The 2026 UK Driving Test Pass Rate Report
Across 654 DVSA test centres and 26,645,572 car tests on record, the national pass rate is 48.7%. But that average hides a gap of more than 30 percentage points: from 66.7% at the easiest centre to 33.4% at the hardest. This report breaks down where you pass, where you fail, and why, from the DVSA per-centre release (2024-25).
The 10 hardest UK driving test centres
These car test centres have the lowest pass rates of any centre with a reliable sample (at least 1,000 tests in the latest year). A low pass rate usually reflects tougher routes, heavier traffic and more complex junctions rather than stricter examiners.
| # | Centre | Region | Pass rate | Tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wolverhampton | West Midlands | 33.4% | 11,719 |
| 2 | Featherstone | West Yorkshire | 34.1% | 14,070 |
| 3 | Wednesbury | England | 36.4% | 8,335 |
| 4 | Chingford (London) | England | 36.5% | 13,235 |
| 5 | Gateshead | North East | 37.4% | 8,109 |
| 6 | Leicester (Cannock Street) | England | 37.7% | 11,638 |
| 7 | Glasgow (Shieldhall) | Alba / Scotland | 37.7% | 6,792 |
| 8 | Belvedere (London) | England | 38.3% | 4,337 |
| 9 | Speke (Liverpool) | England | 38.6% | 6,986 |
| 10 | Stirling | Alba / Scotland | 38.7% | 4,111 |
The 10 easiest UK driving test centres
The highest pass rates are concentrated in quieter, often rural centres where routes carry less traffic and fewer complex junctions. Some learners travel to an easier centre to improve their odds, though they then have to learn unfamiliar routes.
| # | Centre | Region | Pass rate | Tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dorchester | Dorset | 66.7% | 4,561 |
| 2 | Kendal (Oxenholme Road) | England | 64.8% | 2,149 |
| 3 | Chichester | West Sussex | 64.2% | 5,295 |
| 4 | Bangor | Gwynedd | 64.1% | 3,433 |
| 5 | Melton Mowbray | England | 63.9% | 2,486 |
| 6 | Newtown | Cymru / Wales | 63.7% | 1,740 |
| 7 | Ipswich | Suffolk | 63.1% | 10,724 |
| 8 | Haddington | Alba / Scotland | 62.2% | 1,890 |
| 9 | Barrow In Furness | Westmorland and Furness | 61.9% | 1,735 |
| 10 | Barry | Vale of Glamorgan | 61.8% | 1,621 |
The busiest UK test centres
By lifetime test volume, these are the centres that conduct the most tests. High volume tends to mean longer waits and busier test routes.
| Centre | Region | Pass rate | Total tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goodmayes (London) | England | 43.7% | 300,986 |
| Birmingham (Kingstanding) | West Midlands | 44.6% | 186,930 |
| Reading | Reading | 49.8% | 184,593 |
| Birmingham (Garretts Green) | West Midlands | 42% | 179,204 |
| Luton | England | 40.1% | 170,134 |
| Pinner (London) | England | 50.3% | 169,984 |
| Middlesbrough | Tees Valley | 48.3% | 162,301 |
| Leicester (Wigston) | England | 43.9% | 161,871 |
Pass rates by UK region
Regional averages, weighted by test volume. Rural and smaller-town regions sit above the national line; dense urban regions sit below it.
