Driving test waiting times remain stubbornly high, with learner drivers in England facing an average 20-week wait simply to book a practical test slot, according to figures published by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) for August 2026. That is only a marginal improvement on the 20.2-week average recorded in July, and the average time between booking and sitting a test remains unchanged at 11.1 weeks.
The DVSA originally set itself a target of cutting the average wait to seven weeks by the end of last year. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander then pushed that deadline back to summer 2026, before acknowledging that even that revised target was out of reach. According to MoneySuperMarket, Alexander has since indicated the government does not expect to hit the seven-week target until autumn 2027.
Driving test waiting times vary sharply across Great Britain
The national average masks very wide regional differences. MoneySuperMarket reports that Scotland’s average wait between booking and sitting a test stands at 15.6 weeks, double the average in Wales, where learners wait 7.6 weeks. England, at 11.1 weeks, matches the Great Britain-wide figure. For those unlucky enough to be waiting in Crieff, Scotland, the picture is worse still: the median wait there is 31.4 weeks, the longest of any test centre in Great Britain.
Despite the persistent delays, the DVSA says more than 2.13 million practical driving tests took place in the 12 months to August 2026, which it describes as the highest rolling 12-month figure on record. DVSA chief executive Beverley Warmington said: ‘There’s more to do and we’re not going to stop until every learner can get a fair test slot when they need one but today’s figures show our plan is working.’
Carly Brookfield, chief executive of the Driving Instructors Association, said the higher number of available tests was ‘progress that should be recognised’ but that ‘the pressure is still very real’ for learners and instructors alike. ‘The ultimate measure of recovery has to be a testing service that learners and the professional training community can access when they need it,’ she said.
Learners and instructors describe the human cost
Lucy Rend, 19, lives in south-east London and has been learning to drive for two-and-a-half years. She has a test on Thursday and described the process of securing it: getting up at 5.45am every day to join the DVSA queue online at 6am. ‘Then I’d be 21,000 in the queue,’ she said. ‘It was very hard but randomly one popped up.’ The prospect of failing weighs on her. ‘I feel lots of pressure to pass because if I don’t pass I will have to go through all that again and try find another test, so would rather pass this one and then it is done,’ she said. She added that most of her friends had simply given up trying.
Adem Veli, who has run his driving school Passman in Sidcup for 16 years, said the backlog hits learner confidence hard. ‘Before Covid we had the luxury we could pick the test date and work towards that date,’ he said. Now, with roughly a six-month gap between tests, a failed attempt means starting the wait all over again. ‘Can you imagine if you did fail your driving test, you’re test standard and ready to go [but] have to wait another six months to get back in?’ he said. DVSA figures show the pass rate for driving tests remains above 50%.
Veli acknowledged that some of the DVSA’s recent changes have helped. Limiting the number of times a learner can swap a test date has reduced one form of queue-jumping. The agency also moved earlier this year to restrict bookings so that only the learner can book their own test, blocking instructors or third parties from doing so using a learner’s details. Learners are also now confined to their three nearest test centres, rather than being able to book at any centre with availability.
Even so, Veli said the unofficial market for test slots has not disappeared. ‘I get messages weekly, they’re trying to sell them to me,’ he said, warning his students to avoid such offers. ‘I tell them don’t bother with it now as there’s so many scams.’ With the government’s revised target now pointing to autumn 2027, the queue of frustrated learners is unlikely to shorten quickly.
