Average Typing Speed: WPM Benchmarks by Age and Job

The average typing speed for adults is about 40 to 45 words per minute (WPM), measured across millions of online typing tests. In the largest scientific study on the subject, with 168,000 participants, the average was 51.6 WPM. From 60 WPM you type well, from 70 fast, from 80 very fast, and people who type with two fingers usually stall at 27 to 37 WPM. Here are the numbers, the percentiles, the benchmarks by age and profession, and what they mean for you. How long your own text takes at the average speed is shown by the word counter.

How many words per minute is good?

From 60 words per minute you type well, from 70 fast, from 80 very fast. The adult average is 40 to 45 words per minute, with two fingers usually 27 to 37. In characters: 40 words per minute are 200 characters, 60 words are 300 characters. All values are in the WPM conversion chart. To work out your own number, use the WPM calculator.

What WPM means and how it is measured

WPM stands for words per minute. Because words differ in length, a typing test doesn't count real words but characters: five keystrokes count as one word, spaces and punctuation included. Type 250 characters in a minute and you have 50 WPM.

The second number in every test is accuracy, the share of keystrokes without error. Serious tests fold errors into the speed: someone typing 60 WPM at 90 percent accuracy is slower net than someone at 50 WPM and 99 percent, because every correction costs time. How a test works in detail is explained in the typing test guide.

The percentiles: where do you stand?

The distribution below comes from an analysis of more than 10 million online typing tests taken between 2023 and 2025. The percentile tells you what share of test takers were slower than you.

Two things stand out. First, the gaps are not even: from the median to the 75th percentile is 20 WPM, from the 90th to the 99th more than 50. The top ranks are thinly populated. Second, the online-test average (40 to 44 WPM) sits below the Aalto study's 51.6 WPM. None of the sources examines why directly. What is documented is how the Aalto study measured: participants read each sentence first and then typed it, only those who finished all 15 sentences counted, and 12 percent were removed for error rates above 25 percent or obvious distraction. They were 24.5 years old on average, and 72 percent had taken a typing course (Dhakal et al. 2018). That is a fairly practised group. Both numbers are right, they describe different groups. For comparing yourself with colleagues at the office, 40 to 50 WPM is the realistic middle.

Two fingers or ten: what the studies show

Two-finger typists average 27 WPM when copying and 37 WPM when composing (Wikipedia). There is no fixed ceiling, though: in an Aalto University study, even participants using only one or two fingers per hand reached speeds usually attributed to touch typists (Feit et al. 2016). The difference is where your eyes are: people who don't touch type spend about 40 percent of their time looking at the keyboard instead of the text. Trained touch typists reach 40 to 80 WPM in a 10-minute test (Wikipedia, German), and the fastest in the Aalto study of 168,000 participants went above 120 WPM. Errors differ only a little: participants who took a typing course left 1.02 percent uncorrected, those without 1.23 percent (Dhakal et al. 2018).

The Aalto study of 168,000 participants measured what separates fast typists from slow ones: fast typists use 8.4 fingers on average, slow ones 5.3 (Dhakal et al. 2018). A second Aalto study with motion capture shows what else counts: always the same finger for a key, preparing the next keystroke early, and moving the whole hand as little as possible (Feit et al. 2016). If you want to switch technique, the path is in the guide to learning touch typing.

Typing speed by age

Age explains less than the table suggests. The spread within each group is wider than the gap between groups, and the decisive variable is technique again: a 55-year-old touch typist is faster than a 25-year-old with four fingers.

Typing speed by profession

What employers expect depends on how much of the job is typing. The minimums come from job profiles and hiring tests, the typical ranges from what people in the role actually reach.

For most people who write a lot, the number that matters is 60 WPM. From there you type faster than you compose, and the keyboard stops being the bottleneck. With AI tools that threshold matters even more, because good prompts are long: see why AI made typing the bottleneck. No study pins down how long the step from 40 takes; what matters most is how much you type (TypeLit). After switching to touch typing, the tool maker TypeLit puts a noticeably better speed at 3 to 6 months (TypeLit).

