Last reviewed: October 2026
You're the person the team sends the broken workbook to. You rebuilt the forecast on a Thursday night after the CFO changed three assumptions, and you know which tab breaks if someone sorts the wrong column. So you search "remote Excel jobs." LinkedIn's remote Excel page promised more than 10,000 open roles when we checked. Of the first 60 cards, none had Excel in the job title and 45 were pinned to a city.
Then you open two postings from the same search. Wesco's rebate analyst job in Pittsburgh pays $54,000 to $68,000 and asks for "Microsoft Office products, especially Microsoft Excel. Ability to operate various types of office equipment including computers." Choice Hotels' remote Senior Sales Analytics Manager job pays $115,000 to $135,000 and wants "Advanced Excel skills, including forecasting, financial or business modeling, sensitivity analysis, and scenario modeling." Both are Excel jobs, but the second pays roughly twice as much.
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Remote Excel jobs aren't sorted by Excel. They're sorted by what the posting asks you to do inside the workbook, and the posting tells you that in two or three lines.
We analyzed 7,465 US job postings across 3,011 employers, listed between May and October 2026. This guide covers which Excel-heavy jobs are actually remote, what they pay, why naming Excel is a pay discount rather than a premium, and a four-check test you can run on any posting in a minute.
Of 4,114 Excel-family postings that state a work model, 927 are fully remote (22.5%); among postings found without "remote" in the search it's 633 of 3,798 (16.7%). Pay depends on the job you do with the spreadsheet, not on Excel. Postings that ask you to build the model, pull your own data and present to the people who decide (a "model seat") post a median of about $106,000. Postings that want you to keep and fill the workbook (a "keeper seat") post $85,000. Postings that name Excel at all pay $96,500, against about $114,000 for postings that don't mention it.
Here are the figures behind that answer, all from the same postings.
Based on 7,465 US postings for spreadsheet-heavy jobs at 3,011 employers (May-October 2026):
- 22.5% (n=927 of 4,114) of postings that state a work model are fully remote; 2,105 are hybrid; plain-search finds: 16.7% (n=633 of 3,798)
- 42.9% (n=432 of 1,008) of finance, accounting, analyst and ops postings found by title on company career boards name Excel at all
- $106,000 median when the posting asks you to build a model (n=893) vs $90,100 when it doesn't (n=1,453)
- 17.8% (n=749 of 4,204) of Excel-named postings mention Excel only inside an Office-suite list; their median is $87,000 (n=416)
- $111,500 median when a planning platform such as Anaplan or Adaptive is named (n=279) vs $95,000 without
- 58.7% (n=118 of 201) of employers with five or more postings stating a work model posted no remote seat at all
- 12 of 7,172 postings carry Excel, VBA or "spreadsheet" in the job title; the 7 with posted pay have a $67,500 median
How We Collected This Data
We read 7,465 unique US requisitions, deduplicated from 8,498 copies, listed May 1 to October 31, 2026. They came from LinkedIn's public job search (22 Excel and analyst queries, 4,888 unique cards, 2,721 full job descriptions read), the SimplyHired and Indeed network (28 searches, 450 job pages), 780 company career sites on Workday, 1,164 live Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and SmartRecruiters boards, and amazon.jobs. 293 postings appeared only on Himalayas, a board that lists nothing but remote jobs, so they stay out of every remote share. That leaves 7,172 postings at 2,802 employers as the analysis base.
"Excel job" isn't a job title, so we sampled the titles whose work runs through a workbook: financial, FP&A and finance analysts and managers, accountants and controllers, data and reporting analysts, business, operations and supply chain analysts, pricing and sales operations analysts, and actuarial, underwriting and credit analysts, plus anything with Excel or VBA in the title. Out: IT and security "analyst" titles, lab and behavior analysts, internships and campus programs, listings before May, and AI-training gigs, which we count separately below.
