to inform strategic positioning and marketing.
• Research metrics: Track grant applications, publications, and research impact.

7. Transportation and logistics

Heathrow Airport provides an excellent example of Power BI in transportation. As one of the UK's busiest airports, they use Power BI to stay ahead of disruptions that could affect passengers.

Stuart Birrell, Chief Information Officer at Heathrow, has said: "With Power BI, we can very quickly connect to a wide range of data sources with very little effort and use this data to run Heathrow more smoothly than ever before."

Transportation dashboard examples:

• Operations monitoring: Real-time tracking of flights, gates, baggage systems, and passenger flow.
• Disruption management: Early warning dashboards that predict and respond to potential service disruptions.
• Fleet management: For logistics companies, tracking vehicle locations, delivery performance, and driver efficiency.
• Route optimisation: Analysing delivery routes to reduce costs and improve service levels.

8. Insurance

Insurance companies use Power BI for claim analysis, underwriting insights, and identifying new business opportunities. The platform serves as a unifying force, bringing together data from disparate communication channels and legacy systems.

Insurance dashboard examples:

• Claims analytics: Track claim volumes, processing times, settlement amounts, and fraud indicators.
• Underwriting performance: Analyse loss ratios, pricing accuracy, and risk selection by product and region.
• Customer insights: Understand customer behaviour, policy renewals, and cross-selling opportunities.
• Regulatory compliance: Monitor solvency requirements and reporting obligations.

9. Local government

With 87% of UK councils using Power BI, local government has become one of the highest-adopting sectors. A Local Government Association survey (October-December 2024) of 96 councils found that 53% of data professionals have access to Power BI and other data tools, with 49% of councils assessing themselves at data maturity level 3 ("making good progress in developing capacity and capabilities").

UK council case studies:

• Dorset Council: Housing service transformation reduced case resolution time by 45% through geospatial analytics of council properties.
• Hammersmith & Fulham: AI-powered CCTV analytics in Power BI cut fly-tipping incidents by 31%.
• Buckinghamshire Council: Productivity increased 30% after Copilot integration for social care reporting.

The Office for National Statistics runs ONS Local, providing analytical support to councils including Power BI training. Between April 2022 and March 2025, 89% of surveyed local authorities used this support, describing impacts as "invaluable" for improving analytical capability and enabling evidence-based decision-making. The LGA survey found that 61% of councils have produced business cases for data investment in the past 5 years, with almost half having deployed data warehouses and Power BI dashboards to improve accessibility.

Councils use Power BI for everything from social care planning and benefits processing to environmental monitoring and public health tracking. The ability to make data accessible to councillors and citizens supports transparency and better decision-making across the sector.

10. Energy and utilities

Energy companies face unique challenges around grid management, sustainability reporting, and customer engagement. Power BI dashboards help manage these complex operations.

Energy sector dashboard examples:

• Grid monitoring: Real-time visualisation of energy generation, distribution, and consumption.
• Sustainability metrics: Track carbon emissions, renewable energy percentages, and progress toward net-zero targets.
• Customer analytics: Understand usage patterns, billing queries, and service issues.
• Asset management: Monitor infrastructure condition and plan maintenance activities.

11. Professional services

According to Apps Run the World, professional services is the largest user of Microsoft Power BI globally. Consultancies, accountancies, and legal firms use dashboards to manage client work and business development.

Professional services dashboard examples:

• Project profitability: Track time spent versus budget across client engagements.
• Resource utilisation: Monitor billable hours, staff allocation, and capacity planning.
• Business development: Pipeline tracking, win rates, and client relationship management.
• Client reporting: Automated reporting for clients on project progress and outcomes.

12. Hospitality and tourism

Hotels, restaurants, and tourism businesses use Power BI to manage occupancy, optimise pricing, and improve guest experiences.

Hospitality dashboard examples:

• Revenue management: Track occupancy rates, room prices, and RevPAR (revenue per available room) in real-time.
• Guest analytics: Understand booking patterns, guest preferences, and satisfaction scores.
• Operations: Monitor staff scheduling, food costs, and service levels.
• Seasonal planning: Analyse historical data to forecast demand and plan for peak seasons.

Power BI use cases by department

Beyond industry-specific applications, Power BI dashboards serve common functions across departments. Here's how different teams typically use the platform:

Finance and accounting

Finance teams use Power BI to automate reporting that previously required hours of Excel work. Organisations implementing financial dashboards report 40-50% reduction in manual data consolidation and reconciliation activities. Metro Bank built over 100 automated reports, eliminating manual errors and freeing finance staff for higher-value analysis. Reckitt achieved 60% improvements in insight generation for financial and marketing analysis by integrating Power BI with Microsoft Copilot. Common dashboards include P&L statements, cash flow monitoring, budget vs actual comparisons, and profitability analysis with indirect cost allocation by customer or product.

Sales

Sales dashboards track pipeline health, team performance, and customer analytics. By connecting to CRM systems like Salesforce or HubSpot, teams get real-time visibility into opportunities, win rates, and revenue forecasts. One consultancy reported saving 30 working hours per week by automating their sales reporting.

