Some Driving Test Centres Have Waits Five Times Longer Than Others

Learners booking a driving test in Banbury are waiting a median of 24.3 weeks to sit it. Learners in Barrow-in-Furness are waiting 4.6 weeks. Both figures come from the same government dataset, published for the first time this summer after years of pressure over whether official wait-time figures reflect what learners actually experience.

For six years the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency published a single headline number for driving test waits: the number of weeks until at least 10% of weekly test appointments at a centre are still open to book. Most people read that figure as an average wait. It never was one. A National Audit Office investigation found it does not reflect how long learners actually wait between booking a test and taking it, and told DVSA to find data that does.

What the New Figures Actually Show

From June 2026, DVSA started publishing a second measure alongside the old one: the median wait between booking and taking a test, based on every completed test in a month, worked out at national, regional and individual test centre level. It updates on the second Wednesday of each month.

The gap between the two numbers is large enough to change how a learner plans their year. At Darlington, the old 10% measure stood at 13 weeks in May 2026. The median was 6.7 weeks, roughly half. St Helens showed 16.5 weeks on the old measure against a 6.1-week median. Barrow-in-Furness showed 12 weeks against 4.6 weeks. Wakefield showed 15.8 weeks against 5.7 weeks, and Bradford Thornbury showed 15.5 weeks against 4.9 weeks.

That does not hold everywhere. Pinner, Birmingham Kingstanding and Sidcup all showed waits of 22 to 24 weeks on both measures, with barely any gap. Banbury recorded the longest median wait in England at 24.3 weeks, more than five times the shortest confirmed figure DVSA published for May, at Barrow-in-Furness.

How Two Government Figures Told Two Different Stories

The old measure asks a narrow question: how many weeks ahead do you have to look before at least 10% of that week’s appointments are still unbooked? A centre running 200 tests a week with just 5% still open still has 10 free slots that week. Multiply that across a region with dozens of centres and there can be hundreds of bookable slots released well before the headline figure suggests.

The national median for May 2026 was 9.7 weeks. The national 10% availability figure for the same month was 21.8 weeks, more than double. DVSA says that gap reflects cancellations and short-notice appointments that regular checking can catch, not an error in either measure. Learners who check daily and grab cancelled slots often test in under 10 weeks, while the headline figure quoted in most bookings advice implied a wait of five months.

Regionally, Scotland had the longest median wait in May at 13.6 weeks, followed by London at 11.7 and the East Midlands at 10.3. The South West had the shortest median at 7.1 weeks, with Wales close behind at 7.4. On the old 10% measure, the ranking flips in places. Wales has by far the highest proportion of appointments still open within 24 weeks, at 31.4%, while London sits at just 4.2%.

Why Some Learners Are Still Waiting Five Months

None of this means every learner gets a fast test. At the worst-performing centres the two measures line up closely, and both point to waits that stretch past five months. Instructors report specific test centres running close to five months out even after this data was published, and DVSA has acknowledged in public comments that some learners are still waiting far longer than the national figures suggest.

Part of the pressure comes from demand. DVSA delivered close to a quarter of a million extra car tests between June 2025 and May 2026 compared with the year before, and examiner numbers are higher now than at any point from 2019 onward. The National Audit Office does not expect DVSA to reach its own target wait of seven weeks until November 2027, roughly two years later than originally planned, and has said DVSA needs to add 18 examiners a month to hit that date.

DVSA has also changed the booking rules this year to stop bulk-booking by resale services and bots, and to stop tests being hoarded at one centre with no intention of using them. Driving instructors have raised concerns that the same changes have made it harder for them to check real-time availability on a pupil’s behalf, a trade-off DVSA says it is still working through.

Not everyone is convinced the new figures tell the full story. Instructors commenting directly on DVSA’s own publication have accused the agency of “obfuscating with statistics,” pointing to individual test centres such as Nottingham, where one instructor said pupils booking that week faced a wait of roughly 19 weeks, close to double the national median quoted for May. DVSA’s response has been consistent: the median is a national measure, not a promise for every local centre, and it is publishing four years of historical data alongside it precisely so people can check a specific centre’s record rather than take the national figure on trust.

What a Long Wait Actually Costs a Learner

The gap between measures is not just a statistics story. A learner who books at a 24-week centre rather than a five-week one is likely to keep paying for lessons across most of that extra wait, to avoid losing confidence before the test. At an hourly lesson rate that has climbed sharply as instructor numbers have dropped, an extra four or five months of weekly top-up lessons can add several hundred pounds to the cost of learning to drive, on top of the test fee itself.

That cost falls hardest on learners who cannot easily switch centres, whether they lack a second driving instructor willing to teach unfamiliar routes or cannot fit a longer round trip into a working week. The regional data shows that penalty is not spread evenly. A learner in the South West or Wales is, on the current figures, working with a wait roughly half that of a learner in Scotland or London, for no reason connected to how well either of them drives.

How to Check Your Own Test Centre and Fight Back

The full centre-by-centre breakdown is published free on GOV.UK and updates monthly. Search “driving test waiting times” and look for the statistical data set covering car tests, which lists the median wait, the old 10% figure, and the percentage of appointments still open for every test centre in Great Britain.

A few practical steps follow directly from the data:

Book at your nearest centre first, then check the published median for it specifically rather than relying on the headline national figure or a driving school’s general advice. If your local centre shows a large gap between its 10% figure and its median, checking the booking site for late cancellations regularly is worth the effort. DVSA’s own explanation of the gap confirms slots do open up well ahead of the quoted wait.

If your centre shows a long wait on both measures, such as Banbury, Pinner or Sidcup, compare it against nearby centres before committing. A test taken at a centre 40 minutes further away but with a median wait of five or six weeks rather than 24 can be worth the drive, provided your instructor is comfortable teaching routes there.

Never pay a third party to secure a test slot. DVSA’s 2026 booking changes specifically target resale of appointments, and using an unofficial reseller risks losing both the fee and the slot if DVSA cancels it.

If you believe a test centre’s published figures do not match what you are being offered when you try to book, DVSA takes reports of booking irregularities through its official channels, and the monthly data refresh means any pattern of long delays is now visible for scrutiny at a level it was not before this summer.

Sources:

• https://despatch.blog.gov.uk/2026/06/18/giving-you-a-clearer-picture-of-driving-test-waiting-times/
• https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/driving-test-and-theory-test-data-cars
• https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-car-driving-test-waiting-times/
• https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/watchdog-urges-dvsa-to-address-driving-test-delay-backlog-and-cut-waiting-times/