Ask "what is a good typing speed?" and you'll get suspiciously precise answers: tables of percentiles down to the decimal, broken out by age and gender, with no source attached to any of them. Most of that precision is invented.

There is, however, one genuinely large measurement of how fast people type, and one set of genuinely published job standards. Both say something more useful than the tables do. Here's what they found, and how to read your own number against them.

The measured average is 52 WPM

The largest public study of typing behaviour is Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, presented at CHI 2018 by researchers at Aalto University and the University of Cambridge. They collected 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers who took an online typing test, and the average speed across all of them was 52 words per minute.

That is the number worth anchoring on, and it's noticeably higher than the "around 40 WPM" figure that circulates in typing-tutor marketing.

Why 52, not 40

The gap is mostly a sampling artifact, and it cuts both ways:

The Aalto sample is self-selected. People who click a typing test on the internet are, on average, more comfortable at a keyboard than people who don't. That pushes the number up.
The older ~40 WPM figure traces back to office-skills and typing-course material, much of it written when typing meant a typewriter and correction was expensive.

So treat 52 WPM as "average among people who type enough to try a typing test" and ~40 WPM as "average among adults generally." Your realistic comparison group is the first one. You're reading an article about typing speed.

What actually separates fast typists from slow ones

The same study found the mechanical difference, and it isn't finger count. Fast typists use rollover: they press the next key before fully releasing the previous one. The fastest group overlapped keystrokes on 40 to 70% of presses, while slower typists waited for each key to come all the way up before starting the next.

That has a practical implication. Rollover is a rhythm, not a strength. It comes from playing letter pairs smoothly, which is why drilling common bigrams and real sentences beats drilling isolated letters.

A skill ladder you can place yourself on

Range	What it usually means	Where it comes from
Under 20 WPM	Hunt-and-peck; no fixed finger system	Typing without touch-typing
20 to 35 WPM	Functional but effortful	Occasional keyboard use
35 to 45 WPM	The traditional "average adult" band	Legacy office-skills figure
~52 WPM	Average across 168,000 tested typists	Aalto/CHI 2018 measurement
55 to 70 WPM	Comfortably above average	Daily keyboard work, some technique
70 to 90 WPM	Fast; near-certain touch typing	Years of volume plus rollover
90 to 120 WPM	Enthusiast and competitive territory	Deliberate practice

The ladder outside the bolded row is a convention, not a measurement. I've flagged which row is actually sourced so you know which one to trust.

Is your number good? 40, 60, 75 and 100 WPM

Most people land here holding one figure and wanting a verdict on it. Measured against the 52 WPM tested average above, here is where the common numbers sit.

Is 40 WPM good?

It is below the tested average, and it clears the federal clerical bar exactly, with no cushion. For everyday email, chat and note taking it is entirely workable. For a job that names a typing requirement it is the floor rather than a comfortable pass, because the standard measures net speed over five minutes with three errors or fewer, not a one minute sprint. The longer answer is in is 40 WPM good?.

Is 60 WPM good?

Yes, comfortably. Sixty sits above the 52 WPM tested average, clears the bands that general office and most data entry postings ask for, and is roughly where typing stops interrupting your train of thought during long stretches of writing. It is also the most common self-set target, because average to 60 is a few focused weeks rather than a few years. More detail: is 60 WPM good?.

Is 75 WPM good?

Seventy-five is fast. It is well clear of every typing figure that turns up in ordinary job postings, and at that pace you are almost certainly touch typing with rollover rather than looking at the keys. The usual next milestone is 80, which at that point is a matter of trimming errors rather than rebuilding technique. We mapped that stretch in how to get to 80 WPM.

Is 100 WPM good?

One hundred is enthusiast territory. Very little professional work requires it, and past roughly 70 WPM the bottleneck in most jobs stops being your hands. It is a genuine achievement and a poor productivity goal. If you want to know how any of these numbers rank against other tested typists rather than against a job posting, that is what typing speed percentiles are for.

The short version

Your speed	Verdict	Against the 52 WPM tested average
40 WPM	Workable; meets the federal clerical bar with no cushion	Below
52 WPM	Exactly average among tested typists	At
60 WPM	Comfortably good; clears most posted requirements	Above
75 WPM	Fast; near-certain touch typing	Well above
100 WPM	Enthusiast level; rarely required by any job	Far above

Whatever row you land on, the number only means something at 97%+ accuracy over a test long enough to reproduce.

Age matters less than training

You'll find tables online claiming exact averages for every age bracket, sourced to nothing. The honest version: people who grew up typing tend to be faster than people who learned late, and speed among school-age kids climbs with practice years, but the spread within any age group is far bigger than the difference between groups. A trained 65-year-old transcriptionist will bury an untrained 20-year-old.

If you're comparing yourself to anyone, compare to your own last month.

