Four in 10 UK professionals are now expected to manage complex projects as part of their daily workloads, even though such skills are not part of their official professional remit.

A YouGov report commissioned by Microsoft uncovered an increasing emphasis on project management as an essential skill required of the UK workforce, but that this is not being backed by formal training.

"Most professionals in the UK today are project managers - they just don't seem to know it," said Howard Lewis, product marketing manager at Microsoft.

"Project management is no longer undertaken only by professionals with the expertise and training of dedicated 'project managers', but by a large section of the workforce as part of their day-to-day responsibilities, be that in marketing, finance, manufacturing or any other role."

The report found that almost 80 per cent of the UK's "unofficial project managers" prefer to use "pen and paper" as their project management tool, followed by 77 per cent using Microsoft Word, 70 per cent using Excel and seven per cent using no project management tools at all.