Average Typing Speed

The average typing speed on a computer keyboard is about 52 words per minute (WPM). That figure comes from one of the largest typing studies ever run, with about 168,000 volunteers. On a phone the average is lower, about 36 WPM. Below you will find what the research measured, how a "good" speed is usually defined, why your own number may differ and what actually makes people faster. To get your own number first, take the typing test and come back.

What the research says

In 2018, Vivek Dhakal and colleagues from Aalto University and the University of Cambridge published Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes. About 168,000 volunteers copied short English sentences in an online typing test, and the researchers recorded every key press.

• Average speed: 51.56 WPM, with a standard deviation of 20.2 WPM. Typing speeds vary a lot from person to person.
• Fast and slow typists: the fastest 10% typed above about 78 WPM, and the slowest 10% below about 26 WPM. The very fastest reached 120 WPM or more.
• Errors: on average, people left only about 1.17% of characters wrong in the final text, because most of them fixed their mistakes as they went.

In 2019 a companion study by Kseniia Palin and colleagues used the same method on phones. About 37,000 volunteers typed on their own mobile devices, and the average was 36.2 WPM, with the fastest above 80 WPM. That is roughly 15 WPM slower than on a physical keyboard.

Keep in mind that the volunteers chose to take a typing test, so the averages probably describe people who type a lot rather than the whole population.

What is a good typing speed?

There is no official scale, but the study data give useful reference points. On a keyboard:

• Below about 26 WPM: among the slowest 10% in the Dhakal data. Usually a sign of hunting for keys or typing with one or two fingers.
• Around 50 WPM: about average for people who take online typing tests.
• Above about 78 WPM: faster than 90% of the participants. This is a fast typist by any standard.
• 120 WPM and more: reached only by the very fastest people in the study.

For jobs, typing requirements are set by employers, not by science. One published example: the U.S. Geological Survey lists 40 WPM or more as a requirement for its Office Automation Clerk/Assistant positions. If a job advert names a speed, it will also say how it is tested, so practise with the same test length.

On a phone the bar is lower. In the Palin study, people typing with two thumbs averaged about 38 WPM and those using one finger about 29 WPM, so 40 WPM on a phone is already above average.

Why your score might differ from the average

The study figures and your own result are rarely measured the same way.

• Test material. The studies used full sentences with capitals and punctuation. Many online tests, including ours, use lowercase random words, which are usually a little easier.
• How WPM is counted. A "word" is a block of five characters. Some tests count errors against you, others only count correct characters. Ours counts only correct characters, so a sloppy run scores lower.
• Test length. A 30-second test rewards a quick start; a 2-minute test shows whether you can hold your pace.
• Language and keyboard layout. In the Palin study, native English speakers typed more than 12 WPM faster than people who never type in English. Typing in a language or layout you rarely use costs speed.
• Device. A familiar keyboard is faster than a new one. On phones, autocorrect can change what you type.

So compare yourself with your own earlier results on the same test, not only with a number from a study.

What makes people faster

The Dhakal study looked at what separates fast typists from slow ones, and the answers are practical.

1. More fingers. Fast typists reported using about 8.4 fingers on average, slow typists about 5.3. Moving from two fingers to touch typing is the biggest long-term gain.
2. Fewer errors. People who made and corrected fewer mistakes were faster. Correcting a typo costs more time than typing a little more carefully.
3. Rollover. Fast typists often press the next key before releasing the previous one. This overlap grows naturally with practice; you do not need to force it.
4. Courses help less than you might think. People who had taken a typing course were on average only about 5 WPM faster than self-taught typists. Regular practice matters more than how you learned.

A simple plan: practise 5 to 10 minutes a day, keep your eyes on the screen rather than the keys, aim for at least 95% accuracy before you push the speed, and use the same test length each time so your scores are comparable. On a phone, Palin and colleagues found that typing with two thumbs was the fastest posture and that people who used autocorrect tended to be faster, while those who relied on word prediction tended to be slower.

Typing speed is more than finger speed

Copying text is limited by how fast you read the next word and how fast your fingers move. If you want to look at those parts separately, the reading speed test measures how fast you read, the CPS test measures raw clicking speed, and the finger tapping test measures how fast a single finger can repeat a movement. When you write your own text, thinking about what to say is often the real bottleneck, so your speed in an email will be lower than your test score.

Sources

• Dhakal V, Feit AM, Kristensson PO, Oulasvirta A. Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, 2018. doi:10.1145/3173574.3174220
• Palin K, Feit AM, Kim S, Kristensson PO, Oulasvirta A. How do People Type on Mobile Devices? Observations from a Study with 37,000 Volunteers. Proceedings of MobileHCI 2019. ACM, 2019. doi:10.1145/3338286.3340120
• U.S. Geological Survey, Human Capital. Office Automation Clerk/Assistant, GS-326: qualification requirements (typing 40 wpm or more).

Frequently asked questions