What jobs actually require, and what the 40 WPM figure really means

The "40 WPM" figure that gets repeated as the professional typing requirement is real and it is federal. What almost nobody quoting it includes is the unit it is measured in, which is the part that changes how hard it is to clear.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management publishes qualification standards for clerical and administrative support positions. The published proficiency thresholds:

Federal role	Required typing speed	Additional requirement
Clerk-Typist, GS-2 to GS-4	40 WPM	none
Office Automation Clerk or Assistant, any grade	40 WPM	none
Data transcription duties, GS-2	20 WPM	or skill on an alphanumeric transcribing machine
Data transcription duties, GS-3 / GS-4	25 WPM	or skill on an alphanumeric transcribing machine
Clerk-Stenographer, GS-3 / GS-4	40 WPM	80 WPM dictation
Clerk-Stenographer, GS-5	40 WPM	120 WPM dictation

So 40 WPM is a genuine clerical typing bar, not a stenographer-only number. The lower 20 and 25 WPM figures belong to data transcription roles, where the alternative qualification is operating a transcribing machine, so they are not a general typing floor.

The detail that matters more than the number: the standard defines the unit in a footnote. Words per minute are based on a five minute sample with three or fewer errors. That is net speed over a long sample with a hard error ceiling, which is a stricter test than the one minute gross score most practice sites show you. Clearing 40 WPM on a one minute run tells you very little about clearing it the way the standard measures it.

Two more things the standard says that rarely travel with the number. Applicants can qualify by passing a performance test, by presenting a certificate of proficiency, or by self-certifying, and results and certificates are acceptable for three years. Agencies may verify a self-certified applicant by administering the performance test, so the self-certified figure should be one you can repeat under supervision.

Private-sector postings

Employers set their own numbers, and these are the bands that recur in postings:

General office/admin: often 40 to 50 WPM
Data entry: commonly 50 to 60 WPM, frequently expressed as keystrokes per hour instead (8,000 to 10,000 KPH is a common band)
Transcription: typically 60 WPM and up, with accuracy requirements that matter more than the speed floor
Executive assistant / specialized clerical: sometimes 70+ WPM

These are observed conventions, not standards. Always read the actual posting. We break this down further in typing speed requirements for jobs.

Speed without accuracy is a vanity number

A "good" typing speed is really a good net speed: your raw pace minus the cost of errors you didn't fix. Two typists can both hit 70 WPM gross, and if one leaves errors at 90% accuracy, their usable output is dramatically worse. Every uncorrected mistake either survives into the document or costs correction time later.

This is why most serious tests report net WPM, and why the standard advice is to hold 97%+ accuracy before chasing speed. The math behind gross vs. net is explained in how WPM is calculated.

How to find your real number

One test is a snapshot, and short tests flatter you. A 60-second sprint reads a few WPM higher than a speed you could sustain. To get a number worth quoting:

Take a 1 minute typing test three times. Use the middle score. That's your sprint speed.
Take a 5 minute typing test once, rested. That's your working speed.
Quote the five-minute number. It's the one you can reproduce when it counts.

Real sentences also score differently than random word drills. Punctuation, capitals, and vocabulary all cost keystrokes. If your score on one site doesn't match another, that's expected, not a bug in either test.

What "good" means for you, practically

You type a few emails a day: anything above 35 WPM with decent accuracy is fine. Speed gains would save you seconds.
You work at a keyboard all day: getting to 60 WPM is a real quality-of-life change. At 40 WPM, an hour of daily typing becomes 40 minutes at 60 WPM.
You're applying for typing-adjacent jobs: hit the posted requirement plus a 10 WPM cushion, at 97% accuracy, on a 3 to 5 minute test, then get a verified typing certificate documenting it.
You write for a living: past ~70 WPM, typing stops being the bottleneck; your thoughts are. Train accuracy and comfort instead.

The encouraging part: typing speed responds quickly to deliberate practice. Moving from 35 to 55 WPM is a realistic outcome of a few focused weeks. The 30-day plan lays out exactly how. Whatever your number is today, it isn't fixed. Take a test, write it down, and beat it next week.

FAQ

What is the average WPM?

52 words per minute across the 168,000 people measured in the Aalto 136 million keystroke study. The older "around 40 WPM" figure describes adults generally rather than people who choose to take a typing test, which is why the two numbers disagree.

What is a good WPM for a job?

Match the posted requirement plus roughly a 10 WPM cushion, at 97%+ accuracy, measured on a three to five minute test. General office postings commonly sit at 40 to 50 WPM and data entry at 50 to 60. The per-role figures are in typing speed requirements for jobs.

Is typing speed by age a real thing?

Not in the way the published tables suggest. Practice years and training explain far more of the difference than age does, and the spread inside any one age bracket is wider than the gap between brackets. A table giving an exact average per age with no source attached is invented.

How many words per minute counts as fast typing?

Roughly 70 WPM and up. That band nearly always means touch typing with rollover rather than hunt and peck, and it is above what almost any job posting asks for.

Does my WPM change depending on which test I use?

Yes, and by a lot. Test length, whether the text is real sentences or random words, punctuation, and whether the score is gross or net all move the number. That is expected behaviour, not a fault in either test.

Should I quote my one minute or five minute score?

The five minute one. Short tests flatter you, and the five minute figure is the one you can reproduce under supervision if an employer asks. The difference is broken down in 1 minute vs 5 minute typing tests.

Sources

Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson & Oulasvirta, Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, CHI 2018 (Best Paper Honorable Mention)
U.S. Office of Personnel Management, General Schedule Qualification Standards for Clerical and Administrative Support Positions. Covers the 40 WPM proficiency requirement, the five minute and three error definition, self-certification and the three year acceptance window

What Is a Good Typing Speed? Average WPM