How to stop tidyr spread sorting columns alphabetically

You can use dplyr::select() after tidyr::spread() to preserve the original column order. Note your rows may still be alphabetically sorted.

library(tidyverse)

mtcars <- rownames_to_column(mtcars, "vehicle")

colnames(mtcars)
# [1] "vehicle" "mpg"     "cyl"     "disp"    "hp"      "drat"    "wt"      "qsec"    "vs"      "am"      "gear"    "carb"

Regular spread behavior with alphabetically arranged column order:

spreadMtcarsSorted <- gather(mtcars, measure, value, -vehicle) %>%
  spread(measure, value)

colnames(spreadMtcarsSorted)
# [1] "vehicle" "am"      "carb"    "cyl"     "disp"    "drat"    "gear"    "hp"      "mpg"     "qsec"    "vs"      "wt" 

Reverting to original column order after the spread operation:

spreadMtcarsOriginalColOrder <- gather(mtcars, measure, value, -vehicle) %>%
  spread(measure, value) %>%
  select(colnames(mtcars))  # use original column order before returning new data frame

colnames(spreadMtcarsOriginalColOrder)
# [1] "vehicle" "mpg"     "cyl"     "disp"    "hp"      "drat"    "wt"      "qsec"    "vs"      "am"      "gear"    "carb"