We read Excel from the posting body as software, not the verb, so "you'll excel in this role" and "Center of Excellence" don't count. Work model comes from the posting text and structured fields. A search for "remote Excel" finds remote postings by design, so we report remote shares two ways: all finds and plain-search finds. Three things broke along the way, and you'll hit the same traps reading postings yourself. A keyword match read Northrop Grumman's "does not offer any virtual or telecommute working options" as a remote job. "Macro Analyst" turned out to mean a macroeconomics desk at a trading firm, not Excel macros. And "VBA" in one federal sales posting meant the Veterans Benefits Administration. We fixed each rule and re-checked by hand; 19 of 20 remote labels in a final sample were right. LinkedIn also rate-limited our searches, so we read 2,721 full descriptions there rather than every matching card.
Pay: 4,081 postings with a posted range, read at the midpoint, hourly ranges annualized. Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, FlexJobs, Upwork and Reddit block our fetcher, so none of their figures appear here. Data reflects October 2026; we refresh it quarterly.
"Excel Jobs" Is a Skill, Not a Job Title
Microsoft Excel appears in 859 of the 923 occupations in the O*NET database, according to O*NET OnLine's Hot Technologies list for Microsoft Excel. It's the most common software in the file, ahead of Microsoft Word. That's why the keyword can't tell a $41,000 seat from a $167,000 one.
| Occupation (all list Excel in O*NET) | BLS median pay, May 2025 | BLS outlook |
|---|---|---|
| Data entry keyers | $41,340 | Declining |
| Bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks | $50,670 | Declining |
| Accountants and auditors | $83,680 | Faster than average |
| Budget analysts | $91,640 | Slower than average |
| Management analysts | $101,860 | Much faster than average |
| Financial and investment analysts | $102,740 | Much faster than average |
| Financial managers | $166,570 | Much faster than average |
The search results show the same spread. LinkedIn's public search for "excel" returned 562 cards. 223 were admin and support titles: assistants, coordinators, data entry, billing, customer service. Only 2 had Excel in the job title. A search for "advanced excel" returned 995 cards, and 850 of them were analyst, finance and accounting titles. Even "remote excel" returned 87 admin titles out of 300, and 184 of the 300 still named a city.
Excel in the job title is rare and pays poorly. 12 of the 7,172 postings in our base carry Excel, VBA or "spreadsheet" in the title. The 7 that post pay range from $42,900 (a Robert Half billing specialist posting with "strong Excel" in the title) to $86,800 (Lincoln Financial's Excel/VBA Annuity Modeling Specialist), with a $67,500 median.
Type the work into the search box, not the software. "Advanced excel" plus a lane word (FP&A, pricing, revenue, reporting, actuarial) returns analyst seats. "Excel" alone returns almost as many assistant and coordinator jobs as analyst ones.
Excel shows up in 859 of 923 occupations. The word doesn't sort jobs; the verb next to it does.
The Workbook Test: Four Checks That Price Any Excel Job
The Workbook Test is a four-check score you run on any posting that names Excel. Each check is one point. It tells you what the seat is likely to pay, because it reads what you're asked to do in the workbook rather than whether the workbook is mentioned.
- Model. You build or own a model: financial, forecast, budget, pricing, operating, scenario or sensitivity, DCF or three-statement.
- Second engine. The posting names SQL or Python, or a planning platform (Anaplan, Adaptive, Pigment, Hyperion, OneStream, Planful, Vena). A BI tool alone doesn't count; dashboards show up in report seats too.
- Decision audience. You present to leadership or the CFO, act as a business partner, or support decisions by name.
- No clerk line. Excel isn't only an item in an Office-suite list, and there's no data entry, typing speed or clerical line.
Every check moves pay on its own:
| Check | Median when it passes (n) | Median when it fails (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Model | $106,000 (893) | $90,100 (1,453) |
| Second engine | $104,500 (874) | $92,000 (1,472) |
| Decision audience | $102,000 (1,181) | $91,000 (1,165) |
| No clerk line | $100,000 (1,845) | $86,500 (501) |
And the score climbs in steps: 0 checks about $81,000 (n=277), 1 check $87,000 (n=537), 2 checks about $97,000 (n=644), 3 checks $105,000 (n=584), 4 checks about $110,000 (n=304).
