Here therefore, we compare the magnitude and spatial variability in plantar pressure records across a wide range of controlled walking speeds (1.1–1.9 m s−1) using a large dataset. Most previous investigations of the effects of speed on peak plantar pressure distribution use self-selected walking speeds, described as ‘slow’, ‘preferred’ and ‘fast’ [19–30]. Here, we control for speed in order to standardize the comparative analysis between walking speeds. We applied two calculators of variability to this dataset: mean square error (m.s.e.) and coefficient of variation (CV) at a pixel level across the whole plantar surface, using pedobarographic statistical parametric mapping (pSPM). The aims of this study were to assess the effect of walking speed (1.1–1.9 m s−1) on the: (i) magnitude and (ii) spatial distribution of variability across the whole plantar surface of the foot and (iii) to describe the spatial distribution of variability using these two commonly used metrics in biomechanical studies, m.s.e. and CV.