Excel/VBA Developing as a job? Need help with career. What jobs do you do?

[excelnat]

Good afternoon guys,

I just wondered what jobs use Excel and/or VBA skills?

I've been using Excel as a 'developer' for about 18 months now in my day job. I accidentally volunteered to create a data collection form in Excel around that time and I self-taught myself VBA from then, using the internet and great forums such as this along with learning from a lot of mistakes! I already had an interest in Excel, using it to manage my finances at the time but that was it.

I currently work for an Insurer, although I've not touched on Insurance for a long time due to developing Excel programs for the staff to use, to gather and analyse MI/data.

My concern is that there is only so much I can do for this Insurer with VBA and I'm sure I'll be back doing the boring office work again in a few months, which I'd rather not do. I would like to continue using Excel/VBA and learning more, perhaps learning other code too.

As far as I'm aware, I'm the only person in the company with extensive VBA knowledge (although, I don't consider myself to be an expert by any means!). So my problem is, being self taught, I don't have anyone around me to discuss/consult/learn from I don't know exactly what it is that I know?! I don't know much of the 'lingo', like what it is that I do... I only know that I create user-friendly forms in excel which are filled in by users and I use formulas and VBA coding to save the input data to other excel documents, to test it, to analyse it and provide feedback and reports.

I've seen some jobs which state VBA as a desirable, but they are mainly after experience in other things, such as c# etc (I have no idea what all those are!). Some say you need to know VBA best practise, but without having anyone to chat to about Excel, I don't know if I do or not?!

I'd like to move into a full time VBA developing position, but I don't know if a) such a thing exists and b) if my knowledge is enough?!

So my questions are:
1. What jobs are out there that I could do to use my knowledge of VBA coding?
2. What else would I have to know to be able to get those jobs?
3. If I was looking for a job doing this, what would I look for?
4. Could I get these jobs without any qualifications (I have a good degree, but not in IT) or would I need to qualify?
5. If I needed to know any other programming codes, would I be able to learn those as easily as I have VBA?


And lastly, and most importantly:

6. What jobs do all you guys do? Do you do Excel full time? As a hobby?


Any help would be greatly appreciated and looking forward to your comments

Thanks,
ExcelNat

[MarvinP]

Hi ExcelNat,

I'm retired. I taught BASIC programming back in the 1970 using teletypes instead of monitors. I've never made a nickel with my VBA skills but have saved thousands of hours of work for myself and others by using it. I'd look for a big company that has standardized on using Microsoft Office products and Excel. I've found my Excel VBA education help me learn and understand Access VBA, which I've also needed in the past. You might also look at all the Microsoft Templates that are available and see who submitted them. This might give you hints on who is using Excel and needs Userform VBA help.

Keep learning and helping others. BTW - If you are good with UserForms, could you find an answer to this problem and post a better answer than mine?
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-prog...xcel-form.html

[xladept]

Hi ExcelNat,

Like Marvin, I'm also an old BASIC teacher (Early 80's). Unlike Marvin, I have supported myself with my Excel VBA programming. I was doing well in the 90's and early 2000's - now, I catch a gig now and then - usually Inventory processing, especially if the client has 100K rows or more - but, I'm 75 years old and, I think that I'd get more work were I younger.

[TMS]

I'm semi-retired, having worked for a software house, a computer manufacturer, and a bank as a Systems Manager responsible for the UK Contact Centres.

I have a programming background and learnt VBA about 18 years ago (at the bank). I used it to automate spreadsheets for the HR team, amongst others. But, at that time, it was more to make my life (using spreadsheets) less repetitive and labour intensive.

I now earn money, though I hesitate to say earn a living, helping people develop and/or improve spreadsheets. Some have required extensive VBA, but others have been more straightforward. They have required structuring the workbooks and worksheets, developing "interesting" and sometimes complex formulae, creating Structured Tables, Pivot Tables and even Charts.

Lots of people use Excel and can benefit from your expertise. However, not all will, or can, pay a reasonable amount. I would suggest that medium size business are likely the best target for a "one man band". As Martin has said, you can save a phenomenal amount of time and money for a relatively small cost. The biggest problem is finding the opportunities and making the cost-benefit argument.

I also spend quite a lot of time on this forum answering questions which helps to broaden and improve my knowledge and skills.

Regards, TMS

[AB33]

I do not have the experience of TMS, Marvin and XlAdept, but my impression from jobs posted are: VBA is too narrow and peripheral to most businesses. You need to add more skills than just excel VBA, Like SQL. There are not many jobs specifically catered for VBA. Most jobs in VBA are project based. Once the project is over, you also need to move over. Yes, excel is very popular application, but how many people know the real power of VBA, not a lot, hence the limited appeal.

