Hassan Khan
In the middle of the AI talent race in Silicon Valley, one of the most Seek after skills is surprisingly not new it’s Microsoft Excel.
When you think of the hottest tech skills in 2025, your mind probably jumps straight to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or maybe even Prompt Engineering. But here’s the surprise: the skill topping job listings isn’t new, trendy, or tied to futuristic coding. It’s Microsoft Excel a tool that’s been around since 1985.
Report Shows Excel Still on Top
A new report by Course Report, which reviewed over 12 million tech job postings on Indeed, shows that Excel is still the most cited skill, appearing more than 531,000 times.
- Python: 67,000 mentions
- SQL: 60,000 mentions
- Machine Learning: 31,000 mentions
- AI: 25,000 mentions
Despite being decades old, Excel still beats cutting edge skills by a wide margin.
So why is a nearly 40 year old spreadsheet program beating out cutting edge tech skills? The answer is simple: data.
Why Excel Is Still So Important
Businesses today are drowning in data, and Excel remains the universal language for organizing, analyzing, and presenting it. As Rajoshi Rhosh, Co-founder of PromptQL, put it: “The interface is too deeply ingrained in how business users think and operate. What will change is how the data gets into Excel.”
The Last Mile of Decision Making
In other words, while AI tools may collect and refine data, Excel is still the place where companies interpret it and make decisions. Pukar Hamal, CEO of SecurityPal, echoed this, saying that for most businesses, the “last mile” always comes back to Excel. “You either dress up an Excel model with a UI, or you give buyers a way to take your data back to Excel. That is where real decisions and real dollars move.”
Excel Remains Essential for AI
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley is locked in a fierce battle for AI talent, with top companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI offering million dollar pay packages to attract experts in machine learning. Yet, even as AI skills command sky high salaries, Excel quietly remains indispensable. It may not have the glamour of AI, but it is the tool that keeps businesses running day to day.
Interestingly, even non technical roles are benefiting from AI trends, with skills like “Prompt Engineering” essentially asking better questions of AI systems creating lucrative opportunities. But Excel’s dominance proves that practical, tried and true skills are still at the core of the tech industry.
Summary
AI might be building the future, but Excel is still managing the present. And for job seekers, that’s an important reminder: the most valuable skill isn’t always the newest sometimes, it’s the one businesses simply can’t live without.
