National Audit Office: Watchdog urges DVSA to address driving test delay backlog and cut waiting times

• Average waiting time for practical car driving tests in Great Britain was 22 weeks in September 2025, and DVSA does not expect to hit its target waiting time of seven weeks until November 2027.
• These waiting times have increased significantly since the Covid-19 pandemic, with many slots also now being booked up by third-party providers, often using automated bots. 

• Despite several recruitment drives, DVSA has not recruited sufficient examiners to increase test slots, and exit rates remain high due to uncompetitive pay and safety concerns.  

Learner drivers are facing long waiting times and some are paying up to eight times the standard rate for a driving test through third parties due to a failure from the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) to resolve test booking issues, a new National Audit Office (NAO) report has found.¹

The average waiting time for a test was 22 weeks as of September 2025, compared with just over five weeks in early 2020, and 70% of DVSA's test centres are operating at the maximum waiting time of twenty-four weeks. Although DVSA created and implemented a plan in 2024 to reduce wait times down to seven weeks by the end of 2025, it does not expect to meet this target until the end of 2027.

These delays can have a serious impact on learner drivers' income and the economy, with 30% of respondents to a DVSA survey saying they need to be able to drive for their jobs.

A large backlog of driving tests (estimated at 1.1 million) accumulated over the Covid-19 pandemic,² and an estimated 360,000 of these tests have not yet been booked. DVSA has been slow to react to other factors that are increasing the number of tests needed, such as an increase in those taking theory tests.³ It has also struggled to understand the real demand for driving tests due to high demand being generated by automated programmes (bots) booking up available slots.

Delays in getting a test are resulting in just under a third of learners booking their tests through third-party websites,⁴ sometimes paying significantly inflated prices of up to £500, compared to the standard weekday test fee of £62 charged by DVSA.

DVSA has taken action against the reselling of slots through third parties, recently announcing that only learners will be able to purchase tests.⁵ Through this, DVSA is also hoping to limit the use of automated programmes to book tests, which remains at high levels despite the implementation of anti-bot protection software.

The NAO report found high exit rates among examiners due to perceived uncompetitive pay and safety concerns. Despite 19 recruitment campaigns by DVSA there are only 83 more examiners in place than in 2021, against a goal of 400.

To meet its targets, DVSA must focus on recruiting new examiners so it can increase the number of driving tests it provides. As the current booking system is not working for learner drivers, the NAO has recommended that DVSA should take this opportunity to review how it manages the booking of driving tests and restore good service. To action this, the NAO recommends that DVSA and the Department for Transport (DfT) should:

1. Explore what is driving increased demand, including assessing whether there are enough measures in place to ensure learners are able to book a test when they need to.

2. Increase test slots by investigating what is needed to scale up the examiner workforce and respond to any subsequent backlogs.

3. Agree governance arrangements between DfT and DVSA that will support DVSA to better respond to future challenges such as abuse of the test booking system.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said:

“The current system for providing driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales is not working satisfactorily, with long waiting times and exploitation of learner drivers by resellers of test slots. Our report recommends that the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency and the Department for Transport take decisive action to restore a fit for purpose driving test service.”   

ENDS
Notes to editors

1. From early 2021, DVSA planned how to increase the number of tests to recover the pandemic backlog. In 2021-22, DVSA conducted 125,000 fewer tests than the 1.7 million average number of tests in 2015-16 to 2018-19, the four years prior to the pandemic. DVSA exceeded the pre-pandemic average in 2022-23 (by 26,000), 2023-24 (by 282,000) and in 2024-25 (by 177,000).

2. There was a 43% increase in car theory test passes in Great Britain between 2019-20 and 2024-25 (see Figure 9 in the report). DVSA identified an upward trend in the number of 17-year-olds passing their theory tests, a group who are too young to be affected by the pandemic backlog or expiring theory certificates.

3. In December 2024, DVSA published a call for evidence on the experience of booking and managing car practical driving tests. Of the 26,921 respondents who answered the question on the use of third-party resellers, 31% said they had used a third-party reseller with some paying up to £500 in total to book a test slot. Respondents included learner drivers, driver with a full licence who has recently (within the last 2 years) passed their test, parents or guardians who booked a test for a learner, approved driving instructors or trainee driving instructor, driving schools and businesses that provide unofficial driving test booking or cancellation finder services. 22% of respondents either skipped the question or stated they were unsure.

4. In November 2025, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander confirmed the introduction of new measures aiming to reduce the number of bots and third-party sellers, where only learner drivers themselves will be allowed to book tests, meaning instructors and driving schools can no longer book for students.