-
27.1 weeks
Longest wait
Bedford
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12.8 weeks
GB average
median booking to test
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275
Centres ranked
of 320 in GB
-
August 2026
Data to
official DVSA release
Bedford has the longest published wait in Great Britain at about 27.1 weeks, against a national average of 12.8 weeks and a DVSA target of seven. 32 centres are at 20 weeks or more, which in practice means they are close to booked out for the whole period DVSA lets anyone book.
Twenty-four weeks is a hard ceiling, not a coincidence: the booking service only opens slots that far ahead. Once a centre reaches it, the queue cannot visibly grow — the demand just becomes invisible, showing up as slots vanishing the instant they are released rather than as a bigger number. Two centres both quoting 24 weeks can be very differently oversubscribed.
If your local centre is on this list, the fastest route to a test is rarely waiting it out. Checking for cancellations at the same centre and widening the search to centres 30 to 60 minutes away typically beats the published figure by a wide margin.
The 25 centres, ranked
Wait figures for August 2026. Open any centre for its monthly trend, nearby alternatives and full history.
| # | Centre | Region | Wait | Pass rate | Tests a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bedford | East of England | 27.1 weeks | 53.7% | 8,854 |
| 2 | Arbroath | Scotland | 25.9 weeks | 67.4% | 605 |
| 3 | Letchworth | East of England | 25 weeks | 57.5% | 5,243 |
| 4 | Forfar | Scotland | 24.1 weeks | 60.3% | 667 |
| 5 | Haddington | Scotland | 23.3 weeks | 57.5% | 2,195 |
| 6 | Melton Mowbray | East Midlands | 23.3 weeks | 69.7% | 1,984 |
| 7 | Grangemouth | Scotland | 23.1 weeks | 50.7% | 3,761 |
| 8 | Pinner (London) | London | 23.1 weeks | 49.7% | 14,367 |
| 9 | Birmingham (Kingstanding) | West Midlands | 23 weeks | 48.5% | 16,133 |
| 10 | Edinburgh (Currie) | Scotland | 23 weeks | 41.6% | 6,202 |
| 11 | Hornchurch (London) | London | 23 weeks | 46.3% | 8,694 |
| 12 | Loughborough | East Midlands | 23 weeks | 42.3% | 5,502 |
| 13 | Telford | West Midlands | 22.6 weeks | 48.9% | 4,963 |
| 14 | West Didsbury (Manchester) | North West | 22.6 weeks | 47.7% | 17,806 |
| 15 | Peebles | Scotland | 22 weeks | 58.8% | 685 |
| 16 | Cumnock | Scotland | 21.6 weeks | 67.4% | 760 |
| 17 | Macclesfield | North West | 21.4 weeks | 51.9% | 4,509 |
| 18 | Wellingborough | East Midlands | 21.4 weeks | 60% | 1,450 |
| 19 | Glasgow (Anniesland) | Scotland | 21.3 weeks | 44.3% | 6,170 |
| 20 | Barnet (London) | London | 21.1 weeks | 49.9% | 12,397 |
| 21 | Goodmayes (London) | London | 21 weeks | 43.7% | 21,374 |
| 22 | Penzance | South West | 21 weeks | 46.5% | 507 |
| 23 | Airdrie | Scotland | 20.9 weeks | 47.4% | 4,599 |
| 24 | Wallasey | North West | 20.5 weeks | 54.3% | 968 |
| 25 | Lanark | Scotland | 20.4 weeks | 58.1% | 1,914 |
250 more centres qualify for this ranking but fall outside the top 25. 45 of the 320 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
A long wait is not a judgement on the centre. These are mostly busy urban sites with large catchments and a backlog that has not cleared since testing was suspended in 2020 — the queue reflects demand, not how the centre is run or how hard its test is.
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 August 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.
- Busiest driving test centres in the UK — The centres conducting the most car tests, how much of the national total they handle, and what volume means for your booking.
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 320 DVSA centres.
