'It's the golden age of spreadsheet geekery'

Contenders at the Microsoft Excel World Championships compete for a wrestling-style belt

"Who doesn't want to be the spreadsheet champion?"

That is what the co-founders of the UK Microsoft Excel chapter said when explaining how the everyday computer programme Microsoft Excel became a competitive e-sport.

For a few years now, spreadsheet masters have been working hard to get their hands on the wrestling style UK and world champion belts that are awarded to the winners of Microsoft Excel Championships - and in the west of England the race is on to find new talent to galvanise on the sport's growing popularity.

So what is competitive spreadsheeting?

And how did Excel become a high-flying, high-stakes e-sport inviting players worldwide to win thousands of pounds?

Miles Arnott (L) and Giles Male hope to find new talent at an Excel meet up group in Bristol

What is competitive excel?

Competitive excel has been around for about 20 years and is essentially a puzzle solving competition, thinking logically about how you can create a general solution to a question which is scalable and fast.

There is a story line to go along with the problem, and pressure is added by the process being timed.

It requires a logical and creative thought process.

Historically, the game has been solely maths focused, but there has since been the inclusion of more problem solving questions like solving a maze, a poker hand or sorting kings and queens and the battles they fought in.

This is something Bristol financial advisor Myles Arnott has been very passionate about.

He and his business partner Giles Male are searching for new talent to take on the e-sport and hopes that adding more problem solving will make it more "accessible".

"It's the golden age of spreadsheet geekery," he added.

Mr Male said that in the past few years, the competition has "gone nuts" and is "probably the most exciting way to get better at excel in general".

The e-sport has taken off in the past few years, attracting people from across the globe

What does a round look like?

During a game, competitors are given files of jumbled data and scenarios or 'cases' that require sorting, based on a question, within the quickest time.

At the start of the first round they are all sent an excel file at the same time and have a 30-minute window to answer as many questions in that file as they can.

There are seven levels of questions that increase in difficulty, along with some bonus questions.

Each question is worth a set amount of points, with harder ones worth more, and whoever gets the most points wins.

In a tie, whoever got there first wins.

Do you think you could do it? Click here to have a go.

The Microsoft Excel World Championships UK chapter held its first championship events this year

What does it take to become a competitor?

Mr Arnot and Mr Male set up an Excel meetup group this year in Bristol that has more than 150 members from across the west country and some from the south of England.

They emphasised that anyone at any level can join competitive spreadsheeting describing the entry level as "accessible" and "logic" focused.

"You get people who come to it who are fairly new to it - you don't have to be an expert at the start," Mr Arnott said.

"It's a great way of testing your brain and your skills and has a lot of transferrable skills.

"But once you get higher up [to the world championship level] - at that point maths logic really helps."

Mr Male explained there was a strong community of "excel geeks" across the world, but said they were "ready to find talent in the west".

"It's such a different thing from building a spreadsheet at work," he added.

Crowds of people come to watch the world championships

What's at stake?

The world championship finals in Las Vegas was described as a "crazy" experience by Mr Male.

Held in an e-sport arena, hundreds of people come to cheer on those participating.

As well as the wrestling style winners belt, there is a $60,000 (£45,726) prize.

Mr Male competed in this year's world championship and is also a commentator for the annual event.

"It's tough, the level is very, very high. It's an experience that's for sure," he said.

"You've got a crowd with banners for their favourite players and you've got commentators.

"We want to inspire the next generation of Excel geeks and superstars."

Mr Male said he wants to inspire the next generation

What is the future of competitive Excel?

Microsoft product manager Joe McDaid said the programme had been "enhanced" by the competition and forced to evolve.

He further explained that complicated questions in the competition force the programme to its limits and has inspired developers to continuously improve the programme accordingly through new features such as Copilot.

"Some of the problems they've been solving 10 years ago, many of those problems that were really difficult to solve are now quite easy to solve in the modern application," he said.

"We never envisaged it would grow into anything like this. I'm excited."

The Microsoft Excel World Championship finals (MEWC) will be held in the HyperX Arena, Las Vegas, from 1 to 3 December.

Dates for next year's MEWCUK events are yet to be confirmed.