The Workbook Test: a 0-4 score for how much of an Excel job is building and deciding rather than keeping and filling.
Keeper seat (0-1 checks), $85,000 median (n=814), 1,413 postings: Excel sits inside "Word, Excel, PowerPoint" or next to data entry. Duties say maintain, update, reconcile, track. No model, no named decision-maker. Accounting (388) and operations (291) postings lead this band; the middle half pays $72,000 to $102,900. Example: AdventHealth's on-site Contract Analyst ($47,100 to $87,700) asks for "Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) [Required]" and nothing else in the workbook.
Report seat (2 checks), about $97,000 median (n=644), 1,131 postings: recurring reports, variance analysis, pivots and lookups, often Power BI or Tableau. Usually a model or an audience, rarely both. The middle half pays $82,200 to $115,500. Example: Ally's Analyst II, Credit Risk Analytics (Detroit, hybrid, $65,000 to $115,000) wants SQL, Power BI and Excel to "Maintain, improve, and automate repeatable reporting processes and dashboards." It has the second engine and no clerk line, but no model and no named audience: 2 of 4.
Model seat (3-4 checks), about $106,000 median (n=888), 1,660 postings: builds forecasts and scenarios, pulls data with SQL or runs a planning platform, and presents to the people who decide. 1,018 of the 1,660 are finance and FP&A seats, and 813 of 888 posted midpoints are $75,000 or more. The middle half pays $88,900 to $135,200. Example: the Choice Hotels posting below.
How to use it: score the posting before you tailor anything. A 0 or 1 is priced like clerical work whatever the title says. A 3 or 4 is where your model, your SQL and the decision it fed belong at the top of your resume.
Here's the test on the two postings from the top of this guide. Choice Hotels' Senior Sales Analytics Manager (field/remote, $115,000 to $135,000) asks for "Advanced Excel skills, including forecasting, financial or business modeling, sensitivity analysis, and scenario modeling," "Strong SQL skills with demonstrated experience analyzing large, complex datasets," experience with "territory/quota management platforms, such as Anaplan," and "recommendations for business reviews and senior stakeholder decision-making." That's 4 of 4. Wesco's Analyst - Rebate (Pittsburgh, $54,000 to $68,000) asks you to "Run more complex SQL queries to aid in research," which earns the second-engine point, and lists Excel inside "Microsoft Office products." No model, no audience: 1 of 4, a keeper seat.
The bands hold when we slice the data. On company career sites alone, keeper, report and model seats post $90,000, $103,300 and $123,300. On LinkedIn they post $80,000, $88,600 and $97,500. At manager level and up, $109,400, $129,600 and $150,400. In the finance lane, $86,100, $101,800 and $110,000. At employers that aren't tech companies, $84,200, $96,200 and $105,000.
The test is weakest in the middle of the ladder. Among mid-level postings the bands run $79,800, $86,400 and $90,000, and senior report and model seats both sit at $110,000, so at those levels a higher score buys you a better job more than a bigger number. The money shows up when you move up: at manager level and above, the same three bands run $109,400 to $150,400. We chose the checks on this same set of postings, so read the bands as this market's prices, not a law. And the test doesn't predict remote work: keeper, report and model seats are remote 23.3%, 22.8% and 21.3% of the time. The next sections cover what does.
If you've been applying to every posting that says "Excel" and "remote," the score is the filter you were missing. It's also a lot of reading. Our tool screens the postings for you, so your time goes into the 3s and 4s.
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The Excel Discount: Why Naming Excel Pays Less
You'd expect a posting full of Excel requirements to pay more. It pays less. At every level, postings that name Excel post lower midpoints than postings that never mention it.
| Level | Names Excel: median (n) | Doesn't name Excel: median (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Mid | $85,000 (1,202) | $95,600 (756) |
| Senior | $107,500 (712) | $114,500 (588) |
| Manager | $134,500 (305) | $147,500 (308) |
| Director | $195,000 (34) | $227,000 (30) |
It isn't one industry or one source. At mid level the gap holds at employers that aren't tech companies ($84,000 vs $93,600), on company career sites ($87,100 vs $97,500), on LinkedIn ($84,000 vs $90,000) and inside the finance lane ($86,500 vs $93,400).
