Independent calculations
How test-centre data and comparisons work
The pass rates come from official DVSA statistics. We calculate the ranks and comparisons shown on this site. They are not DVSA rankings and they do not measure how difficult a test is.
Which centres we compare
- Practical and theory tests are always compared separately.
- A centre must have a published overall pass rate for the same latest full year.
- Every rank shows the total number of centres included. This total can change when DVSA publishes or hides a result.
- Northern Ireland theory locations are not included because the DVSA Great Britain table does not contain comparable results for them.
- Regional ranks are only shown for practical tests because that DVSA data includes a complete region field.
How we work out the figures
- Rank
- We put the published rates in order from highest to lowest. Centres with the same rate share a rank.
- Great Britain comparison rate
- We add all passes and divide by all tests. Centres that carried out more tests have more effect on this figure. It is not a simple average of the centre rates.
- Difference
- We subtract the Great Britain comparison rate from the centre rate. The result is shown in percentage points and rounded to one decimal place.
Small groups of tests
Every published centre stays in the comparison. We show a warning when a rate is based on fewer than 1,000 tests because a small group can change a lot from one year to the next. Preparation, experience, traffic and local conditions can all affect results. A pass rate cannot predict your result or prove that a centre, route or examiner is easier.
Sources and updates
We use the latest complete yearly centre results from DVSA's published car driving and theory test tables. Each comparison shows the year and number of tests. A value that DVSA did not publish is left out; we never replace it with zero.
A few older DVSA rows contain a percentage that does not match the nearby test and pass counts exactly. We keep the percentage supplied by DVSA instead of silently changing the official record.
Statistics on location pages
Practical-centre pages can show separate DVSA publications for overall results, first attempts, automatic-car tests, waiting times and cancellation reasons. These measures cover different periods and groups, so each card or chart identifies its source period and sample size where the publication supplies one. We do not combine them into a score or use them to predict an individual result.
Nearby-centre distances are straight-line estimates between published coordinates, not road journeys. Comparisons only use like-for-like service types and label missing values instead of treating them as zero.
Facilities, arrival details and nearby roads
A facility is marked available or unavailable only when field-level evidence has a source, verification date and review date. Otherwise it is shown as unknown. Temporary notices expire automatically, and structured data includes only facts that pass the same verification rule.
Road names and junction summaries come from OpenStreetMap data around each practical centre. They describe the mapped road environment, not DVSA test routes. Suggested practice themes are deterministic interpretations of those mapped features and are always presented as preparation ideas rather than examiner-route claims.