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As of April 28, 2026, Britain’s Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) — the rough equivalent of state-level DMVs — says its average national wait for a behind-the-wheel driving test has finally slipped below the 20-week mark for the first time in roughly two years. The figure, 19.6 weeks, is still nowhere near the pre-pandemic seven-week norm, and officials themselves caution that staff retention and an imperfect booking system are keeping the road-test queue painfully long.
Driving examiners have been busy. The DVSA says more than 2.16 million practical tests were completed in the 12 months through September 2025, the largest annual total on record. September alone saw roughly 192,000 tests administered. Compare that with the previous 12 months, when just over 1.86 million tests were performed — a 16% jump in a single year. Yet high volume doesn’t tell the whole story. Back in September 2025, seven out of every ten test centers were sitting at the maximum allowed 24-week wait, and would-be drivers in those areas could not book at all.
The backlog is a lingering side effect of Covid-19 shutdowns, when tens of thousands of learner drivers saw test dates postponed. The logjam got worse as examiners left for other jobs and scalper bots snapped up slots for resale. The British government, which owns the DVSA, has had to play catch-up.
Roads Minister Justin Madders framed the latest numbers as a turn. “We inherited record waiting times and a significant backlog,” he said. “While driving test waiting times are still not where we want them to be, these figures show real progress is being made.” Madders pointed to a hiring push that has added 160 examiners — an 11% increase — since midsummer 2025.
The government also tightened the rules around booking. Earlier this year, the DVSA said only learner drivers themselves could reserve tests, restricted where a test could be moved, and made learners cancel at least 10 working days in advance if they wanted their £62 fee refunded. The goal, agency officials said, was to stop scalpers and test resellers from gaming the system.
But the Driving Instructors Association’s chief executive, Carly Brookfield, is not ready to declare victory. In comments to Auto Express, she said the improvement is real but uneven: “Some members are starting to report that they feel the situation is improving. But these are mainly in areas where more effort has been made to deploy more examiners — we’re not getting that message across the board.”
Brookfield acknowledged that a DVSA offer of overtime to existing examiners added roughly 30,000 test slots in September alone. That suggests extra capacity can be found in the short term. Still, she pointed to a behind-the-scenes problem that US drivers may find familiar: the agency’s automated booking system keeps flagging legitimate users. “The DVSA are still identifying thousands of breaches of the system a month,” she said. “Genuine pupils are also having their access or bookings suspended as the system doesn’t like their IP address, the phone they’re using, or how quickly they navigate the system.”
For American readers, the British story is a usable cautionary tale. After Covid, many U.S. DMVs faced similar backlogs for road tests and learner permits, and some states are still playing catch-up. The lesson from the UK is that simply expanding online appointment capacity is not enough. If examiner pay, working conditions, and retention do not keep pace, a longer appointment calendar can still translate into months of waiting. Some U.S. states have solved part of the problem with third-party testers and weekend hours; others continue to see complaints about six-to-ten-week waits, particularly in rural areas.
The bottom line: Britain’s 19.6-week average is still roughly three times the 7-week figure recorded before Covid-19. As Brookfield put it, “We are still a long way off target, so no one should hand DVSA a bouquet yet.”
For learners on both sides of the Atlantic, the takeaway is the same. Booking a driving test has become a test of patience. The only real fix — in the UK or the US — is a reliable testing workforce, a fair booking system, and enough inventory to meet demand. That remains a work in progress.
