Do you think Excel is just for number crunching? Think again. Lara Holding-Jones dives into the competitive world of Excel E-Sports—yes, it’s a thing—and shows how this global competition is fuelling serious skills development, community connection and a lot of unexpected fun for your next L&D power move
Yes, you read that right. E-Sports. Competitions in Excel. The annual Microsoft Excel World Championship (MEWC).
Every month, hundreds of competitors tackle different Excel challenges, hoping to earn their place in the live finals in Las Vegas, USA, that takes place in December. It’s had the seal of approval from Microsoft, has been featured on sports-related programming channel ESPN and has a healthy prize fund, with the top 48 players sharing $61,500 depending on their place in this year’s final.
It can be really fun, and that’s often critical when it comes to learning
Starting in 2023 in its current structure, but rapidly gaining popularity, the events bring together an incredibly diverse group of Excel lovers from over 72 countries in fierce, but fun competitions.
How can you compete in Excel?
Battles, as they’re called in the MEWC, take place each month, with all competitors tackling the challenge in the same time slot. When the time comes, each competitor receives an email to the competition platform where they can see an introduction of the case and download the case spreadsheet. When their 30 minutes expires, all of their answers and finished spreadsheet will need to have been uploaded to the platform too.
Most cases have a theme to make the competition that little bit more fun, with recent battles covering The Wizard of Oz, the incredible new word game Wabble (uncannily similar to Scrabble!), the labyrinths within the Temple of the Golden Idol, and even an ice-skating monkey called Lana Banana.
What’s involved in a battle?
Each case typically consists of seven questions of increasing difficulty and five bonus questions. Whilst each competitor will tackle cases and questions differently, the goal is to use Microsoft Excel’s diverse range of formulas and tools to solve the problems. Sometimes, problems are a little simpler, using Excel’s formulas (which Microsoft calls functions) in the way they are intended, like finding information from a table using your favourite lookup (VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH and so on).
As questions get more difficult, competitors need to think outside the box a little more, using Excel’s formulas and tools more creatively, in ways that Microsoft never imagined would be necessary! Competitors often end up using custom formulas (called LAMBDAs), combining various formulas into complex equations, and even using Excel’s data modelling tool to quickly work through multi-layered calculations.
Something that you might have never expected to see in Excel are the map questions which require competitors to move around a map based on arrow directions or finding certain items. That doesn’t sound too challenging until you try to think through what formulas you could use!
If you’d like to see one of our top British competitors work through a simpler case from the 2025 competition, this is Hadyn Wiseman’s walkthrough for Battle 2 – Whodunnit, written by an incredible British case writer, Harry Watson:
The goal of each battle is to get the most points in the quickest time. Each month, the top competitors earn their place in the play-offs, where the last 256 players will battle to make it to the finals, and an overall winner will be crowned.
Where does the learning come in?
People often think you have to be ‘world-class’ to be involved in the Microsoft Excel World Championships, and that’s absolutely not the case. Of course it’s a competition, and so to win, competitors have to hone their skills and be at the top of their game. For most competitors it’s not just about winning. There are a variety of reasons why the MEWC is a great way to develop people’s Excel skills. Here are just some of them:
- People don’t have to compete on the day to access the case files. Everyone who signs up receives the case after the battle, which includes a blank copy for them to tackle (with handy ticks/crosses to let them know if they’ve got it right) plus the correct answers for people to check. So even if people don’t want to compete, they can still try all the problems themselves in their own time.
- The cases themselves will push people to think creatively and truly understand the formulas they’re working with. They’ll learn new formulas and extend their knowledge of the ones they thought they already knew! For example, XLOOKUPs (or any lookup, really) will only pull the first matching item. So, if you have a spreadsheet with multiple instances of the value you’re looking up, Excel will run down the list and find the first one that matches. That may not be the result you actually want. That’s an important nuance to understand in the real world, but also a handy trick in the MEWC world.
- There is a fantastic, global community of competitors who share tutorials, LAMBDAs (custom formulas) and tips on their YouTube channels. That’s free learning from experts who work with Microsoft Excel every day.
- It can be really fun, and that’s often critical when it comes to learning. People don’t learn when we force them to sit through boring, technical, long training sessions. People don’t realise they’re learning when they’re doing something they enjoy. Whilst many people wouldn’t describe competing in Excel as fun, there will be some people who would really enjoy tackling the MEWC cases.
My experience as a competitor
I found out about the MEWC from a YouTube video that randomly popped up in my algorithm. From the video title/thumbnail, I thought it might a weird joke, but it wasn’t. There was an actual e-sports competition in Microsoft Excel. It’s this video if you’d like to watch it too:
Having used Excel for the last 20 years, starting long before I began my professional career, I’d describe myself as a confident, strong user. So I signed up because I thought it might be fun. I wasn’t wrong!
My first battle was Battle III in March 2024. With just 398 points, I placed 141st out of 188 competitors. Not exactly impressive, but I was pretty happy not to come last. Since then, I’ve completed countless hours of practice, built out my own set of custom formulas (LAMBDAs) with a little help from other competitors’ YouTube videos, and competed in 13 live world and UK battles.
I now use a wider range of formulas and tools within Excel, but also that I do so confidently and accurately
I’ve even been selected by the organisers to compete in the YouTube livestream for April’s battle, where four players picked from the full competitor list complete their battle with their screen and video shared to all online viewers. Whilst I’m certain I’ll crumble under the pressure, I’m so excited for the opportunity, particularly as a woman. This is only the 14th time a woman has competed in a livestream, out of the 104 places there have been on livestreams. The MEWC is an incredibly welcoming place, to everyone, regardless of who they are, but women are in the minority, so it’s a huge opportunity to promote MEWC to a wider audience and hopefully attract some more women in the future.
My Excel skills have improved significantly in the past year, meaning that I now use a wider range of formulas and tools within Excel, but also that I do so confidently and accurately. I actively engage in learning on an almost daily basis with my MEWC practice and know that the skills I have learnt have created better results in my work-life too. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their Excel skills, and my pitch is that it’s ‘like doing escape rooms but in Excel’. Who doesn’t love an escape room?
MEWC for skills development
As I mentioned above, there are a variety of ways that you could leverage MEWC as a skills development tool. It’s a really fun way for individuals to progress their skills. As of 2025, there is now a UK chapter, which offers a smaller scale, slightly easier competition for UK based individuals. For those working in financial modelling, there is also the Financial Modelling World Cup (FMWC).
By sponsoring an employee’s place in the competition, you’re enabling them to develop their Excel skills in a fun way, with access to a generous online bank of additional learning content. It’s progressed my skills immensely, and I’ve never had so much fun. Ok, I confess, I may have shouted at the computer a few times when the cases got too hard, but I’m only human!
I’m not affiliated with FMWC who host the MEWC, I’m just incredibly passionate about the competition, learnt so much, and think more people should take part!
Lara Holding-Jones is an Excel and HR Data Literacy Trainer at her company Pink Jelly People Consultancy
