The waiting times in the driving test system in England, Scotland, and Wales are a complex issue. It will be November 2027 before they bring down the wait for practical tests to seven weeks, officials now concede. The Department for Transport (DfT) has finally admitted that the current system isn’t working. Long waits and the rorting of learner drivers by test slot resellers have been bedevilling the process.
In some places across Great Britain, the waiting time for a practical driving test is now 22 weeks on average. Alarmingly, driving test centres are more than 70% booked up for the maximum 24 weeks in advance. Now, unscrupulous third parties are preying on this need and exploiting desperate learner drivers. They are re-selling test slots at massively inflated prices, sometimes up to eight times the fee of £62.
Despite conducting 19 recruitment campaigns since 2021, it took until last month for the number of driving test examiners to go up by just 83. This shortfall has left the DfT on the back foot, desperately trying to cover a widening backlog. In a surprise, the department has promised to make more tests widely available. They have further committed to training more military driving examiners to carry out these tests.
“We inherited a frustrating system with learner drivers left in limbo waiting for tests, a system ripe for rogue individuals to exploit.” – A DfT spokesperson
Gareth Davies, head of the National Audit Office (NAO), emphasized the urgency of the situation, stating that “the current system for providing driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales is not working satisfactorily.” The NAO’s findings, published in late 2022, underscored the systemic failures that led to the shocking wait times and exploitative practices of learner drivers.
To address these issues, the government will bring in controls on the number of moves and swaps allowed in tests. From spring 2026, driving tests will be strictly for learner drivers only. DfT officials have now signalled that bots and other third parties will be banned from booking tests. This action is intended to break up the unofficial market that allows people to profit by selling off test slots.
Fear of violence and poor wages have prompted many driving test examiners to quit their jobs, further deepening the crisis. That original additional recruitment target of 400 new examiners is still not reached, making it harder to address the backlog.