-
22,480
Most tests a year
Birmingham (Garretts Green)
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7,239
GB average
tests per ranked centre
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275
Centres ranked
of 319 in GB
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March 2026
Data to
official DVSA release
Birmingham (Garretts Green) conducted 22,480 car practical tests in April 2025 to March 2026, more than any other centre in Great Britain. The 25 centres below account for 19.4% of all 1,990,665 car tests conducted nationally, from 275 rankable centres.
Volume is worth knowing for two reasons. It tells you how much weight a centre's pass rate carries — a rate built on 8,000 tests is a solid measure of the routes, where one built on 600 still moves a point or two on chance alone. And it tells you how many slots exist: a big centre with a long published wait still releases far more cancellations in a week than a small one, which is why refreshing the booking service pays off more at the centres on this list.
These are also, unsurprisingly, mostly the centres with the longest queues. High volume follows population, and so does demand.
The 25 centres, ranked
Tests a year figures for April 2025 to March 2026. Open any centre for its monthly trend, nearby alternatives and full history.
| # | Centre | Region | Tests a year | Pass rate | Wait |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham (Garretts Green) | West Midlands | 22,480 | 44.4% | 5.7 weeks |
| 2 | Goodmayes (London) | London | 21,374 | 43.7% | 20.7 weeks |
| 3 | Leicester (Wigston) | East Midlands | 18,868 | 51.2% | 7.7 weeks |
| 4 | West Didsbury (Manchester) | North West | 17,806 | 47.7% | 20.6 weeks |
| 5 | Cardiff (Llanishen) | Wales | 16,401 | 46.5% | 10.7 weeks |
| 6 | Birmingham (Kingstanding) | West Midlands | 16,133 | 48.5% | 23 weeks |
| 7 | Chadderton | North West | 15,988 | 46.8% | 9.4 weeks |
| 8 | Morden (London) | London | 15,770 | 51% | 14.6 weeks |
| 9 | Nottingham (Colwick) | East Midlands | 15,150 | 46.4% | 13.3 weeks |
| 10 | Warwick (Wedgenock House) | West Midlands | 15,070 | 48.5% | 18.6 weeks |
| 11 | Mitcham (London) | London | 15,046 | 47% | 13.1 weeks |
| 12 | Gillingham | South East | 14,886 | 56.4% | 9.3 weeks |
| 13 | Bristol (Kingswood) | South West | 14,863 | 51.9% | 7.6 weeks |
| 14 | Birmingham (South Yardley) | West Midlands | 14,471 | 42.8% | 11.1 weeks |
| 15 | Pinner (London) | London | 14,367 | 49.7% | 23.1 weeks |
| 16 | Sidcup (London) | London | 14,318 | 58.7% | 22.3 weeks |
| 17 | Leicester (Cannock Street) | East Midlands | 14,198 | 40.2% | 5.1 weeks |
| 18 | St Helens (Liverpool) | North West | 14,174 | 40.9% | 6.4 weeks |
| 19 | Coventry | West Midlands | 13,771 | 40% | 5.9 weeks |
| 20 | Dudley | West Midlands | 13,721 | 45.2% | 15.4 weeks |
| 21 | Cambridge (Brookmount Court) | East of England | 13,689 | 53.8% | 15.4 weeks |
| 22 | Northampton | East Midlands | 13,539 | 52.1% | 8.6 weeks |
| 23 | Portsmouth | South East | 13,518 | 52.8% | 13 weeks |
| 24 | Norris Green (Liverpool) | North West | 13,472 | 37.8% | 15.8 weeks |
| 25 | Bromley (London) | London | 13,228 | 52.9% | 14.4 weeks |
250 more centres qualify for this ranking but fall outside the top 25. 44 of the 319 DVSA centres are excluded — either DVSA published no figure for them, or they run fewer than 500 car tests a year, too few for a rate to survive a handful of results. They keep their own pages with whatever was published.
What this ranking does not tell you
Tests conducted is not the same as tests available. A centre appears here because it has the examiners and bays to run high volume, which usually means a large catchment competing for those slots — the wait column tells you how that balance landed.
The figures are averages across every candidate a centre tested, most of whom you know nothing about. They say a great deal about the roads and very little about your chances on the day, which turn mostly on how much you have driven the routes around the centre you booked. Our guide to test routes covers how to work them out now that DVSA no longer publishes them.
How the ranking is built
Every figure comes from the DVSA statistical tables published on GOV.UK under the Open Government Licence — DRT122A for pass rates and DRT122F for test availability. Pass rates are the full-year figure for April 2025 to March 2026 rather than the latest month, because a single month at one centre swings several points on ordinary variation. Waiting times are the median gap between booking and testing among candidates who sat a test in June 2026 — not the soonest slot on the booking service, which cancellations often bring much closer.
Centres qualify for a ranking only if they published the figure being ranked and conducted at least 500 car tests in the year, about ten a week. Nothing is estimated, weighted or adjusted, and the order is recomputed from scratch whenever DVSA publishes.
Figures cover Great Britain. Practical tests in Northern Ireland are run by the DVA, which publishes nothing comparable at centre level, so no Northern Irish centre appears in any ranking here.
Other rankings
- Easiest driving test centres in the UK — The 25 DVSA centres with the highest car pass rates, and why quiet roads — not soft examiners — put them there.
- Hardest driving test centres in the UK — The 25 lowest pass rates in Great Britain, what their routes have in common, and how to prepare if yours is on the list.
- Shortest driving test waiting times — Where you can book soonest in Great Britain right now, updated with each DVSA availability release.
- Longest driving test waiting times — The centres booked out furthest ahead, how close they are to DVSA’s 24-week ceiling, and what to do if yours is one.
To sort and filter every centre yourself rather than read a top 25, use pass rates by centre and waiting times by centre, both of which cover all 319 DVSA centres.