| Region | Pass rate | vs national | Centres |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Sussex | 61.0% | +12.3 pp | 2 |
| Somerset | 59.7% | +11 pp | 1 |
| York and North Yorkshire | 58.2% | +9.5 pp | 5 |
| Medway | 57.2% | +8.5 pp | 1 |
| North Somerset | 56.5% | +7.8 pp | 1 |
| Cymru / Wales | 53.9% | +5.2 pp | 17 |
| Norfolk | 53.8% | +5.1 pp | 2 |
| Kent | 53.3% | +4.6 pp | 6 |
| Shropshire | 53.2% | +4.5 pp | 2 |
| West of England | 52.8% | +4.1 pp | 2 |
| Surrey | 51.8% | +3.1 pp | 1 |
| Newport | 51.5% | +2.8 pp | 2 |
| Wiltshire | 51.4% | +2.7 pp | 3 |
| Alba / Scotland | 51.2% | +2.5 pp | 67 |
| Greater Lincolnshire | 51.1% | +2.4 pp | 3 |
| Lancashire | 50.9% | +2.2 pp | 4 |
| Devon and Torbay | 50.6% | +1.9 pp | 3 |
| Cambridgeshire and Peterborough | 50.5% | +1.8 pp | 3 |
| West Northamptonshire | 50.4% | +1.7 pp | 1 |
| Suffolk | 50.1% | +1.4 pp | 4 |
| Reading | 49.8% | +1.1 pp | 1 |
| Buckinghamshire | 49.6% | +0.9 pp | 2 |
| Worcestershire | 49.4% | +0.7 pp | 2 |
| Cumberland | 49.2% | +0.5 pp | 3 |
| England | 48.6% | -0.1 pp | 98 |
| Christchurch and Poole | 48.4% | -0.3 pp | 1 |
| Tees Valley | 48.3% | -0.4 pp | 1 |
| Gloucestershire | 48.2% | -0.5 pp | 2 |
| Staffordshire | 47.8% | -0.9 pp | 2 |
| East Midlands | 47.7% | -1 pp | 4 |
| Warwickshire | 47.5% | -1.2 pp | 2 |
| South Yorkshire | 47.4% | -1.3 pp | 5 |
| Cheshire East | 47.2% | -1.5 pp | 2 |
| Southampton | 47.1% | -1.6 pp | 1 |
| Essex | 47.0% | -1.7 pp | 6 |
| Hertfordshire | 46.8% | -1.9 pp | 3 |
| North East | 46.3% | -2.4 pp | 7 |
| Slough | 45.6% | -3.1 pp | 1 |
| City of Edinburgh | 45.1% | -3.6 pp | 2 |
| Cornwall | 45.1% | -3.6 pp | 4 |
| West Midlands | 43.9% | -4.8 pp | 8 |
| Oxfordshire | 43.5% | -5.2 pp | 2 |
| West Yorkshire | 43.1% | -5.6 pp | 3 |
| Greater Manchester | 41.2% | -7.5 pp | 1 |
| Plymouth | 40.8% | -7.9 pp | 1 |
| Liverpool City Region | 40.1% | -8.6 pp | 2 |
| Stoke-on-Trent | 39.8% | -8.9 pp | 2 |
The gender gap
Men pass at 49.7% and women at 44%, a gap of 5.7 percentage points that has held steady for years. The gap is widely studied; it is not explained by examiner bias in DVSA's own consistency audits, and narrows on second and later attempts.
Year-on-year trend
The national volume-weighted pass rate has been remarkably stable.
| Year | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | 1.66M | 48.0% |
| 2020-21 | 104k | 62.6% |
| 2021-22 | 1.69M | 51.2% |
| 2022-23 | 1.87M | 50.4% |
| 2023-24 | 2.09M | 49.5% |
| 2024-25 | 1.99M | 50.3% |
Methodology
All figures come from the DVSA DRT122 statistical release, car practical driving tests conducted, passed and pass rates by test centre, published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Rankings use the latest reporting year and are restricted to centres with at least 1,000 tests in that year, so a single small centre cannot top the table on a handful of tests. Regional averages are weighted by test volume. Per-centre detail is on each centre page; the full rankings are at hardest and easiest.
How to cite this report
This report and the underlying DVSA figures are free to reuse with attribution. Suggested citation:
PassRates.uk (2026). The 2026 UK Driving Test Pass Rate Report. Retrieved from https://passrates.uk/research/uk-driving-test-pass-rate-report
Journalists and researchers are welcome to use the hardest and easiest centre tables; please link back so readers can see the full data and methodology. For a specific cut of the data, get in touch.