Average Typing Speed
What the research actually measured, where the widely quoted 40 WPM figure comes from, and how age, accuracy and the kind of writing you are doing change the number.
The largest study of typing ever published, 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers analysed by Aalto University and the University of Cambridge in 2018, measured an average of 52 words per minute, with most computer users falling between 30 and 60 WPM and the fastest participants reaching 120 WPM. The often quoted 40 WPM average is a reasonable working figure for the general population, because a study run through an online typing test attracts people who type more than average.
Almost every page that answers this question gives a single number without saying where it came from. The honest answer is that there are several numbers, they were measured in different ways, and the gap between them tells you more than any one of them does on its own.
The best evidence available is the 2018 CHI paper Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, in which researchers at Aalto University and the University of Cambridge analysed 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers in over 200 countries. The measured average was 52 words per minute. The authors also note the majority of computer users type around 30 to 60 WPM, and the fastest participants in the dataset reached 120 WPM.
That 52 WPM figure has a known bias built into it: the data was collected through an online typing test, and people who choose to take a typing test are, on average, people who type a lot. The general population sits lower, which is why the traditional 40 WPM benchmark still holds up as a rule of thumb even though no single large study reports exactly that number.
How does typing speed change with age?
The 2018 keyboard study does not answer this. It records participant age only as a demographic, a mean of 24.5 years, and never breaks typing speed down by age group. The figure everyone quotes comes from a different piece of work: a separate Aalto study of 37,000 volunteers published in 2019, which found that people aged 10 to 19 typed about 10 words per minute faster than people in their forties.
Two caveats come with it. That study measured typing on mobile devices, not on a physical keyboard, so it is a smartphone finding and not an age curve for desktop typing. And the researchers describe it as a generation effect rather than a skill effect: somebody in their forties has almost certainly typed more words in their life than a teenager has, but the teenager grew up on touchscreens.
Does taking a typing course make you faster?
Less than the effort implies. Over 70 percent of the 168,000 participants had taken a typing course, and the researchers report that those who had showed very similar typing behaviour to those who never had. The speed gap was real but small: trained typists averaged 54.4 WPM against 49.0 for untrained, about 5 WPM, which the paper itself calls a relatively small difference.
Finger count cuts the other way from the popular version of this. Fast typists in the data used more fingers than slow typists, 8.4 against 5.3 on average, and the authors conclude that the self-reported number of fingers is a predictive factor for speed. What the data does not support is the strict rule: the fastest typists averaged 8.4 fingers, not a disciplined ten. What they did share was mechanical. They made fewer errors, and they used rollover typing, pressing the next key before releasing the previous one, in 40 to 70 percent of keystrokes.
Why is my real typing at work slower than my test score?
Because a typing test measures transcription, and most real work is composition. In a 1999 CHI study of text entry, Karat and colleagues measured average keyboard rates of about 33 words per minute for simple transcription but only about 19 words per minute when participants had to compose the text themselves.
That is a drop of roughly 40 percent, and it comes from thinking, not from typing. When you write an email you pause to choose words, reread, and change your mind, and none of that happens when you are copying a passage off a screen. So a 60 WPM test score does not mean you produce 60 words of finished writing per minute. It means your hands are not the bottleneck, which is the useful thing to know.
This is also why chasing an ever-higher test score has diminishing returns for most desk work. Once your transcription speed comfortably exceeds your thinking speed, the next gain comes from elsewhere.
What is a good typing speed?
Against the measured evidence: below 30 WPM you are slower than the majority of computer users and there is a lot of easy room to improve. From 30 to 60 WPM you are inside the band the 2018 study describes as covering most people. Above 60 WPM you are faster than the 52 WPM study average. Above 80 WPM you are approaching the range that trained professional typists reached in the research of the 1970s and 1980s, which the Cambridge summary puts at 60 to 90 WPM. At 120 WPM you match the fastest participants in the 168,000-person dataset.
Accuracy belongs in the same sentence as any of those numbers. The 2018 study found faster typists generally make fewer errors, so speed and accuracy are not a trade-off you have to pick between at ordinary speeds; they tend to arrive together. A score of 70 WPM at 88 percent accuracy is worse in practice than 55 WPM at 99 percent, because every error costs a keystroke to make, one to delete and one to retype.
What is the difference between gross and net WPM?
Gross WPM counts everything you typed: total characters divided by five, divided by the minutes elapsed. Net WPM subtracts your mistakes, and it is the figure that means something. The standard formula is gross WPM minus the number of uncorrected errors divided by the minutes elapsed.
The five-character convention matters here too. Every WPM figure on this site and on every other typing test defines a word as five characters including the space that follows it, rather than counting real words, so that scores are comparable no matter which passage you happen to type. It comes from early typewriter-era testing, and it is why 300 correct characters in a minute is reported as 60 WPM.
What is the fastest typing speed ever recorded?
The most cited claim belongs to Barbara Blackburn, an American clerical worker who used the Dvorak layout. Guinness listed her under Typing, Fastest from 1976 to 1986 as able to attain 170 WPM and maintain 145 WPM for 55 minutes, and her own claimed peak was 212 WPM for a brief burst.
The caveat is part of the fact: Guinness removed keyboard typing speed records from the 1987 edition onward, citing concerns about verifying them. So 212 WPM is best described as a claimed record from a category that no longer exists, not a currently verified world record. For comparison, the fastest of the 168,000 participants in the 2018 study, measured under identical conditions, reached 120 WPM.