Marketing

Marketing teams use Power BI to measure campaign ROI across channels. By pulling data from Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, and other platforms into a single dashboard, marketers can compare performance and optimise spend. Heineken used this integrated approach to achieve a 20% increase in sales while simultaneously reducing marketing expenses by 10%. Advanced dashboards track customer acquisition cost (CAC) and lifetime value (CLV) to identify which channels deliver the highest-value customers.

Human resources

HR dashboards track workforce composition, recruitment pipelines, absence rates, and employee performance. One diamond polishing company used Power BI HR dashboards to reduce overtime hours from 15,000 per month to just 1,000 by identifying the root causes - primarily employee attrition leaving roles unfilled.

Operations

Operations teams use Power BI to track productivity, project progress, and resource allocation. Dashboards connected to project management tools like ClickUp or Jira provide visibility into how time is spent across projects and team members, helping identify bottlenecks and optimise workflows.

Getting started with Power BI

If these examples have sparked your interest, here's what you need to know about implementing Power BI in your organisation. The business case is compelling: a Forrester study found organisations achieve 366% ROI over three years with payback in under six months. The key benefits include time savings of 1.75 hours per week per business user and a 42% reduction in centralized analytics team effort.

Licensing options for UK businesses

Power BI offers several licensing tiers:

• Power BI Free: Basic features for individual use, with limited sharing capabilities.
• Power BI Pro: £10.80 per user per month (billed annually). This is what most organisations start with, providing full collaboration and sharing features.
• Power BI Premium Per User: £18.50 per user per month. Includes AI features and larger data capacity.
• Power BI Premium: Capacity-based licensing for enterprises with heavy usage.

For UK SMEs, the Pro licence typically provides everything needed to get started. The platform integrates with Microsoft 365, so if your organisation already uses Office tools, adoption is even smoother.

Common mistakes to avoid

Research examining over 100 Power BI implementations has identified the critical success factors that separate successful projects from failed ones:

• Starting without clear objectives: Define what questions you need to answer before building dashboards. Establish a consistent reporting rhythm with weekly or monthly review meetings that examine dashboard data.
• Waiting for perfect data: Address data quality pragmatically. Don't delay implementation until all data issues are resolved. Power BI dashboards often help identify data quality problems by making inconsistencies visible.
• Waterfall development approach: Use agile or scrum methodology with 2-3 week iterations. This enables rapid course correction when initial designs don't meet user expectations.
• Building dashboards in isolation: Involve key stakeholders directly from inception. When stakeholders participate in dashboard development, they become advocates for adoption.
• Neglecting documentation: Document how the solution is organised, how KPIs are calculated, and why design decisions were made. This ensures knowledge persists when original developers leave.
• Not establishing governance: Define who can publish reports, data refresh schedules, and access controls from the start. Assign a dedicated product owner to translate between business needs and technical capabilities.

Is Power BI right for your business?

Power BI is particularly well-suited if:

• You already use Microsoft 365 tools (Excel, SharePoint, Teams)
• You need to consolidate data from multiple sources
• Manual reporting is consuming significant staff time
• You want self-service analytics for business users
• Budget is a consideration (Power BI is more cost-effective than alternatives)

Consider alternatives if you have extremely complex visualisation requirements (Tableau may be stronger) or need embedded analytics for manufacturing systems (Qlik has strengths here).

Frequently asked questions

How much does Power BI cost in the UK?

Power BI Pro costs £10.80 per user per month (billed annually at £129.60). Power BI Premium Per User costs £18.50 per user per month (£222 annually). There's also a free version with limited features, and Power BI Embedded for developers at around £1 per hour.

What industries use Power BI the most in the UK?

In the UK, the highest Power BI adoption rates are in financial services (83%), local government (87% of councils), healthcare (84% of NHS acute trusts), and retail (44% of major chains). Professional services and manufacturing also show strong adoption globally.

Is Power BI better than Tableau or Qlik?

Power BI leads the UK market with 11.50% market share compared to Tableau's 4.82%. Power BI is generally more cost-effective and works well with Microsoft 365, making it ideal for organisations already using Microsoft tools. Tableau excels in complex visualisations, while Qlik is strong in associative analytics for manufacturing.

How long does it take to see ROI from Power BI?

According to research, 52% of organisations see return on investment from Power BI within 12 months. The ROI typically comes from time savings on manual reporting, better decision-making from real-time insights, and reduced errors in data analysis.

Can small businesses use Power BI effectively?

Absolutely. 39% of UK SMEs actively use Power BI. The Pro licence at £10.80 per user per month is affordable for small businesses, and the platform pays for itself within a year for most organisations. Manufacturing SMEs show the strongest adoption at 29%.

Does the NHS use Power BI?

Yes, 84% of NHS acute trusts use Power BI for operational analytics. It's used for urgent community response monitoring, patient flow analytics, clinical dashboards, and resource planning. NHS England's data strategy prioritises Power BI for healthcare analytics.

Ready to get started?

These Power BI dashboard examples show just a fraction of what's possible. Whether you're in healthcare tracking patient outcomes, retail optimising inventory, or finance ensuring regulatory compliance, Power BI can transform how your business uses data.

The key is starting with clear objectives and building dashboards that answer specific business questions. If you need help building impactful Power BI dashboards or want to build a data-driven culture in your organisation, our Power BI experts are here to help.

Get in touch today