It also isn't because the postings that skip Excel are more technical. SQL or Python appears in 30% of both groups (890 of 2,968 that skip Excel; 1,257 of 4,204 that name it). The difference is how the posting describes the job. Postings that name Excel list more tools: a BI tool appears in 38% of them against 18% of the others. A company names the tool when the work lives inside it and someone has to be told which one: reconciliations, rebate files, the weekly report. Higher-paid postings describe the decision, the owner and the model, and assume the workbook the way nobody lists email.
A posting with five Excel bullets is usually telling you the workbook is the job. Check the other three Workbook Test lines before you spend an afternoon on it.
Postings that name Excel pay less at every level. The best-paid analyst postings assume the workbook and describe the decision.
Where the Remote Excel Jobs Are
Of 4,114 postings that state a work model, 927 are fully remote (22.5%), 2,105 are hybrid and 851 are on-site. Among postings found without "remote" in the search, it's 633 of 3,798 (16.7%); on company career sites alone, 516 of 2,887 (17.9%). Hybrid postings that name office days most often say three (168), then two (85) and four (80). Naming Excel doesn't change the odds: 22.4% remote when the posting names it, 22.7% when it doesn't.
The lane matters more:
| Lane | Typical titles | Postings | Name Excel | Remote (of postings stating a model) | Median pay (n) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data and reporting | Data Analyst, Reporting Analyst, BI Analyst | 799 | 431 | 137 of 461 (29.7%) | $102,500 (465) |
| Risk and actuarial | Actuarial Analyst, Underwriter, Credit Analyst | 627 | 238 | 122 of 435 (28.0%) | $114,500 (412) |
| Accounting | Senior Accountant, Assistant Controller | 886 | 547 | 151 of 585 (25.8%) | $99,500 (557) |
| Commercial | Pricing Analyst, Sales Operations Analyst | 586 | 404 | 76 of 328 (23.2%) | $98,500 (317) |
| Operations | Business Analyst, Supply Chain Analyst | 1,042 | 618 | 126 of 603 (20.9%) | $93,500 (604) |
| Finance and FP&A | Financial Analyst, FP&A Manager | 2,413 | 1,605 | 203 of 1,198 (16.9%) | $108,500 (1,236) |
FP&A posts the most Excel-heavy jobs and the fewest remote ones. It sits next to the CFO and the close calendar, and several of the largest posters with no remote seats at all are insurers, banks and defense contractors. Data and reporting seats go remote most often because the data lives in a warehouse and the output is a dashboard someone opens anywhere. If you want remote first and FP&A second, consider adjacent seats: revenue and pricing analytics, reporting, actuarial.
Mostly, though, remote is a company decision. Of 201 employers with five or more postings stating a work model, 118 posted no remote seat at all, and 22 posted remote for half or more. Transamerica (0 of 31), AbbVie (0 of 31), Booz Allen Hamilton (0 of 30), SpaceX (0 of 28), RTX (0 of 27), Marsh McLennan (0 of 27) and USAA (0 of 24) posted none. Northrop Grumman (0 of 22) spells it out: "Due to the classified nature of the work being performed, this position does not offer any virtual or telecommute working options." At the other end: Gartner (14 of 21), Nationwide (13 of 19), ICF (7 of 13), Live Nation (7 of 13), Prime Therapeutics (7 of 8), Affirm (7 of 7) and The Standard (6 of 6).
Remote is an employer decision, not a spreadsheet decision: 118 of 201 large posters had no remote seat at all.
Remote seats don't cost you much, either. Among Excel-named postings, mid-level remote seats post $81,000 against $85,000 for hybrid; senior remote seats $109,800 against $106,000; manager and up $135,000 against $141,800. That's within about $7,000 either way.
So filter by employer track record before keyword. Our remote finance and accounting job board and data and analytics openings carry the same employers, and auto-apply can keep you on the ones that actually post remote seats.
