Yeovil Driving Test Centre
Yeovil in Yeovil currently passes 59.7% of tests, 11 points above the UK average of 48.7%. The sections below cover the year-by-year trend, who passes most often, how long learners wait, and how it stacks up against neighbouring centres.
DVSA data last updated September 2026
Yeovil sits in the top quarter of car pass rates nationally (Top 17%, rank #54 of 323). The strongest car alternative nearby is Dorchester, about 18.0 miles away.
Pass vs fail at a glance
All-time 50.0K passed, 36.5K failed, 86.5K total
How Yeovil compares
Yeovil clears the UK average by 11 points and sits ranked 54 of 323 in its category. That margin says more about its route mix than about marking, the DVSA standard is identical everywhere.
Where Yeovil ranks among 323 centres
Pass-rate trend by year
Stability is the story at Yeovil: 61.3% in 2017-18, 59.7% now, and every year in between inside a 4.8-point band.
Pass rate by demographic
Waiting time at Yeovil
The headline figure for reaching 10% availability is 20 weeks, but the typical (median) learner who took their test at Yeovil in August 2026 had waited 16.3 weeks from booking to test day.
Official DVSA data, August 2026. The median is the time between booking and taking the test; for live availability use the DVSA booking service.
Centre details
Address
Source: DVSA find a driving test centre (Open Government Licence v3.0), captured 2026-05-12.
Tests offered at Yeovil
- car
- ADI part 3
Accessibility & facilities
Parking and toilet details aren't included in DVSA's published feed. For the current on-site facilities, check the DVSA find a driving test centre tool with postcode BA20 2EN, or call DVSA Customer Services on 0300 200 1122.
About this test centre
Yeovil: a DVSA car test centre in Yeovil, Somerset. Local routes, local traffic patterns, no national standard for what "harder" or "easier" looks like beyond what the numbers below show. If you're cross-checking this pass rate against other sources, the sample size matters. 86.5K tests over 2017-18-2024-25 is large enough that any rounding you see between sites is just rounding, not disagreement on the underlying data.
The top quarter of the UK by pass rate: Yeovil ranks #54 of 323 car centres at 59.7%, 11 points clear of the national figure of 48.7%. The DVSA's first-attempt figure for Yeovil sits at 59.1%, 10.1 points clear of the 49% UK average. The gap is wide enough to matter when you're deciding which local centre to book.
All figures shown are aggregated from the DVSA quarterly statistical release covering the most recent reporting periods available. Pass-rate calculations exclude tests cancelled by the candidate or examiner. Sample sizes and methodology are described in the source attribution at the foot of this page.
What learners should know about Yeovil
- Above-average pass rate at Yeovil doesn't mean above-average ease. The fundamentals examiners mark are the same nationally: junctions, mirrors, observation, signal timing. A 65%+ pass rate means more candidates clear those, not that the bar is lower.
- 59.1% of first-timers pass at Yeovil, so the centre is on the forgiving side. If your instructor is signing you off as test-ready, your own preparation matters far more than the venue.
- Volume at Yeovil is among the highest in the network. Don't take the first available date on faith, refreshing the DVSA booking page across a few days regularly turns up cancellations.
- Practising the roads around the centre is the preparation that most reliably pays off. Most ADI instructors in Yeovil will know the road types and junctions learners commonly meet near the centre.
- The only legitimate booking route is gov.uk. Anything calling itself a "test booking concierge" is reselling the same slots at a markup, the slots aren't theirs to control.
Whether you pass at Yeovil is not decided by the centre. It is decided by the 15 things an examiner can mark you on, and response, traffic signs is one of the ones that ends attempts early.
Take response, traffic signs. Pre-test route familiarity not built. Eyes fixed too close in. Sign-blindness from over-focusing on the road surface. Most of the argument about what is a minor and what is a serious comes down to cases like that one, so it is worth knowing which side of the line yours falls on before an examiner decides it for you.
Drive your local test routes specifically scanning for signs. Have the instructor cover unusual signs on country roads (national speed limit on single carriageway = 60 mph, not 70). Free to use, no sign up. Everything for the day itself is on the practical test hub.
Other test centres nearby
You cannot book a practical test at Yeovil until you hold a theory pass, and it has to still be valid on the day you sit it. Nationally 44.8% of candidates pass the theory.
Sign shapes and colours, road markings and what each one tells you to do. All 14 DVSA topics are free to practise, with no sign up. See the theory pass rate by centre or the full practice hub.
On the day at Yeovil
Turn up at Yeovil ten minutes before your appointment, and check ahead where you can park, DVSA sites vary on that. You can preview the location on the DVSA centre finder. At moderate demand and roughly 7 to 11 weeks' wait, getting a date that works for you is usually straightforward. The examiner will ask to see your provisional photocard licence before anything else, and your car must carry L plates and a working interior mirror. If Dorchester is fully booked, Yeovil is the next closest centre, roughly 18 miles away.
The practical lasts about 40 minutes and uses the standard DVSA format nationwide. After an eyesight check at 20 metres and one show-me and one tell-me question, the examiner sits in for the drive. Roughly 20 minutes of that is independent driving, either following a sat nav set by the examiner or following road signs, and you will complete one of four set manoeuvres; about one in seven tests includes an emergency stop, a frequency the DVSA reduced in late 2025. The drive works through whatever mix of urban and outlying roads sits within about a twenty-minute radius, and at a centre this busy that usually means heavier traffic to read. Across DVSA marking nationally, the fault recorded most often on car tests is junctions - observation, worth drilling on the local routes before your date.
The result is given immediately when you get back. Whatever the outcome, the examiner reads through the marked faults and prints your DL25 feedback form; pass and they take the provisional licence to trigger your full one by post. The threshold is the national one, 15 driving faults at most and zero serious or dangerous, which 59.7% of Yeovil's candidates reach right now.
Frequently asked questions
What is the pass rate at Yeovil?
Is Yeovil an easy or hard test centre?
How does Yeovil compare to the UK average?
How many driving tests does Yeovil record?
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Data: DVSA quarterly statistical release, released under the Open Government Licence v3.0. PassRates.uk aggregates DVSA centre-level totals across reporting periods.
DVSA data period: 2024-25.