The other major risk is: Who knows, one day, the CEO of MS gets up on the wrong side and decides to retire VBA. There has been rumours for a years that MS will retire VBA and instead focus on Studio. This is just on-line gossips.

It is also highly likely that MS will move to price structure called "Subscription Base" in the near future. This may affect the demand for its product. Last, but not least, call me a cynic, who knows the mighty Google mimics excel. You have a war and I dare to predict the outcome.

"Do not put all your eggs on a single basket". is still true

[daffodil11]

I work as a Systems Analyst and have significantly less wrinkles than the most of the regular board veterans.

VBA (Excel, even) really only accounts for 5-10% of my work, but I believe that with the correct knowledge and creativity you could build a niche around it as I am slowly doing. Mostly by word of mouth advertising, I am able to generate projects for various departments that showcase automation and userforms (especially in Access.)

I'd say that VBA as a full time career is very possible, but you'd most likely end up working as a consultant. I had a teacher who presents a handful of classes each year on behalf of a technology learning organization, and programs VBA solutions privately to clients the rest of the year.

What would concern me the most were I to try to start a solo career, would be the rumors of Microsoft replacing all VBA with .Net sometime in the next 6 years.

[AB33]

Hi daffodil11,
That was my point of putting all your eggs in one basket. The concept of Access- which is relational data base is completely different to excel. I have belatedly become aware that excel is nothing more than a scientific calculator.

[shg]

excel is nothing more than a scientific calculator.

Blasphemer! Stack the wood, start the fire!

[daffodil11]

AB33.png

Let's do this.

[judgeh59]

"A riot is an ugly thing.....and I think it's about time we had one".....

sorry I couldn't resist a phrase from an old movie!

[AB33]

Blasphemer! Stack the wood, start the fire!

I am hiding behind the 5th amendment

[Kyle123]

Hi daffodil11,
That was my point of putting all your eggs in one basket. The concept of Access- which is relational data base is completely different to excel. I have belatedly become aware that excel is nothing more than a scientific calculator.

Haha and the sooner people realise that, the easier their life will be!!

I'm a bit of a Jack of all trades, technically my Job is a Business Analyst, but I don't really do what it says on the tin. I spend half my job neck deep in commercial analysis, which I use Excel and SQL server for, I reckon I only use about 5% of excel, I could probably get by with just Pivot Tables. I do most of that work in SQL server, not being able to write sql would make my job un-doable.

So I'm a big advocate for learning SQL and databases, SQL is used everywhere and it's easy to learn so there's really no excuse for not learning it; once you've got your head around relational database design you can reasonably proficient in SQL in an afternoon.

The other half of my time is spent programming, I do full stack web development, that means that I do everything from server config, database design, server side coding, client side coding (Javascript) and web design.

My language weapons of choice are JavaScript and C#, but I can get by in PHP, VB, VB.Net and VBA (and I occasionally dabble in Java and Python) as well as all the other stuff that comes along with web dev that isn't a language (SQL (MSSQL & MySQL), CSS, HTML etc). I also sort out all the google stuff, so AdWords, keeping on top of analytics etc.

I've just written a portal so our customers can see their accounts (https://mywaste.care) and I contribute to writing and maintaining our in house developed ERP system.

In terms of whether you can make money out of VBA/Excel development, I suspect that you probably can in small and medium companies, but I wouldn't want to. Certainly here in the UK these types of solutions are frowned up and spurned upon by IT departments in large companies for a various reasons:

• They are not easily supportable - no-one in IT knows how they work and or often that they even exist until they break
• They are often adapted or built by people who don't really know what they are doing so end up making a mess that IT have to try and support
• They start out small, but grow rapidly and before you know it, you have large parts of the business dependant on a spreadsheet without proper controls and resilience in place
• The quality of such code is difficult to verify, there is no version control in Excel/Access and with the exception of one project (which is a library rather than a workbook), I've yet to see any Excel project with proper version control
• Changes are difficult to roll out, there is no inbuilt mechanism in Excel for distributing updated versions, users will then end up with slightly different versions of workbooks that become a nightmare for maintenance
• Meaningful reporting can be a nightmare since workbooks are decentralised by their nature

The above points are likely of less importance at smaller organisations so you that's where you'd target your skills, though recently there has been an explosion of small cheap scalable web apps that meet needs that previously you'd have hacked in Excel or done in Access, so the market is shrinking. I reckon most of your work would be fixing code/workbooks that other people have written and since left that no-one really knows how works.

