UK Top 50, Ranked

Best UK Centres for First-Time Pass 2026: 50 Centres Ranked

These are the 50 UK driving test centres with the highest first-time pass rates on the latest DVSA release, meaning the percentage of candidates who pass on their first attempt is highest here. This is often a more useful metric than overall pass rate, as it excludes retake distortions.

Centres ranked

DVSA car centres

Top 1st-time pass

68.5%

Kendal (Oxenholme Road)

25th percentile

61.6%

amongst these 50

UK 1st-time pass

49%

for comparison

The top 3

Gold, #1

Kendal (Oxenholme Road)

Distribution across the top 50

Each bar shows how many of the top 50 centres fall into that 1st-time pass band.

The full top 50

The top ten

68.5% to 63%

The strongest centres on this measure. Most sit outside the big cities, where quieter routes and simpler junction layouts do a lot of the work.

Eleven to twenty-five

62.4% to 58.9%

Still comfortably ahead of the national picture, and far more likely to be within reach of a city. This band is usually the practical choice if you are willing to travel a little.

Twenty-six to fifty

58.7% to 55.5%

The long tail of the table. Differences between neighbours here are small enough that route familiarity matters more than the ranking position does.

On the marking sheet

A ranking tells you what other candidates did. Your own result comes down to the 15 categories on the marking sheet, response, traffic lights among the ones that catch people out.

Take response, traffic lights. Hesitation on amber from over-cautiousness (creating amber-light minors); failing to stop in time at staggered lights; jumping the gun on green before the box is clear. 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.

Is that a fault?Show me, tell me questions Test day readiness check

Amber-light decision practice: at every amber, the instructor calls "stop or go" so you build the muscle for the right call. Practise multi-stage junctions. Free to use, no sign up. Everything for the day itself is on the practical test hub.

About this ranking

How we calculate it

Centres are sorted by their current-period first-time pass rate, the percentage of candidates who passed on their very first booking at that centre. Centres with fewer than 1,000 tests in the current statistical period are excluded. Only car (Category B) practical test centres are included.

Sample-size rules

Centres with fewer than 1,000 tests in the current statistical period are excluded so a single lucky cohort does not dominate the top of the list. Where a centre has very few tests, even a swing of 5 candidates can move its pass rate by a percentage point, which is misleading at scale. Filtering by sample size is the single most important step in producing a stable ranking.

What to use this ranking for

Use it as a more honest measure of centre difficulty than the headline pass rate. First-time pass rates strip out retake bias, a centre with lots of well-prepared first-attempt candidates can look "harder" than it really is on the overall pass rate.

What this ranking does NOT tell you

It does not predict your individual chance of passing, that depends primarily on your preparation, instructor, and the specific route you draw.
It does not adjust for catchment-area difficulty. Urban centres serve denser, more complex road networks; rural centres often don't.
It does not factor in route variability. The examiner decides the route on the day, using the local roads around the centre, so the difficulty of the drive you draw varies.
It does not capture the specific roads you happen to drive on the day. Marking itself is held to a single national DVSA standard, so the variation between centres comes from the routes, not from the examiner.
It is an aggregate over many years. A centre's recent performance may differ from its lifetime number.

Frequently asked questions

What is the first-time pass rate?

It's the percentage of candidates at a centre who passed on their very first practical test booking, calculated against all first attempts on record. It strips out the distortion caused by retakes and is widely considered a more honest indicator of centre difficulty than the headline pass rate.

Why is Kendal (Oxenholme Road) top of the first-time pass list?

Kendal (Oxenholme Road) has the highest first-time pass rate in the dataset (68.5%). High first-time rates correlate with two things: simpler routes (so well-prepared learners aren't tripped up by hazards they haven't practised) and a strong local instructor community that doesn't push under-prepared candidates to test.

Is first-time pass rate more reliable than overall pass rate?

For comparing centres, generally yes. Overall pass rate can be inflated at centres where many candidates retake, each retake counts as a fresh test, and retake candidates pass at higher rates than first-attempt ones. First-time pass rate avoids that distortion.

What's the UK national first-time pass rate?

The UK national first-time pass rate currently sits around 49%. Centres at the top of this list outperform that by a meaningful margin.

Should I aim to pass first time at a high-FTP centre?

If geography permits and you've done genuine route-specific preparation, yes, that's a reasonable strategy. But a centre's high first-time pass rate is a population statistic; it doesn't override the importance of mock tests, lessons on the local roads around the centre, and a confident, prepared mindset on the day.

Before the practical

Choosing a centre is the second decision. The first is the theory, which every candidate on this table had to pass before booking. Nationally 44.8% get through it.

Take a free mock test Practise vehicle loading Road signs

Loads, roof racks, towing and keeping the vehicle stable and legal. All 14 DVSA topics are free to practise, with no sign up. See the theory pass rate by centre or the full practice hub.

Explore further

By region

England469 Scotland140 Wales45

Browse + read

All centres by city Easiest vs hardest, full guide How to read pass-rate statistics First-time pass rate explained

Source: DVSA quarterly statistical release, Updated annually