What is a good typing speed? Average WPM by age & job
"What is a good typing speed?" is the most-Googled typing question on the internet, and almost every answer you'll find is some version of "40 WPM is average."
That's roughly true and almost entirely useless. What's a good speed depends on who's asking, what they're doing with it, and what they're benchmarking against. Here's the honest breakdown.
The short answer
For most adults:
- Below 30 WPM is slow — you're losing real time on every typing task
- 30–50 WPM is average — fine for casual use, frustrating for typing-heavy work
- 50–70 WPM is solid — most office work flows comfortably
- 70–100 WPM is fast — typing speed stops being a bottleneck
- 100+ WPM is professional-tier — top 5% of typists worldwide
- 150+ WPM is elite — top 0.1%
But "average" hides huge variation by age, profession, and what tools you're using.
By age
Typing speed develops in childhood, peaks in early adulthood, and stays roughly flat until age 60. The drops at the extremes are mostly about reaction time, not muscle memory.
| Age range | Average WPM | Good WPM |
|---|---|---|
| 6–10 | 15 | 25 |
| 11–13 | 25 | 40 |
| 14–17 | 35 | 55 |
| 18–24 | 45 | 65 |
| 25–40 | 45 | 70 |
| 41–60 | 40 | 65 |
| 60+ | 35 | 55 |
A 12-year-old at 40 WPM is doing exceptionally well. A 35-year-old at 40 WPM is right at the average. Same number, completely different reading.
Full data is on the typing speed chart.
By profession
This is where averages start to mean something. Typing-heavy professions cluster around 60–80 WPM, with one big outlier:
- Data entry clerks: 50 WPM average. Hiring floor 35–45 WPM with 95%+ accuracy.
- Software developers: 70 WPM average for prose. Code is meaningfully slower.
- Writers and journalists: 70 WPM average. Pace tracks thinking speed.
- Customer support / BPO: 50 WPM average. Required: 35–55 by tier.
- Transcriptionists: 75 WPM average. Industry minimum: 60 WPM at 98% accuracy.
- Court reporters: 225+ WPM. Stenotype machine, not standard keyboard.
- Executive assistants: 60–70 WPM. Senior medical/legal: 70+ WPM.
The court reporter number is the one that confuses people. Stenotype machines use chord-based input — pressing multiple keys simultaneously to type whole syllables — so the WPM number isn't directly comparable to QWERTY typing.
By country
Cross-country averages are real but tricky. Keyboard layouts, scripts, and language word-length differences make raw numbers less directly comparable than they look. Treat the table below as directional:
- USA / UK / Canada / Australia: ~45 WPM (English, QWERTY)
- Philippines: ~50 WPM (BPO industry skews national average up)
- India: ~40 WPM in English; lower in Hindi due to script complexity
- Germany: ~40 WPM (longer words + umlauts)
- France: ~38 WPM (AZERTY layout, accented characters)
- Japan: ~35 WPM (Romaji-to-Kana input adds keystrokes)
A 50 WPM English typist in the US and a 50 WPM French typist in Paris are doing roughly equivalent work — the French typist is just doing it on a different keyboard with longer words and more accents.
What "good" actually means for you
Three useful framings:
Are you slower than your work demands? If your typing is the slowest part of producing your output, you're slow for your context — regardless of what the average is. A writer at 40 WPM is slow because their thinking is faster than their fingers. A casual emailer at 40 WPM is fine.
Are you slower than the job market wants? Specific roles have hard floors. Data entry: 40 WPM with 95% accuracy. BPO chat support: 45 WPM. Transcription: 60 WPM with 98% accuracy. If you're below the floor, that's an actionable gap.
Are you slower than you used to be? The most useful comparison is to yourself. A 1-minute test today vs. one in 30 days is the only number that tells you whether your practice is working.
The realistic improvement curve
Most people who deliberately practice typing improve faster than they expect:
- From 30 → 50 WPM: 4–8 weeks of daily 15-minute practice
- From 50 → 70 WPM: 6–10 weeks
- From 70 → 90 WPM: 3–6 months
- Past 90 WPM: gains slow significantly; expect months per 10 WPM
If you want to see where you actually stand right now, the 1-minute test takes 60 seconds and gives you a number. Then come back in a month, take it again, and you'll have the only typing-speed benchmark that actually matters: your own.