You may remember that last year saw the inaugural UK Excel Championship, a local spin-off of the long-established (four or five years) Microsoft Excel World Championship. It involved 29 of the UK's most enthusiastic Excellers coming together in London for the grand final - I wrote a blog about it with a title quoting Chaucer, because I'm weird like that.
And this year it's back and bigger than ever - five qualification rounds instead of three, and a lot more people trying to qualify! Which poses an interesting problem. Every single one of the 29 people who competed in last year's final have come back in 2026 to try it again, which I think is extremely cool - in all the other such competitions I've done before there are inevitably one or two people who drift away and find other things to occupy their time, but apparently that doesn't apply to UK Excel! Puff the Magic Dragon would be at home here.
And that means some of our crowd are going to miss out on the final. There are only 32 spaces, and while last year you were basically sure to get in if you just took part in all the qualifiers, this time round, we've got ten spaces still available and fifteen 2025 finalists who haven't bagged one yet. It's a bit sad. I'm just glad I made it in, back in Battle 3 in June!
Our "newcomers" include some familiar faces, of course - Karim was a top qualifier last year but couldn't get to the London final; Jaq was busy last year making me an amazing T-shirt instead of qualifying - but it's still great to see the expansion. This might be the last year of the UK Championship in this kind of format, but I'm hoping it goes on to bigger and brighter things, one way or another. Excel competition is way cooler than the world cup, believe me!
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