40 WPM Typing Test — Is 40 Words Per Minute Good?
Typing at 40 words per minute puts you comfortably above beginner level and right on the edge of the adult average. It is fast enough for most everyday computer tasks and qualifies you for a wide range of entry-level office jobs. But if your goal is a career that demands sustained, accurate typing — data entry, administrative work, journalism — 40 WPM is the starting line, not the finish line. Here is everything you need to know about what 40 WPM means, who hires at that speed, how quickly you can get there from scratch, and how to push through to the next milestone.
Where Does 40 WPM Sit on the Spectrum?
To put 40 WPM in context, it helps to see the full range of typing speeds. The following bands are rough estimates based on population data from typing test platforms:
At 40 WPM, you fall in the transition zone between "below average" and "at average." That is actually a powerful place to be — the gains from 40 to 60 WPM come faster than gains at higher levels because you are still developing foundational habits, not chasing marginal milliseconds.
What Jobs Require 40 WPM?
Many job postings either do not specify a minimum typing speed or list 35–40 WPM as their floor. Here are the most common roles where 40 WPM is sufficient or nearly sufficient:
The key insight is that most employers listing "40 WPM required" are really screening out people who type at 15–25 WPM — they want to confirm basic computer literacy, not elite speed. If you are at 40 WPM and applying for these roles, you are in a comfortable position.
How Long Does It Take to Reach 40 WPM From Scratch?
The timeline depends almost entirely on two variables: your starting method (touch typing vs hunt-and-peck) and your consistency.
Starting from zero with touch typing: Most people who commit to 15–20 minutes of daily touch-typing practice reach 40 WPM within 2–4 weeks. The learning curve looks like this — the first week feels agonizingly slow (15–20 WPM), because you are rewiring finger-to-key associations. By week two, speed starts climbing. By week three or four, most learners cross 40 WPM and find that they can sustain it across a full 60-second test.
Coming from hunt-and-peck: If you already type at 30–35 WPM with two fingers and are trying to switch to touch typing, expect 4–6 weeks before touch typing feels faster than your old method. This is the hardest phase — your old habits will feel faster even when they are not, and the urge to revert is strong. Stick with the correct technique.
Coming from a plateau at 30–35 WPM: If you are already using correct finger placement but stuck in the 30s, you likely have a specific bottleneck — usually slow movement on one hand for letters like Y, B, T, or G. Targeted drills on your weak keys will break you through to 40 WPM in 1–2 weeks.
5 Exercises to Get to 40 WPM
- Home row anchoring: Place your fingers on ASDF and JKL; — without looking — and type only home row words for 5 minutes. Builds the muscle memory that makes all other keys faster.
- Slow it down to speed it up: Set a target of 20 WPM with 100% accuracy. Gradually increase speed only when you can hold zero errors for 60 seconds. This trains precision before pace.
- Top-100 common-word drills: The words 'the', 'of', 'and', 'to', 'a' make up around 25% of all text. Drilling these until they are automatic has an outsized impact on real-world WPM.
- 10-minute daily sessions: Consistency beats marathon sessions. Two 10-minute sessions per day produce faster gains than a single 40-minute block. Spaced practice reinforces motor pathways.
- Error review: After each timed test, identify which specific letter combinations caused the most mistakes — typically sequences like 'th', 'er', 'io'. Isolate and drill those pairs.
What Comes After 40 WPM? The Path to 60
Once you are reliably typing 40 WPM with at least 95% accuracy, the next milestone is 60 WPM — the threshold most employers and typing certification bodies use to define "professional" speed. The gap between 40 and 60 WPM is typically the most rewarding stretch of a typist's improvement journey because the techniques that get you there are clear and well-understood.
The primary thing separating 40 WPM typists from 60 WPM typists is finger independence. At 40 WPM, most typists are still slightly hesitating before letters that require stretching away from the home row — particularly the top row (Q, W, E, R, T and their right-hand equivalents). Drills that isolate top-row sequences like "we were there" or "quite quietly" systematically eliminate these micro-pauses.
The second factor is rhythm. Fast typists do not type all letters at the same speed — they type common bigrams (letter pairs) as near-single-unit movements. Training your fingers to treat "th", "he", "in", and "er" as fluid two-key rolls rather than two separate keystrokes accounts for a significant portion of the speed gain between 40 and 60 WPM.
With consistent daily practice of 15–20 minutes, most people at 40 WPM reach 60 WPM within 4–8 weeks. That timeline shortens considerably if you add deliberate error review sessions after each timed test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is 40 WPM a good typing speed?
40 WPM is solidly above beginner level (20–30 WPM) but just below the adult average of 44 WPM. For casual use — email, documents, browsing — it is perfectly functional. For professional roles that involve heavy typing, such as data entry or live chat support, you will want to push toward 60–70 WPM.
How long does it take to reach 40 WPM from scratch?
Most people reach 40 WPM within 2–4 weeks of daily practice (15–20 minutes a day), assuming they start learning proper touch-typing technique from the beginning. People who have typed hunt-and-peck for years sometimes take 4–6 weeks because they first need to unlearn old habits.
What is the difference between 40 WPM gross and net?
Gross WPM counts every word you type regardless of errors. Net WPM subtracts a penalty for mistakes — typically one word per error. A typist who types 44 gross WPM but makes 4 errors has a net WPM of 40. Always aim for high accuracy; a 98%+ accuracy rate means your gross and net scores will be nearly identical.
Can I get a job with a 40 WPM typing speed?
Yes. Many entry-level office roles, receptionist positions, retail associate jobs, and general administrative positions list 40 WPM as their minimum or do not specify a minimum at all. Roles that explicitly require 60+ WPM — data entry specialists, legal secretaries, court reporters — will need more work before you qualify.
What should my next goal be after reaching 40 WPM?
Target 60 WPM next. That threshold is widely considered the professional baseline and opens up the majority of typing-sensitive careers. From 40 to 60 typically takes 4–8 weeks of deliberate practice focused on finger independence and reducing reliance on your dominant hand for letters that belong to the other hand.
Ready to see exactly where you stand? Take the FastTypings test — 60 seconds, instant results, no signup. Find out if you are at 40 WPM yet and track your progress toward 60.
Start Typing Test →