What a good typing speed is for you

The honest answer depends on what you use typing for:

• Below 40 WPM: You mostly look at the keyboard. The biggest lever is technique, not speed.
• 40 to 49 WPM: The office minimum, about the average of online tests. Fine for occasional writing, a brake on anything longer than a paragraph.
• 50 to 59 WPM: Solid office level.
• 60 to 69 WPM: Good, assistant level. The keyboard is no longer the bottleneck. A typing certificate proves it, for example on a job application.
• 70 to 79 WPM: Fast.
• 80 WPM and up: Very fast, the top 10 percent of online tests. Further gains are polish, not a must.

The first step is always the measurement: take the free typing speed test, one minute, no sign-up. Then you know which row of this table you are in.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good WPM?

40 WPM is the office minimum, 60 is good, 70 is fast, 80 and above is very fast. Job ads for typing-heavy roles usually list 40 to 50 WPM as the minimum. More on pre-employment tests and proof on a resume: typing speed for jobs.

Is 100 WPM realistic?

Yes, but rare: about 5 percent of test takers reach 100 WPM. It takes touch typing with high accuracy and several months of deliberate practice. For everyday work it is not necessary.

Why does my result vary between tests?

Text, time of day, keyboard and error rate all play in. A 60-second test with natural text is more meaningful than a 15-second sprint with random words. Measure two or three times and take the mean.

How fast can I improve?

No study gives fixed times per level; what matters most is how much you type (TypeLit). When you switch to touch typing, the tool maker TypeLit puts the letters at 2 to 3 weeks, your old speed at 1 to 2 months and a noticeably better speed at 3 to 6 months (TypeLit). The progress tracker makes the development visible.

Is 50 or 60 WPM good?

Yes. 50 WPM is a solid office level, 60 WPM is good and matches assistant level. Both are above the 40 to 44 WPM median of online typing tests, and 60 WPM is in the top quarter there (see the percentile table above).

How do I calculate my typing speed?

Count the characters you typed, spaces included, divide by 5 and then by the minutes. 300 characters in one minute is 60 WPM (Wikipedia). The WPM calculator does the math, or take the typing speed test.

How fast do secretaries type?

Job profiles for assistants and secretaries usually ask for 55 to 65 WPM (see the table by profession above). The City of Los Angeles tests its legal secretaries at 60 WPM net over 5 minutes (City of Los Angeles). From the 1920s to the 1970s, typing speed was a key secretarial qualification (Wikipedia).

What is the typing speed record?

Some typists sustain over 300 WPM in a 15-second test with simple English words. On a stenotype machine, up to 360 WPM is possible over longer periods, a separate technique used for court reporting and live captions (Wikipedia).

Sources

• Legal secretary: City of Los Angeles, Legal Secretary I (PDF) - 60 net WPM on a 5-minute test, 1 WPM deducted per error; San Francisco, Legal Secretary I/II (PDF) - 55 net WPM; State of California, Legal Secretary (PDF) - 45 WPM.
• Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes - Aalto University and University of Cambridge, CHI 2018: 168,000 participants, average 51.6 WPM, fastest above 120 WPM, fast typists use 8.4 fingers, slow ones 5.3; 1.02 percent uncorrected errors with a typing course, 1.23 without.
• How We Type - Aalto University, CHI 2016: over 70 WPM is possible even with one or two fingers per hand; people who don't touch type look at the keyboard about 40 percent of the time.
• Words per minute (Wikipedia) - 5 characters = 1 word, two-finger typists 27 WPM copying and 37 composing, professional typists 43 to 80 WPM, some positions 80 to 95 WPM.
• Typing Speed Percentile Chart and Average Typing Speed Statistics - aggregated typing-test platform data 2023 to 2025, basis of the percentile and age tables.
• Typing Speed Requirements by Profession - compilation of minimum requirements from job profiles and hiring tests.