What is the average typing speed by age?

The fastest measured group is people aged 10 to 19, who averaged 39.6 words per minute (see words per minute) on a phone ¹. In the full phone sample, speed falls with each older group after that. Ages 50 to 59 averaged 26.3 words per minute ², the slowest of the study's groups aged 10 and over. These are phone figures from one large study. No keyboard study we checked gives an age breakdown, so the age answer for keyboards is not measured.

For the keyboard and phone averages side by side, see the guide to average typing speed, and for the whole subject, start with the typing speed overview.

Phone speed falls group by group from the teens to the fifties

The phone study placed each participant in an age group, and the averages drop from one group to the next. The chart in the guide to average typing speed shows every group, from under 10 up to 50 to 59. The study's age analysis leaves out the participants over 60 ³, so the data say very little about typing speed in later life.

The phone data were collected between September 2018 and January 2019 ⁴. The figures describe how people typed on phones in those months, not how the population types today.

The U.S. subsample ranks ages 20 to 29 above ages 10 to 19

The full phone sample ranks ages 10 to 19 first. In the U.S. subsample, ages 20 to 29 averaged 39.0 words per minute ⁵, slightly ahead of the teen group in the same table. The gap is about one word per minute, and the spread within each group is wide. Treat the order as a tie, not a ranking.

Keyboard typing has no age breakdown in the large online study

The large online keyboard study reports the age of its volunteers as a whole, with a mean of 24.5 years ⁶. It does not report typing speed for each age group. The sample was young and self-selected, so its average may run above the general population (see why online averages run high).

The older evidence we found is mixed. A 1984 study of typists across adult ages found that older typists were slower at tapping and reaction tasks but not slower in speed of typing ⁷. A 2015 writing study of 19 younger and 19 older adults found that older adults were much slower at typing each key ⁸. Both are small studies, so treat them as hints, not answers. Does typing speed decrease with age? covers both in more detail.

Gen Z is not measured as a group, but two age groups come closest

Pew Research Center counts anyone born from 1997 onward as part of the new generation that became known as Gen Z ⁹. That generation includes children as well as people in their twenties, so no single age group matches it. The phone study's groups that come closest are 10 to 19 and 20 to 29. Compare a Gen Z typist with those two groups, and do not expect either one to match them exactly.

We found no study that measures typing speed for Gen Z as a generation. Any "Gen Z average" you see is an estimate built from age groups like these.

What to do with an age average

1. Compare within your device. Use the phone groups for phone typing and the keyboard figures for keyboard typing. For phones, see phone typing speed.
2. Use a percentile for your own rank. An age average is the average of a group. To see where you sit among all typists, read what percentile your typing speed is.
3. Compare only like with like. Check that two scores come from the same kind of test, using the same word count and error rule. See how typing speed is measured.
4. Practice if you want a faster score. Age is fixed, but practice is not. Touch typing and how to type faster cover what to practice.

For the other questions this guide answers, see do women type faster than men and is 40 WPM good.