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Before You Apply to a Remote Excel Job: Read It in This Order
The Workbook Test prices the seat. This order tells you whether to spend an evening on it. Every branch comes from counts in the same postings.
- Score it. If it's a 0 or 1, it's a keeper seat at an $85,000 median. Apply only if the employer has a remote record you want, or you need a job this month; don't spend tailoring time on it. If it's a 2, find the missing check and ask about it in the first screen. If it's a 3 or 4, keep going.
- Read the verb in front of "model." If it says support, assist or help, treat the posting as a report seat: those 76 postings post about $97,000 (n=41), against $111,500 (n=503) for the 928 that say own, build, develop or design. If it says own or build, keep going.
- Check the employer's record. If the company posted 20 or more of these jobs and none was remote, assume hybrid whatever the header says; 118 of the 201 large posters in our data fit that pattern. If it has posted remote seats before, keep going.
- Read the body against the location line. 622 postings put Remote, Virtual or Work From Home in the location line, and 100 of them describe a hybrid (84) or on-site (16) seat in the body. Tech employers did it most: 33 of their 115.
- Read the remote fine print last. Of 927 fully remote postings, 74 name a travel percentage, 47 limit which states you can live in and 30 set a time zone. A state list can end the process before the first call, so check it before you write anything.
One tie-breaker for two seats with the same score: count the friction lines. Overtime, weekend or evening language shows up in 10.1% of keeper postings (143 of 1,413) and 5.4% of model postings (89 of 1,660). Model seats trade it for "ad hoc," which appears in 670 of 1,660 (40.4%). You'll still get the 4 p.m. request; you'll just be paid for it.
Excel Skills vs the Tools That Pay More
Excel is the floor. These are the lines that move the median above it, among the 4,204 postings that name Excel:
| What the posting names | Postings | Median when named (n) | Median when not | Remote: named vs not |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planning platform (Anaplan, Adaptive, Pigment, Hyperion) | 497 | $111,500 (279) | $95,000 | 19.8% vs 22.7% |
| Building a model | 1,625 | $106,000 (893) | $90,100 | 21.5% vs 23.0% |
| SQL or Python | 1,257 | $103,000 (675) | $94,000 | 24.3% vs 21.7% |
| VBA or macros | 319 | $102,000 (179) | $95,500 | 17.1% vs 22.8% |
| A BI tool (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) | 1,597 | $100,000 (808) | $95,000 | 21.3% vs 23.0% |
| Advanced functions (pivots, lookups, SUMIFS) | 2,294 | $98,500 (1,281) | $94,500 | 23.4% vs 21.3% |
| Power Query, Power Pivot or DAX | 275 | $95,000 (129) | $97,000 | 31.9% vs 21.8% |
| Excel only inside an Office-suite list | 749 | $87,000 (416) | $99,500 | 20.8% vs 22.8% |
| A data entry or clerical line | 227 | $83,500 (118) | $97,500 | 27.0% vs 22.2% |
If you can only add one line to your resume this quarter, pick it by the seat you're in now. From a keeper seat, get a model on your desk: it's the biggest single jump, about $16,000 ($106,000 vs $90,100). From a report seat, learn SQL: about $9,000 ($103,000 vs $94,000) and slightly better remote odds (24.3% vs 21.7%). From an FP&A model seat, get hands-on with the planning platform, where postings post a $111,500 median. And if remote matters more than pay, pair Power Query with a data or reporting lane: 31.9% of Power Query postings are remote, and the data lane is the most remote at 29.7%.
Planning platforms carry the biggest premium because they mean you own the forecast, not just a tab of it. SQL pays because you pull your own data instead of waiting for someone to export it; our remote SQL jobs guide covers what that skill pays on its own.
VBA and Power Query split. VBA pays a little more but shows up in fewer remote seats (17.1%); it lives in legacy workbooks at insurers, banks and manufacturers. Power Query pays slightly less but shows up in more remote ones (31.9%); it's a reporting tool at companies that refresh dashboards from shared data. "Advanced functions," the line most resumes lead with, is worth about $4,000.