What the research actually measured
Every figure below is traceable to a specific published study or press release, listed under Sources at the end of this page. Nothing here is an estimate.
| Figure | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Average typing speed | 52 WPM | Measured across 168,000 volunteers, Dhakal et al., CHI 2018 |
| Range covering most computer users | 30 to 60 WPM | Aalto University summary of the same dataset |
| Fastest participants in that dataset | 120 WPM | Dhakal et al., CHI 2018 |
| Trained professional typists, 1970s and 1980s research | 60 to 90 WPM | University of Cambridge summary |
| People aged 10 to 19 versus people in their forties, on mobile | About 10 WPM faster | Aalto University, 2019 mobile typing study |
| Participants who had taken a touch typing class | Over 70 percent | Aalto University summary |
| Rollover keystrokes among the fastest typists | 40 to 70 percent | Dhakal et al., CHI 2018 |
| Simple transcription typing | About 33 WPM | Karat et al., CHI 1999 |
| Typing while composing your own text | About 19 WPM | Karat et al., CHI 1999 |
| Claimed fastest ever, category since withdrawn | 212 WPM peak, 145 WPM for 55 minutes | Guinness listing 1976 to 1986, Barbara Blackburn |
Figures are quoted as published. The 52 WPM average was collected through an online typing test, so it skews above the general population.
How WPM converts into real output
Arithmetic, not a claim: a WPM word is five characters including the following space, so these follow directly from the definition.
| WPM | Characters per minute | Words in 5 minutes | Words in an hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 100 | 100 | 1,200 |
| 30 | 150 | 150 | 1,800 |
| 40 | 200 | 200 | 2,400 |
| 52 (study average) | 260 | 260 | 3,120 |
| 60 | 300 | 300 | 3,600 |
| 80 | 400 | 400 | 4,800 |
| 100 | 500 | 500 | 6,000 |
| 120 (fastest in study) | 600 | 600 | 7,200 |
An hour of continuous typing at a steady rate is a theoretical maximum, not a realistic work rate. The composition figure of about 19 WPM is closer to sustained real output.
Gross versus net WPM, worked through
Gross WPM is every character you typed divided by five, per minute. Net WPM then subtracts uncorrected errors divided by minutes elapsed. TypeBurst reports a third variant: correct characters only, divided by five, per minute.
| Typist, over one minute | Characters typed | Gross WPM | Uncorrected errors | Net WPM | TypeBurst WPM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Types cleanly | 350 | 70 | 0 | 70 | 70 |
| Types fast and loose | 350 | 70 | 15 | 55 | 67 |
| Types slower, near perfect | 290 | 58 | 0 | 58 | 58 |
TypeBurst's number sits between gross and net because it removes wrong characters from the count without applying a further per-error penalty. That is why a fast, sloppy run still looks close to a clean one here while the strict net figure drops 15 WPM.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average typing speed?
The largest study available, 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers analysed by Aalto University and the University of Cambridge in 2018, measured an average of 52 words per minute. That sample was recruited through an online typing test, so it skews faster than the general population, which is why 40 WPM remains a fair working figure for a typical adult.
What is a fast typing speed?
Above 60 WPM puts you past the 52 WPM average measured in the 2018 study. Above 80 WPM approaches the 60 to 90 WPM band that trained professional typists reached in older research, and 120 WPM matches the fastest participants in that 168,000-person dataset.
How does typing speed change with age?
The 2018 keyboard study did not analyse speed by age. A separate Aalto study of 37,000 volunteers, published in 2019, found that people aged 10 to 19 typed about 10 words per minute faster than people in their forties, but that was measured on mobile devices rather than on a physical keyboard, and the researchers describe it as a generation effect.
Does a typing course actually make you faster?
Less than you would expect. Over 70 percent of participants had taken a typing course, and those who had showed very similar typing behaviour to those who had not. Trained typists were faster, but only by about 5 WPM on average, 54.4 against 49.0, which the paper calls a relatively small difference.
Why is my real typing slower than my typing test score?
Because a test measures transcription and real work is usually composition. Karat and colleagues measured about 33 WPM for simple transcription but only about 19 WPM when participants composed their own text, a drop of roughly 40 percent caused by thinking rather than by typing.
What is the difference between gross and net WPM?
Gross WPM is total characters divided by five, divided by minutes elapsed. Net WPM subtracts uncorrected errors divided by minutes elapsed, and it is the figure worth quoting. Two typists at the same gross speed can be 10 WPM apart on net WPM purely through accuracy.
What is the fastest typing speed ever recorded?
Barbara Blackburn was listed by Guinness from 1976 to 1986 as reaching 170 WPM and sustaining 145 WPM for 55 minutes on a Dvorak keyboard, with a claimed peak of 212 WPM. Guinness withdrew keyboard typing records from 1987 over verification concerns, so it is a claimed record rather than a currently verified one.
Sources
- Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson & Oulasvirta, Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, CHI 2018
- The traits of fast typists discovered by analysing 136 million keystrokes, Aalto University
- What makes a faster typist?, University of Cambridge
- Smartphone typing speeds catching up with keyboards, Aalto University (source of the age comparison, measured on mobile devices)
- Karat, Halverson, Horn & Karat, Patterns of Entry and Correction in Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition Systems, CHI 1999
- Barbara Blackburn (typist), including the withdrawal of the Guinness category
- Words per minute, on the five-character word convention
Method: every figure above is quoted from published research, not measured by TypeBurst. TypeBurst measures one thing itself, the score of the test you take on this page, as correct characters divided by five divided by the minutes elapsed, and it stores that score only in your own browser. It collects nothing, so it publishes no averages of its own and no percentile. Read the full measurement methodology.