Westmeath County Council - Clerical Officer vacancies and other job position vacancies brought in a few enquiries into the office today regarding Keyboarding Skills. A common question asked was "what typing speed is acceptable in offices today?"

Now I'm not saying that you need excellent typing speeds and accuracy for the above post, but it was a genuine question and one that I felt I could answer. From my 25 years' experience training others, I would suggest that the average person in an office types between 35 to 40 wpm. In saying that, most professional typists can type faster that that, on average between 65 to 80 wpm. On shorter passages of text, some typists can type faster (I hate to boast). It was interesting to read that according to the Guinness Book of Records, there was a Barbara Blackburn who was the fastest alpha numeric English language typist in the world circa 2005 - she had typed for 50 minutes with an average speed of 150 wpm and for shorter periods 170 wpm and the highest speed she was able to reach was 212 wpm. Now, at Lir we're certainly not promising you those speeds, but it shows what can be done. Accuracy, of course, is very important and learning to touch type is one way to avoid making mistakes. If you have picked up some bad habits by looking down at the keys and taking your eyes off what you are typing from, then you are open to making errors. The good news is that here at Lir this can be improved in a few short classes where your existing speed and accuracy is checked at the beginning so that you can see an improvement at the end and type your way into a world of speed and accuracy.