The invention provides a method for measuring the lithium content in zirconium and zirconium alloy. The method includes the following steps that firstly, pure zirconium or zirconium alloy is turned to obtain crumb-shaped samples, and the crumb-shaped samples are cleaned and dried; secondly, the samples are selected through a coning and quartering method; thirdly, the samples are dissolved, the solution is transferred in a volumetric flask for volume metering, and liquid to be detected is obtained; fourthly, a series of lithium calibration solutions with different concentrations are prepared; fifthly, the solutions are measured one by one through an inductive coupling plasma body emitting spectrograph, and a calibration curve of the correspondence relationship of the concentrations of the lithium calibration solutions and a lithium element feature spectral intensity is built; sixthly, the lithium element feature spectral intensity of the liquid to be detected is measured through the inductive coupling plasma body emitting spectrograph, and the mass content of lithium in the pure zirconium or zirconium alloy samples is worked out according to the calibration curve. The method for measuring the lithium content in zirconium and zirconium alloy overcomes the difficulties that the vertical observation technology is prone to element ionization and interference, and the detection limit can not meet trace analysis when the inductive coupling plasma body emitting spectrograph is used for measuring a zirconium matrix in a high-salty environment, and meets the detection requirements of zirconium and zirconium alloy in the nuke industry.