Since you enjoy programming though, I'd be tempted to learn a language like Java or C#, most large companies have inhouse systems written on one (or both) of those and Java/C# devs are always in demand, contracting rates vary between £350 and £500 per day, much more than you're likely to get from VBA dev.

Just my 2 penny worth

[AB33]

Hi Kyle,
I am glad to see you joining the debate! I was looking for your inspiration!
I have actually nicked the line "Excel is a calculator" from you. You can sue me for copy right infringement.
Yes, I have headed your advise and has just beginning to learn SQL, but I am still on the infant stage.

[Kyle123]

Haha preach it everywhere! I still think this is one of the funniest cartoons I've seen : http://wyorock.com/excelasadatabase.htm

RE learning databases, it's only when you've learned relational database design that you truly realise how hard you make life by hammering Excel peg into the database hole!

[TMS]

Can't say that I'd disagree with any of Kyle's comments. I have made money out of Excel/VBA development, but I couldn't say that I make a living. It supplements my pension and it's worth having but I don't have a queue at my door. That said, I haven't actually actively marketed myself and my skills ... I'm planning to do more of that in the coming weeks so I might have a different view later on this year.

I DO use version control, especially so during development. It's quite easy in VBA to do something that looks like it should work but which doesn't ... and completely screws the workbook. So, I constantly save the workbook when I make a significant change, or a series of small changes, and at the start of each day. That way, if I break something, I can work my way back to a good version. And, with VBA based applications, I have a module dedicated to tracking changes ... so I know what version made the change that broke it

Small business are probably most likely to benefit from refining, improving and safe-guarding their Excel spreadsheets. Possibly individual departments within a bigger organisation. But they are also likely to have less money to spend on it. Excel is used extensively, but not necessarily very well. People start with a simple idea, then develop it without really understanding how to make best use of the features within Excel.

What works well for a Team Leader managing the expenses and overtime for their team is one thing. But, when others notice and want to use it for themselves and their teams, it becomes difficult to maintain, support and improve the application(s) ... for exactly the reasons that Kyle has listed.

What's worse, no matter what you do to protect and secure your workbook, to make it fool-proof, there will always be someone who manages to destroy your pride and joy, seemingly effortlessly. Features that should work, don't always ... for example, if you protect a worksheet, the Structured Tables no longer work as they should. And it only seems to take a few days, or even hours, before someone has managed to destroy the nicely crafted Data Validation ... even if they understand the concept of accurate and consistent data input ...

I'm going to stop writing now before I sink into a pit of desolation ...

[TMS]

@Kyle: if that were not so true to life, it might be funny

[daffodil11]

• They are not easily supportable - no-one in IT knows how they work and or often that they even exist until they break
• They are often adapted or built by people who don't really know what they are doing so end up making a mess that IT have to try and support
• They start out small, but grow rapidly and before you know it, you have large parts of the business dependant on a spreadsheet without proper controls and resilience in place

This. Learning VBA allows me to support legacy code that's been in place for 20 years and is a core business dependency.

Through the learning the process, I've created some additional procedures. I am now part of the solution, and also adding to the problem. Wheeeeee!

[TMS]

I am now part of the solution, and also adding to the problem.

As a key man dependency, you WILL become part of the problem. Come the day when you move on, retire, whatever (probably best not to dwell on the options to much), ... unless you are training your successor?

[daffodil11]

I'm the first successor to the position in like 10 years that's into code, but I'm constantly teaching others.
I've got a couple of proteges in the works, but I'm only 33 so I've got a solid 4-5 more years at this level. (It's an ideal placement.)

I'm big at pushing more minds to think in code, using Access to store data vs Excel to present data, and leaving copious amount of comments.
I still work closely with my predecessor, and as a non-coder he understands the crippling dependency it can create, and strongly advocates against large scale implementations. (Which is a good thing.)

[TMS]

@daffodil11: sounds like you have it covered ... not quite due for retirement yet then?

Regards, TMS

[daffodil11]

I'll be hard at work well into my 70's, gods willing.

I'm just getting started.

[Mad-Mizer]

I'm a financial systems analyst and have had to create many workbooks for my department and others as well. VBA has been a necessary tool for me but like daffodil11, VBA only accounts for a small percentage of my workload. I am a part of a small team that programs an IBM mainframe that was built in the 60s. I have a genuine interest and love for VBA though.

