How driving test waiting times are measured

1. Median wait between booking and test

For every car test taken at a centre in a month, DVSA looks at the date the test was booked and the date it happened. Line those gaps up from shortest to longest and take the middle one: that's the median. Half of people waited less, half longer. In September 2026 the figure for Great Britain was 11.6 weeks.

It's a backward-looking measure. It describes people who have just taken their test, many of whom booked months ago, so it lags behind changes in demand. It also includes people who deliberately booked far ahead, and people who grabbed a cancellation a week before. It's the headline figure on our centre pages because it's measured from real tests, not estimated.

2. Weeks to 10% availability

On the last Monday of each month DVSA looks at the next 24 weeks of appointments at each centre and counts how many weeks ahead you'd have to go to find a week where at least 10% of slots are still unbooked. It's closer to "how far ahead could I book today", but only roughly: it ignores cancellations that appear later, and a week with 10% free might still have nothing at times you can manage.

Because DVSA only releases tests 24 weeks ahead (a new week every Monday at 6am), the measure can't go above 24. In September 2026, 107 of 321 centres were at that ceiling, so for them the figure really means "24 weeks or more".

The two measures can be far apart. At Enfield (Innova Business Park), the median wait was 2.4 weeks but it would have taken 24 or more weeks to reach a week with 10% of slots free. 119 centres had a gap of eight weeks or more that month: people there were getting tests sooner than the advance calendar suggests, usually by picking up cancellations.

3. Slots still available in the booking window

DVSA also counts all standard weekday slots in the 24-week window and how many are still unbooked. A centre with 2% free is effectively full; one with 30% free has room. Across Great Britain 13.3% of slots were free at the end of September 2026.

What the figures don't cover

• Evening, weekend and bank holiday tests aren't in the availability counts, which cover standard tests between 7:30am and 4:40pm on weekdays.
• Tests run by delegated examiners (for some employers and emergency services) aren't included.
• Figures from April 2025 onwards are provisional and can be revised at DVSA's quarterly update.
• DVSA leaves out months where a centre ran too few tests, which shows as gaps in our charts.

Ireland is measured differently

The Road Safety Authority publishes an estimate, at the end of each month, of how many weeks it will be before an applicant is invited to book a test at each centre. That's a forward estimate of the queue, not a measure of completed tests, so we don't put Irish and British figures in the same table. All Irish centres together: 11.9 weeks at the end of September 2026.

Where the numbers come from

DVSA, Driving test and theory test data: cars, tables DRT122F (centres) and DRT121G (regions and Great Britain). DVSA publishes them around the second week of each month for the month before last. The definitions above follow DVSA's notes in those tables.