This article explains how to summarize data and use deviation and variance formulas in Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, and Excel Online.

Central tendency tells you where the middle of the data is, or the average value. Some standard measures of central tendency are the mean, median, and mode.

The spread of data is how much individual results differ from the mean. The simplest measure of spread is range, but it is not very useful because it tends to keep increasing as you sample more data. Variance and standard deviation are much better measures of spread. Variance is simply the square of the standard deviation.

A sample of data is often summarized using two statistics: the mean value and a measure of how spread out it is. Variance and standard deviation are both measures of how spread out it is. Several functions let you calculate variance in Excel. Below, we explain how to decide which one to use and how to find variance in Excel.