A few smaller signals. Google Sheets appears in 190 Excel-named postings, with a $114,500 median and 34.1% remote, mostly at startups. CPA appears in 587 ($114,000). And an Excel certification such as Microsoft Office Specialist appears in 3 of 4,204.
Remote Excel Job Salaries by Level
| Level | All postings: median (n) | Excel-named: median (n) | Remote (of postings stating a model) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | $69,500 (103) | $67,500 (74) | 20 of 101 (19.8%) |
| Mid | $87,500 (1,958) | $85,000 (1,202) | 467 of 1,998 (23.4%) |
| Senior | $111,000 (1,300) | $107,500 (712) | 265 of 1,318 (20.1%) |
| Manager | $141,000 (613) | $134,500 (305) | 134 of 580 (23.1%) |
| Director | $214,000 (64) | $195,000 (34) | 31 of 77 (40.3%) |
These ranges come from the 4,081 postings with a posted range in our set (May-October 2026), read at the midpoint, with hourly pay annualized. They line up with federal figures: according to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for financial analysts, the median for financial and investment analysts was $102,740 in May 2025, and the BLS figure for budget analysts was $91,640. Posted ranges move with the market, so check the linked sources for current figures.
The overall median is $102,500, and 3,458 of 4,081 posted midpoints are $75,000 or more. By lane, risk and actuarial (about $114,500) and finance (about $108,500) pay the most and operations (about $93,500) the least. Excel-named postings ask for a median of 3 years of experience (n=2,978), and 79.1% of them (3,326 of 4,204) mention a bachelor's degree. If you're weighing a finance move specifically, our remote financial analyst jobs guide breaks that track down further, and the $100K-plus job board shows which of these seats clear six figures right now.
The "$100 an Hour Excel Expert" Listings Are AI Training
Search "Excel expert jobs" and you'll find listings paying as much as $200 an hour. We kept these out of the base and counted them on their own: 28 US-eligible postings at 6 employers (Mercor 13, AuraOne Human Data 8, micro1 4, and three others). 23 post hourly pay, with a median range of $80 to $120 an hour.
Read them, and they're not analyst jobs. Mercor's Excel Expert postings ask you to "improve AI model performance on Excel-based tasks," list the work as a contract, and set "Commitment: 20+ hours/week." Its Workbook Maintenance Evaluator posting says to "Evaluate AI-generated artifacts against domain-specific quality rubrics." micro1's financial modeling posting is "Paid per task."
This is task work for AI labs: you write realistic spreadsheet problems and grade the model's answers. It pays well per hour, with no benefits, no ladder and volume that depends on the lab's training schedule. Fine as side income or a bridge; not a remote Excel job in the usual sense.
It also shows where the value sits. The labs aren't paying experts to teach models data entry; they're paying for model-seat judgment: which assumption matters and what the number means. Copilot or another AI tool is already named in 571 of 4,204 Excel-named postings (13.6%).
How to Move From a Keeper Seat to a Model Seat
Each Workbook Test check is something you can add to your resume or your week.
Model: put one model on your resume with what it decided. "Built the driver-based reforecast the CFO used to cut Q3 hiring by 14 roles" beats "advanced Excel." If you don't own a model today, ask to own the next reforecast, pricing model or capacity plan.
Second engine: learn enough SQL to pull your own data, or get admin rights in your company's planning platform. Either one moves you from waiting on an export to owning the number.
Decision audience: name who used the work. "Presented monthly variance to the CFO and three VPs" is a different seat from "prepared monthly variance reports."
No clerk line: delete "Microsoft Office Suite" from your skills section, and cut data entry and filing from your bullets. They price you as a keeper before anyone reads the rest.
Then search the work, not the tool, and run the order above on each posting. Our remote Excel jobs page and the data analyst role board are good places to start; business analyst roles cover the operations lane.