[Vikas_Gautam]

I am afraid of AB33 "rumours" comment.
I don't think Excel vba is gonna go anywhere as excel needs it to complete itself. I believe, the way VBA complements Excel through its user friendly Object model, is very understand to apply.

From the Jobs point of view, I too think that making a living from it is not that easy as I am also struggling with what I have and what market offers (fees and limited to Project only).

I agree with the point that small businesses can make better use of excel and excel vba. AND to make that happen, there is need of much awareness.

I also think that there is not any decrease in use of EXCEL VBA. The post volume on Excel forum supports it.

As a last comment, I would like to say, Excel vba is very much easier to learn and work with THAN any other language.

[Mad-Mizer]

As a last comment, I would like to say, Excel vba is very much easier to learn and work with THAN any other language.

I disagree and know of many OO programmers that would disagree too. As far as I am concerned, the basics of coding are fundamental to know, and applying them to whatever language is what makes some coding easier.

Personally, I find Java easier to work with than VBA but I enjoy working with VBA more than Java.

[Kyle123]

I think that VBA is easier than Javas since there is less of a learning curve, it negates the need to learn OOP

[Mad-Mizer]

I wonder if learning Java before VBA makes a difference? I learned OOP with Java before VBA which is probably skewing my opinion. I'll sit in my corner now!

[Vikas_Gautam]

Personally, I find Java easier to work with than VBA but I enjoy working with VBA more than Java.

What was that ...!

One think I didn't consider while saying this

As a last comment, I would like to say, Excel vba is very much easier to learn and work with THAN any other language.

that I don't even touched any other programming language besides EXCEL VBA. hahaha..!

I don't know what made me write that. Huh...!

[TMS]

I learnt to program in Basic and Algol, never quite got to grips with Fortran. When I started work I programmed in RPG2 and COBOL on IBM and ICL mainframes, then moved on to System 10/25 Assembler. And, over the last 18 years, or so, my practical programming has been in Excel VBA ... with the odd recorded macro in Word VBA.

I think that a solid logic and programming background means you can adapt to most programming languages, given time. I don't know Java or C# so I can't really compare but I'd say that VBA is relatively easy to pick up. But, like any programming language, it has techniques and best practice to become familiar with.

The really great thing about VBA is that you can have an Excel window and a VBA window open side by side, code, test, debug, refine ... and immediately see the results. Got to be the best development environment ever.

Regards, TMS

[Mad-Mizer]

The really great thing about VBA is that you can have an Excel window and a VBA window open side by side, code, test, debug, refine ... and immediately see the results.

If anything, that would make things easier with Excel and VBA. Visualizing what your code does helps a lot. With OOP and Java, you can't visualize until you actually run the program and even then, it's not as visual as Excel.
EDIT: It can be as visual as Excel but that would require a lot more coding

I also work with COBOL on this old IBM mainframe we've since the 60s, here at work. I don't care too much for it though but it gives me a paycheck.

[AB33]

"C is the mother, father and God of all programming languages"
This is not my quote, so do not ask me why as I have not done any programming yet.

[Kyle123]

"C is the mother, father and God of all programming languages"
This is not my quote, so do not ask me why as I have not done any programming yet.

And God awful to program in, who in their right mind wants to manually manage memory allocation eugh

The really great thing about VBA is that you can have an Excel window and a VBA window open side by side, code, test, debug, refine ... and immediately see the results. Got to be the best development environment ever

This is what makes it so easy to learn. It's much more difficult to pick up a language like C#, Java etc since you really need to learn databases first to do anything useful and Web dev is 100x worse. The integrated storage of cells makes things dead easy to get started. Best dev environment ever...... hmm not so sure about that one!! Visual Studio I reckon tops the list there.

I reckon once you've learnt one language, picking most others up is pretty straightforward most of is just syntax (unless you're getting nitty gritty close to the metal), C# is just Java done right for example.

[xladept]

Like Trevor I also worked on Mainframes and wrote COBOL (F-COBOL) and Maintained some programs written in ASSEMBLER. I tried learning C++ and JAVA but, after about 200 pages, I fell asleep - every time I tried (The C++ was by Stroupstrup (did I spell that right)). I did well with FORTRAN and I even taught BASIC and I had no problem reading C ( it being short)

[Tony Valko]

I did a bit of C programming back in the 80s.

I would really love to learn VBA but I can't find the time to invest.

Even if (when) MS replaces VBA with whatever, there will still be tons and tons of VBA applications to support for decades to come.

[Vikas_Gautam]

YO...I agree with tony..!