About PassRates.uk

What this site is

PassRates.uk is an independent reference for UK driving test pass-rate data. The site aggregates the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) quarterly statistical release into per-centre, per-city, per-region views, plus learner guides on how to interpret the numbers. It exists because the official DVSA spreadsheets are accurate but unwieldy, and the commercial driving-school sites that summarise them are usually optimised for booking lead generation rather than honest comparison.

What you will not find here: advertising, sponsored placements, tracking pixels, lead capture, sign-up walls, paid endorsements of driving schools, or third-party referral commissions. Every page is the same data, presented the same way, regardless of which centre or city you are looking at.

Who runs it

PassRates.uk is built and maintained by an independent UK-based software engineer (London, computer science background, six years professional experience). I am not a DVSA examiner, not an ADI, and not affiliated with any driving school or instructor network. My expertise here is in the data engineering, not the driving tuition.

The driving-test substance on this site comes from authoritative public sources: the DVSA quarterly DRT statistical release (DRT121, DRT122, DRT222, DRT322 series), the Highway Code as published on gov.uk, and the National Audit Office's December 2025 investigation into car driving test waiting times. Where this site quotes a specific fee, age, regulation, or pass-rate threshold, it is verifiable on a named gov.uk page within one click.

How the data is calculated

Pass rates on this site are aggregated lifetime totals from the DVSA quarterly releases (currently covering 2014 to 2025). For each centre we compute the volume-weighted pass rate as total passes divided by total tests across all available years. Centres with fewer than 500 lifetime tests are excluded from rankings to prevent small-sample noise from dominating the top of the list.

First-time pass rate is computed separately from the DRT122C "first attempt" release. Wait-time estimates are modelled per-centre from regional demand patterns (NAO 2025 report) plus the centre's volume, and are clearly labelled as estimates, not booking guarantees.

For the full methodology, including the source files, the dedup rules, and the exact formulae, see the methodology page.

Editorial principles

The articles on this site follow a small set of rules:

• Every specific factual claim (fee, age, regulation, distance, weight limit) is verifiable on gov.uk.
• Wait-time figures are labelled as estimates with a clear methodology, never as booking promises.
• Centre names match the official DVSA register where possible. Where the dataset uses a stale variant or a temporary venue name, it is flagged.
• City and centre articles do not promote one centre over another except where the published DVSA statistics support it.
• Driving-school recommendations are not made because we are not in a position to verify quality at scale.
• Articles are reviewed by date. Where a fact is time-sensitive (a fee, a regulation in flux), the article carries the date it was last reviewed against the current gov.uk page.

What we do not cover

This site focuses on the practical and theory test, motorcycle Module 1 and 2, and the HGV/LGV categories where DVSA publishes per-centre data. It does not cover bus and coach licensing in detail because the per-centre data the DVSA publishes for PCV is sparse. It does not cover Northern Ireland car tests in the same depth as Great Britain because the DVA (NI's equivalent) publishes a smaller dataset; we link to DVA where relevant rather than guess.

Corrections

If you spot a factual error on any page, email hello@passrates.uk with the page URL and the issue. Corrections are made within a working week, with an updated "Last reviewed" date on the affected page.

For privacy or data-protection questions, email privacy@passrates.uk. See also the privacy policy.

Funding model

PassRates.uk runs on a small UK-region cloud server. Hosting and domain cost roughly a few pounds a month. There is no business model: no advertising, no referral fees, no sponsored content, no paid newsletter. If at some point that changes (for example, a small affiliate disclosure for an instructor-finder integration), it will be disclosed prominently and you will see the change in the privacy policy first.

Open data licence

The underlying DVSA pass-rate dataset is published by the UK government under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You can use the same data in your own projects under the same terms. The presentation and original analysis on this site (rankings methodology, narrative text, modelled wait-time estimates) are PassRates.uk's own work and are protected by copyright. See the terms of service for details.