What is the average typing speed by job?
Short answer: Commonly reported typing speeds range from about 35 to 45 WPM for general office workers, 45 to 55 WPM for data entry and administrative staff, 55 to 65 WPM for chat support agents, and 65 to 85 WPM for transcriptionists and professional typists. Programmers commonly report 50 to 70 WPM on prose. These are typical ranges, not requirements, and they vary by employer and country.
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Typing speed is one of the few office skills that can be measured with a stopwatch, so it is natural to wonder how you compare with people in different jobs. No official body tracks typing speed by profession, but typing-test sites, trainers and job listings give a consistent picture. The ranges below are what is commonly reported.
Commonly reported ranges by role
- General office worker: 35 to 45 WPM. Most office staff were never formally trained and type with a mix of touch typing and looking at the keys.
- Receptionist or front-desk clerk: 35 to 45 WPM. Speed is rarely the main skill; accuracy on names and numbers matters more.
- Administrative assistant: 45 to 55 WPM. More document work, so speed tends to be higher.
- Data entry operator: 45 to 55 WPM on text, or 8,000 to 12,000 KPH on numbers.
- Customer service (email and tickets): 40 to 55 WPM.
- Live chat agent: 55 to 65 WPM. Speed is directly linked to response time.
- Transcriptionist: 65 to 85 WPM. One of the fastest typing jobs outside of court reporting.
- Writer or journalist: 50 to 70 WPM. Thinking time matters more than finger speed.
- Programmer: 50 to 70 WPM on prose; code typing is slower because of symbols and editing.
- Professional typist or secretary: 70 to 90 WPM, with many above that.
Why the ranges are so wide
Within any job, the spread between the slowest and fastest typist is large, often 30 WPM or more. The main difference is not talent. It is whether the person learned touch typing at some point. Someone who learned proper finger placement at school and typed daily for ten years will commonly be 20 to 30 WPM faster than a colleague in the same role who taught themselves with two fingers.
Country and language also matter. Typists working in a second language commonly score lower in that language than in their first, and the layout of the keyboard they learned on affects speed on symbols and numbers.
Average is not the same as required
It is easy to read the list above as a set of entry requirements. It is not. These are the speeds people in those jobs commonly reach after being in the role, not the speeds they needed to get hired. For most office roles, an employer will not test you at all. Where there is a test, the bar is commonly set below the average for the role, around 35 to 45 WPM, because employers expect speed to improve on the job.
The exceptions are chat, transcription and data entry, where speed is tested up front and the bar is close to the average.
How to compare yourself fairly
- Use a five-minute test, not a one-minute test. Short tests inflate scores.
- Use ordinary business text with capitals, numbers and punctuation.
- Look at your net speed after errors, because that is what most of the figures above refer to.
- Test on two or three different days and take the middle score.
Moving up a band
If your score sits below the range for the job you want, two to four weeks of daily 15-minute practice is commonly enough to move up 5 to 10 WPM. The biggest gains come from learning the number row and the common punctuation keys by touch, because those are where most self-taught typists slow down.
Take our typing test to see where you stand, and use the salary tool to compare pay for the roles listed above before you decide which skill to build next.