Our read, from the counts above: "Advanced Excel" at the top of a resume is a floor, not a pitch. 2,294 of 4,204 Excel-named postings ask for advanced functions, and those pay about $98,500 against $94,500 without, a $4,000 gap. A model line is worth about $16,000 ($106,000 vs $90,100). Lead with the model you built and the decision it fed, name your SQL or planning platform, and let the workbook go without saying.
That's also the screening job our auto-apply does at scale: find the model and report seats at employers that actually hire remote, and apply while you keep working.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Excel a high-paying skill on its own?
Not on its own. The 7 postings in our set with Excel in the title and posted pay have a $67,500 median, and postings that name Excel anywhere pay $96,500 against about $114,000 for those that don't. The pay comes from what you do in the workbook: model seats, which build forecasts, pull data with SQL or a planning platform, and present to decision-makers, post a median of about $106,000 (n=888).
Will AI replace Excel jobs?
AI is already in the postings: 571 of 4,204 Excel-named postings (13.6%) mention Copilot or another AI tool. AI labs also pay contract experts $80 to $120 an hour to write and grade spreadsheet tasks, which tells you the judgment work is what they're trying to learn. Our read: postings with a data entry line are already the lowest paid (about $83,500), and that work is the most exposed; building models and owning decisions is the least.
Which pays more, SQL or Excel, and which is harder to learn?
You'll need both, and SQL is the one that moves pay. Among postings that name Excel, those that also name SQL or Python post a median of about $103,000 (n=675) against $94,000 without. If you already build models in Excel, the SQL you need for pulling and joining your own data is a short course and some practice, not a degree.
How do I score a posting on the Workbook Test?
Give it one point each for asking you to build a model, naming SQL, Python or a planning platform, naming a decision audience such as the CFO or leadership, and having no clerk line (Excel only in an Office list, or data entry duties). Scores of 0-1 are keeper seats ($85,000 median), 2 is a report seat (about $97,000) and 3-4 is a model seat (about $106,000). Spend your tailoring time on the 3s and 4s.
I'm an accountant who lives in Excel. Can I find a fully remote seat?
Yes, at the right employers. Accounting postings are remote 151 of 585 times when they state a work model (25.8%), above FP&A at 16.9%. The bigger filter is the company: 118 of 201 large posters in our data had no remote seat at all, so check an employer's recent postings first.
Is VBA still worth learning for remote Excel jobs?
It pays a little but narrows your remote options. VBA or macros appear in 319 Excel-named postings, with a median of about $102,000 against $95,500 without, but only 17.1% of those postings are remote (vs 22.8%). Power Query shows up in more remote seats (31.9%) at about the same pay, and SQL pays more than either.
Do remote Excel jobs pay less than office jobs?
Not by much. Within the same level, remote Excel-named postings post $81,000 at mid level against $85,000 for hybrid, $109,800 at senior level against $106,000, and $135,000 at manager level and up against $141,800. The score and the lane move pay far more than the location line.
Start Your Remote Excel Job Search
Excel gets you into the stack of applicants. The model, the second engine and the person who reads your number decide what the seat pays. Score the posting, then check whether the employer actually hires remote.
Start with the remote Excel jobs on our board, the remote finance and accounting jobs and the roles paying $100K and up. For a deeper read on one lane, see our guides to remote financial analyst jobs, remote accounting jobs and remote data analyst jobs. When you're ready to stop reading postings one at a time, Auto-Apply does the screening and the applying for you.
Nobody gets paid $135,000 for knowing XLOOKUP. They get paid for the tab the CFO opens first.
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Remote Media Jobs: 1,843 Postings, 320 Fully Remote
We read 1,843 media job postings. 320 are fully remote, and almost none sit at holding-company agencies. The Login Test shows which media seats go remote.
24 min read
Remote HR Director Jobs: 1,272 Postings, 56 Remote
We read 1,272 HR director postings. Only 56 are fully remote, because most HR seats follow the workforce onto a floor. The Floor Test spots the desk seats.
23 min read
Remote Executive Director Jobs: What 1,521 Postings Show
We read 1,521 executive director postings. 126 of 603 that state a work model are remote, but 81 of those are pharma, bank or hospital rank titles. Here's why.
28 min read