How many hours a week do office workers spend writing?

The figures available are survey averages, so they show what people report about their time, not what a clock would record. The best known comes from North Carolina State University's 2018 survey of working professionals in several fields. Programmers reported the lowest share, 26 percent of the work week ¹, and marketing professionals the highest, 42 percent ². The other fields fell between 30 and 40 percent ³. These are averages of what respondents said about their own work, not measured time ⁴.

On a 40-hour week, the survey range is about 10 to 17 hours of writing

Multiply each share by the hours you work. A programmer at 26 percent writes about 10.4 hours in a 40-hour week ⁵. A marketing professional at 42 percent writes about 16.8 hours ⁶. Those two figures are the ends of the survey's range, so they make a reasonable planning band. They are not a verdict on your role. If your job falls in one of the other fields, apply the same calculation with a share from the 30 to 40 percent band.

Heavy writers report far more, and email may not be counted

In a 2016 survey of 547 business people who write at least two hours a week for work, respondents averaged 20.4 hours of writing a week ⁷. That figure leaves out email, so if you count email as writing, your total will be higher. The sample was people who already write a lot for their jobs, so it describes heavy writers, not a typical office worker.

Count composing and revising time, not every hour at a keyboard

Dictation mainly saves time on composing and revising text, so count only those hours toward the writing figure, not spreadsheets, reading or data entry. Log composing time for five working days, and mark each block as email, documents, notes or other. That total is the first input to the formula in our guide on how much time dictation saves at work. If email is a large block in your log, the guide to dictating emails covers that case.

Three benchmarks to compare your log against

What to do with the number

1. Log composing time for five working days, with email labeled as its own block.
2. Compare your daily average with the benchmarks above.
3. If your total sits near the top of the range, dictation has more time to save. Then measure your editing time during a dictation week before you decide.

If your weekly writing total is small, the time saved will be small too, and a paid tool may not pay for itself. That is worth knowing before you buy anything.

Related questions

• Can you use dictation in an open-plan office?
• How do developers use dictation at work?
• How do sales and support teams use dictation?