Average Typing Speed by Age and Job (WPM Explained)
The average person types around 40 words per minute. Touch typists reach 60 to 80, professionals pass 100. Here is what the numbers mean, how they change with age and practice, and what actually makes you faster.
The short answer
- The average typing speed for adults is about 40 WPM; the median in a large online study was 52 WPM, because people who take typing tests are a little faster than average.
- 60 to 80 WPM is a good speed for office work. Over 100 WPM is professional level; the fastest typists exceed 150 WPM for a minute.
- A "word" is five characters, including spaces. Accuracy matters: most tests subtract uncorrected errors, so slower and accurate beats fast and messy.
- Speed peaks between about 20 and 40 and falls slowly after. Touch typing, not finger speed, is what separates 40 from 80 WPM.
How WPM is calculated
Words per minute does not count real words. By convention a word is five characters, including spaces and punctuation, so "I am happy today" (16 characters) is 3.2 words. That keeps a test with long words fair against one with short words.
Most tests, including ours, report two numbers. Gross WPM is every character you typed divided by five, per minute. Net WPM (the headline score) subtracts one word for every uncorrected error. If you type 300 characters in one minute with 4 mistakes left in the text, gross is 60 WPM and net is 56 WPM. Accuracy is the share of characters that were right.
Errors you fix with backspace before the end cost time but not words, which is why good typists correct as they go.
Average typing speed by skill level
| Net WPM | Level | Who types this fast |
|---|---|---|
| Under 25 | Beginner | Two-finger "hunt and peck" typing, looking at the keys. |
| 25 to 40 | Average | Most adults who type a little every day without formal training. |
| 40 to 60 | Above average | Regular computer users; many self-taught typists plateau here. |
| 60 to 80 | Good | Touch typists; typical of office staff, students who write a lot, programmers. |
| 80 to 100 | Fast | Writers, journalists, transcriptionists, people who have practised deliberately. |
| 100 to 130 | Professional | Court reporters on a normal keyboard, competitive typists, some secretaries. |
| Over 130 | Elite | Typing competition level. The best sustain 150 to 200 WPM for a minute. |
The most detailed public study of real typing (168,000 volunteers, 136 million keystrokes, 2018) found an average of 52 WPM with a long tail: the fastest 1% typed over 120 WPM. Those volunteers chose to take a typing test, so the true population average is lower, which is where the common "40 WPM" figure comes from.
Typing speed by age
Speed rises through the school years as children get regular keyboard time, peaks in the twenties and thirties, and declines gently after. Typical net speeds on a one minute test:
| Age | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 8 to 11 | 10 to 25 WPM | Hunt and peck; speed depends almost entirely on keyboard time at school. |
| 12 to 16 | 25 to 45 WPM | Big gains from chat and homework; touch typing is rarely taught now. |
| 17 to 24 | 40 to 60 WPM | Peak learning years; this is when touch typing is easiest to pick up. |
| 25 to 40 | 45 to 65 WPM | Fastest group on average, mostly through daily work. |
| 41 to 60 | 40 to 55 WPM | Little change for people who type every day. |
| Over 60 | 30 to 45 WPM | Slower key presses, but trained touch typists keep most of their speed. |
The spread inside each group dwarfs the difference between groups. A 65-year-old touch typist beats most 20-year-olds who look at the keys.
Typing speed by job
- Data entry and transcription: employers usually ask for 60 to 80 WPM with 98% accuracy; medical transcriptionists often work at 80 to 100.
- Administrative and office roles: 50 to 70 WPM is the usual expectation; 40 is a common minimum in job adverts.
- Programmers: 50 to 80 WPM is typical. Speed on code matters less than on prose because of autocomplete and the time spent thinking, but accuracy with symbols does.
- Writers and journalists: 70 to 100 WPM. Thinking, not typing, is the limit, but a fast typist loses fewer thoughts.
- Court reporters: 225 WPM on a stenotype machine, which uses chords, not single keys. On a normal keyboard they are around 100 to 120.
Most companies that test typing use a one minute or three minute test with net WPM and an accuracy floor. Our 1 minute test and 5 minute test work the same way, so you can rehearse under the same conditions.
How to type faster
- Learn touch typing properly. Home row (ASDF JKL;), each finger owning its keys, eyes on the screen. Expect your speed to drop for two or three weeks and then pass your old peak. This single change is worth more than everything else combined.
- Accuracy first, speed follows. Practise at a pace where you make almost no errors; speed comes from fewer corrections, not from faster fingers.
- Short daily sessions. Ten to fifteen minutes a day beats an hour once a week. Most people gain 5 to 10 WPM a month in the first few months.
- Type real text. Random words train finger movement; sentences and paragraphs train the rhythm and the common letter pairs that make up most of what you type. Our English typing test uses both.
- Check the keyboard. A key that registers late or needs a second press costs more time than it seems. If your accuracy is oddly low on one letter, run the keyboard tester.
- Use shortcuts for correction. Ctrl+Backspace (Option+Delete on a Mac) deletes a whole word; fixing one mistake with one keystroke saves seconds per paragraph.