Typing speed for data entry

Data entry is measured in keystrokes per hour. What the numbers mean, what employers publish, and why accuracy counts as much as speed.

Take the 10-key test

Nine thousand keystrokes an hour. That is the rate Michigan's civil service gives for some of its data coding operator jobs, and it sounds like a lot until you divide it down: 150 keystrokes a minute, two and a half a second. In typing-test terms it is 30 words per minute, well below the average typist's 52.

The catch is everything the number leaves out. The keys may be the number pad rather than the letters, the text is names, codes and amounts rather than sentences, and a wrong digit in a payment matters far more than a slow one. This guide covers the units, what employers have actually written down, how the tests are scored and how to practise.

Keystrokes per hour and words per minute

Data entry speed is usually given in keystrokes per hour, written KPH and sometimes KSPH. It counts key presses because data has no words worth counting: a ZIP code, an invoice number and a surname are each one “word”, and very different amounts of work.

Typing tests count a standard word as five keystrokes, spaces included, so the two units convert exactly: KPH = WPM × 300, and WPM = KPH ÷ 300.

The arithmetic is exact, but the skills it compares are not the same. A number pad test counts digits and Enter, typed with one hand. A typing test counts letters, spaces and punctuation, typed with two. Someone at 12,000 KPH on the keypad is not necessarily a 40 WPM typist, or the other way round, so compare like with like. Some exams count key depressions per hour (KDPH) instead, which counts the characters in your finished text rather than every key you pressed; WPM vs KDPH explains the difference.

Two kinds of data entry

Alphanumeric data entry is letters and numbers together on the main keyboard: names, addresses, reference codes, short notes. It is close to ordinary typing, with more capitals and digits, and with strings like policy numbers where you cannot guess the next character from the last one, so reading ahead helps less. Ohio's state specification, for example, sets its requirement of 10,000 net keystrokes per hour on an alphanumeric keyboard.

Numeric data entry, usually called 10-key, is figures on the number pad: amounts, account numbers, quantities. The name comes from the ten digit keys. Your right hand rests with the index, middle and ring fingers on 4, 5 and 6, the thumb takes 0 and the little finger presses Enter, and your eyes stay on the source document. The 5 usually has a small bump, so your middle finger can find home without looking.

The 10-key test on CamelKeys gives you five minutes of numbers of three to six digits, some with two decimals, and counts the correct keys you pressed, Enter included, as keystrokes per hour.

How data entry tests are scored

Most tests report two numbers, a speed and an accuracy, but the details change from one testing company to the next. Criteria's Ten Key Test has 20 entries and reports speed in keystrokes per hour and accuracy as the number of fields entered correctly, so one wrong digit costs the whole entry. EmployTest's data entry report leads with net keystrokes per hour, your output with errors taken off. eSkill works out net speed by multiplying gross speed by your accuracy.

Here is how one result looks under those rules. In a five-minute 10-key test you enter 150 amounts of five digits each, pressing Enter after every one: 900 keystrokes, or 10,800 KPH gross. Three of the amounts have a wrong digit.

• Counted by fields: 147 right out of 150, or 98% accuracy.
• Errors taken off: removing the 18 keystrokes of the three wrong entries gives (900 − 18) × 12 = 10,584 net KPH.
• Speed times accuracy: 10,800 × 0.98 gives the same 10,584.

The speed barely moved. What changed is that three amounts in 150 are wrong, and in real work each one is a payment, an invoice or a stock count that somebody has to find and correct later. A careful 9,000 KPH is a better result than a careless 11,000, and if you have to trade one for the other, keep the accuracy.

The counting goes on after you are hired

In data entry the measuring does not stop at the interview. The City of Philadelphia's specification for its Data Entry Operator II class mentions checking operators' gross and net keystrokes, the number of corrections and the minutes each job took. Colorado's state data entry class lets an agency set a keystroke standard, and an operator who has not reached it yet can be kept at an intern level until they do.

What employers ask for

Few employers publish a number. In the public sector, the ones that do sit between 8,000 and 10,000 keystrokes per hour:

For comparison, the US federal typing line of 40 WPM works out at 12,000 keystrokes an hour, so a data entry figure of 9,000 is the lower bar of the two, at least on paper.

Private employers set their own figures advert by advert, and there is no survey of them reliable enough to quote, so this guide does not give a range. If the advert names a number, practise until you are about 20% above it, because an unfamiliar keyboard and nerves cost speed on the day. If it names none, 10,000 KPH with almost no wrong entries meets every published requirement above. What typing speed do jobs ask for? covers typing requirements for office jobs in general.

How to practise

Ten or fifteen minutes a day does more than an hour once a week, and accuracy comes before speed.

1. Learn the keypad by touch. Rest on 4, 5 and 6 and type slowly without looking down. If your laptop has no number pad, a full-size keyboard or a separate keypad is worth having. Turn Num Lock on, or the keys move the cursor instead of typing digits.
2. Get the errors out first. Take the 10-key test at a pace where every entry is right. Speed comes from a steady rhythm, not from rushing.
3. Build up to five minutes. Employer tests are often short, but the work is not, and a tired hand makes mistakes.
4. Practise the main keyboard too. For alphanumeric jobs, the typing test with numbers mixes digits into words, and the 5-minute typing test shows whether your speed holds over a longer stretch.
5. Measure in the units the job uses. To turn a count of keystrokes into KPH, divide by the minutes and multiply by 60, or enter the count and the minutes in the KDPH calculator with no mistakes.

Check your setup as well. A keypad and a mouse on the same side push your arm out to the right for hours at a time, and a tense shoulder makes for clumsy fingers. Typing posture and hand position covers the desk, the chair and the keyboard.

Sources

• Michigan Civil Service Commission, Job Specification: Data Coding Operator.
• Ohio Department of Administrative Services, classification specification for the Data Entry Operator series (1233).
• Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration, class description and minimum qualifications for G2D, Data Entry.
• City of Philadelphia Office of Human Resources, job specification 1D02, Data Entry Operator II.
• Criteria Corp, Ten Key Test description; EmployTest, data entry test for employment; eSkill, score calculations for typing and data entry questions.
• Staff Selection Commission (India), skill test notices for the data entry speed test.
• US Office of Personnel Management, qualification standard for clerical and administrative support positions (40 WPM typing proficiency).
• Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, “Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes”, CHI 2018.