Typing tests in UK and Irish hiring: the speed in the person specification

It lives in the person specification

British public sector recruitment documents a role through a job description and a person specification, and where typing speed matters it appears in the latter, usually among the essential or desirable criteria.

That placement tells you how it will be treated. Essential criteria are filters: a recruiter has to be satisfied you meet them, and the simplest way to satisfy them about typing is to ask you to take a short test.

Where it comes up

Most often in NHS administrative and medical secretarial roles, in legal secretarial and paralegal support, in court and tribunal administration, and in local authority clerical posts. Medical secretarial work in particular still involves substantial audio typing, where the speed requirement is real and the vocabulary is unforgiving.

Outside those areas the requirement has largely faded, and many administrative postings that would once have specified a typing speed now say nothing about it at all.

How it is assessed

Usually a short online test, sent as part of screening or run at interview, on a conventional keyboard and in English. It is generally not heavily proctored, which cuts both ways: there is little ceremony, but a recruiter can also ask you to repeat it in front of them.

Audio typing roles may be assessed differently, with a recorded passage to transcribe. That measures something closer to the actual job, and it is worth practising with audio if the role involves it, because listening and typing simultaneously is a distinct skill.

Preparing sensibly

For a screening test of this kind, the useful preparation is short and specific: get comfortable typing real English prose with punctuation and capitals at a steady, accurate pace, and know roughly what number you produce so the figure on the application form is one you can actually demonstrate.

Overstating your speed on an application is a bad trade. It takes two minutes to check.

Audio typing is the part worth practising

Where a British administrative role still specifies a typing speed, there is a reasonable chance the work involves audio: dictated letters in a medical secretarial post, recorded hearings in court administration, dictated attendance notes in legal support.

Audio typing is a genuinely different task from copying a passage. You are holding a phrase in memory while typing the previous one, operating a foot pedal or keyboard shortcuts to rewind, and applying house formatting as you go. People who type quickly from a screen are often noticeably slower from audio the first time they try it, and the gap closes with practice rather than with raw speed.

If the role mentions audio typing or dictation, practise with recorded speech before the assessment. Plain typing practice will lift your ceiling but will not rehearse the hard part.

What number to put on the application

Put a number you can reproduce on a bad day, on an unfamiliar keyboard, under mild pressure - not your best ever result.

The reason is simple arithmetic about risk. Understating slightly costs you very little, because these requirements are usually thresholds rather than competitive scores. Overstating costs you the application when you are asked to demonstrate it, and it is a poor first impression in a process where the same recruiter may see you again.

Take a few timed tests across different days, take the figure you clear comfortably in most of them, and use that.

Questions fréquentes

What typing speed do NHS administrative roles ask for?

It varies by trust and by role, and the figure is stated in the person specification for the post. Medical secretarial roles involving audio typing tend to ask for more than general clerical positions.

Will I be tested, or is it self-declared?

Where typing speed is an essential criterion, expect to be tested at some point in the process. Where it is desirable, it may go unchecked - but it is not safe to assume so.

Does UK typing get measured differently from elsewhere?

The words-per-minute convention is the same one used almost everywhere: five characters counts as a word. What differs between tests is how errors are handled, which is worth checking before you take one.