Average typing speed (WPM)

We wrote this original article on the 10th of November 2019, based on our survey data. In March 2020, we have completed our second survey to find out average words per minute speed with more people with different age group and job title.

We also include the old survey result so that we can get the average WPM in a large volume. First of all, if you are here to increase your average typing speed, I suggest you read this article: How to increase typing speed?

People ask me a question several times, what is the average typing speed of a person. You may also think the same question sometimes. People are interested to know others' typing speed to set an example and improve their typing skill.

So, in this post, I am going to share some of the statistical data related to the average words per minute speed.

What is the average typing speed?

Survey report of March 2020

In last month we surveyed thousands of people of several occupations. We did the same type of survey earlier in the year 2019, but this time we did it on a vast scale.

We have divided the participants into four classes, back-office workers, students, typists and programmers. In this article, we will revile the detailed analyses of that survey.

Before scolding the survey result, I want to clarify that we conducted this survey online on our website. The participates of different age and occupation join this survey from different parts of the world.

Students (Age 13 to 27)

Average words per minute

Nearly 300 students participate in this survey. And all the students aged between 13 to 27 years. As you can see in this graph, 103(35.5%) students out of 290 have the typing speed between 30 to 40 WPM. 107 (36.8%) students have the typing speed bellow 30 WPM. And only 5(1.7%) students have the typing speed over 60 WPM.

So in this report, it is apparent that over 83% of students has the words per minute speed between 20 to 50 WPM. Now come to the next category, back-office workers.

Accuracy rate

It is really vital to track the accuracy rate besides typing speed. As, a good typing speed has the value only when you have an excellent accuracy rate. In our survey, we found that the average accuracy rate of students is 94.38%. Weather, the accuracy rate of students who scored below 30 WPM, is 95.75%.

Back-office workers (Age group – 24 to 47)

Average words per minute

The report is also not very impressive here. Over 37% general office workers have the typing speed between 20 to 30 WPM. 28.7% peoples have a speed between 30 to 40 WPM. 14.9% office workers have typing speed around 40 to 50 WPM. And only 11.8% of them have over 50 WPM speed.

That's mean, according to this survey, it's very clear that most of the office workers don't see typing as a serious matter.

Accuracy rate

The average accuracy rate of back-office workers is 93.8%. That’s mean students has slightly better accuracy rate than the office workers. Although 93.8% also is not a very bad rate.

Programmers (Age group 22 to 53)

Average WPM

On the other side, we found that programmers are pretty good at typing. As a programmer spends most of their time on typing codes, it’s natural that they have a good typing speed. In our test, approximately 73% of coders have typing speed between 40 to 70 WPM. Only 3.4% of coders have typing speed below 30 WPM. And 9.3% has speeded over 70 WPM. That’s really impressive.

Accuracy

The average exactness of programmers is 94.38%. While the accuracy rate of coders who have typing speed between 40 to 70 WPM is 96.43% which is an excellent rate.

Professional typist (Age group 23 to 61)

Average WPM

Now the typist, but you have to understand that the typist attended the survey are all not professional typists. Many people just started their career as a typist and DTP worker.

You can see clearly in this graph that 94% of typist has typing speed over 40 WPM. It’s definitely better than programmers, office workers and the students. Nearly 8.4% of typist has WPM rate over 70. And only 4% of typist has WPM speed bellow 30.

Accuracy

94.26% is the average exactness rate of professional typists and DTP personals.

Conclusion

So it’s apparent that typist and programmers generally have a better typing skill then the students and office workers. And the final result that we got in our survey is, the average typing speed of students is around 34.44 WPM, approx 33.93 words per minute for office workers, programmers average WPM is 53.76, and typists have the average typing speed of 52.20 WPM.

Average typing speed (Gender wise)

We found an interesting fact that girls’ average typing speed is a little lesser than the boys. But among those who score above 60 WPM, girls are 65%. It is pretty interesting.

Average typing speed of teenagers

In our survey, we found that the average words per minute of teenagers are around 38 which is a little more than the average WPM of students. But their accuracy rate is a little less than the others.

What is a good typing speed?

Now a very important question, what is a good typing speed, and what WPM should we target? We can say that the speed that is above average is good. That’s mean if you are a student; we can say that, over 35 words per minute is a good typing speed (as the average typing speed of students is around 34.44 WPM).

But if you wanna be a good typist or a programmer you must have a WPM speed over 60. On average we can say 50 – 60 WPM is a good speed. According to a survey done by Microsoft Corporation, many HR, Managers expect their employees to be able to type above 50 WPM speed. So if you are preparing for a job you should target at least 50 WPM.

In our survey, we found that a 14 years old girl achieve 83 WPM speed. That’s mean it’s not necessary that students must have a typing speed between 35 to 50 WPM. There is no limit, so practice more and more to improve your typing further.

Fastest typing speed in the world

The record of being the fastest typist is in the name of Stella Pajunas Garnand. She made this record in 1946 by typing 216 words in one minute. She used an IBM model an electric typewriter to make this record. It is the fastest typing speed ever recorded in the world using a QWERTY layout.

According to some journals and The Guinness World Records, the fastest typist is Barbara Blackburn. Who made this record in 2005 by using a Dvorak keyboard. Her top speed was 212 wpm.

Women achieve both the records, so it’s entirely a wrong myth that the typing speed of girls is lower than the boys.

I hope this detailed report will encourage you to practice typing more and improve your typing speed. Remember the average typing speed of a professional typist is around 60 WPM with more than 98% accuracy rate.

How to increase typing speed?

If you are a student, a teacher, an office representative or a programmer, in a simple word, if you are in a profession where you need to use a computer, a good typing speed can save a lot of time for you. That’s why people are getting interested to learn to type.

And the most common question that people ask, how I could increase my average typing speed. So here we will tell you how you could improve average words per minute speed.

Typing method

One of the main reasons for a slow typing speed is the wrong typing method. Generally, people use the Hunt & Peck typing method to type. In this method, the typist looks at the keyboard, find the key, and then press the key. It is a long process, so it takes some time to look at the keyboard and find the right key.

On the other side, the touch typing method is a way of typing where the typist memorizes the keyboard layout and type without looking at the keyboard. So this method can save a lot of time and make your typing fast. To learn touch typing click on this link: Learn touch typing.

The schedule

So if you are going to learn the touch typing method you have to memorize the keyboard layout which may be a tough job for you. To make it simple, you have to understand the layout and practice from scratch. You may join our free typing lessons to start practicing from the basics. We have designed this course to practice touch typing from the basic level to the advance level.

In free time you may play typing games as it is helpful to set the fingers on the keyboard. Also, if you don’t want to join 30 days long course, you may try our English typing test program. Using this you can practice and check your typing speed in just 5 minutes.

But the most important thing is consistency. If you are not consistent, no typing lesson can teach you to type. So, it is necessary to make a schedule and follow it. Keep at least one hour every day for practice.

If you can follow the schedule for 30 days, your average typing speed will increase a lot. Lastly, accuracy is more important than speed. So don’t ignore typing accuracy while you focus on the speed.

If you want to learn touch typing and increase your typing speed, you may join our 30 days of free typing lessons. If you follow this lesson properly your typing skill will definitely improve a lot.