Aberdeen North test centre: 48.2% pass rate, £385 to get through it.
DVSA conducted 3,906 car practical tests here between April 2025 and March 2026, and 1,881 candidates passed. On the expected-attempts arithmetic that is 2.08 attempts, £129 in DVSA fees and £256 of retake lessons before a licence.
- Pass rate
- 48.2%
- Tests conducted
- 3,906
- National rank
- 223
- Median wait
- 15.4 wk
-1.9 pts vs national
1,881 passes
of 308 ranked centres
July 2026
What passing at Aberdeen North costs
Expected cost of the test cycle for the average candidate at a 48.2% centre.
- Expected attempts (1 ÷ pass rate)2.08
- DVSA fees at £62 weekday£129
- Retake lessons (1.08 × 7 hr × £34)£256
- Test cycle at this centre£385
- Against a national-average centre+£23
- Extra queue time from retakes16.6 wk
Add the parts that do not change with the centre and the full bill from provisional to licence at Scotland lesson rates is about £1,972: £34 provisional, £23 theory, 45 hours of tuition at £34 (£1,530) and the test cycle above. Full cost stack.
What 48.2% at Aberdeen North actually means for your budget.
Aberdeen North is a mid-sized centre, putting 3,906 candidates through the car practical test in 2025/26. 1,881 passed, so the centre finished the year on 48.2% and 223rd of 308 nationally, 55th of 67 within Scotland.
That lands within 1.9 percentage points of the 50.03% national figure and 1.2 points below the 49.3% Scotland average, which makes Aberdeen North an ordinary centre on the DVSA table and puts the cost question back on preparation rather than location.
Turn 48.2% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 2.08 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Aberdeen North pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 2.08 times, or £129. Add 1.08 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the Scotland rate of £34 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £256. The test cycle at Aberdeen North is therefore about £385. Testing here therefore costs about £23 more than the same candidate would spend at a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, purely because of the extra attempt the pass rate implies.
A fail at Aberdeen North costs time as well as money. The median wait between booking and testing was 15.4 weeks in July 2026, 3.5 weeks above the 11.9-week national median. At 1.08 expected retakes that is about 16.6 weeks of additional queueing, and most learners keep paying for an hour or two a month through it. In the same month DVSA offered 1,393 standard slots inside the booking window here and 4.2% of them were still free to book.
First attempts track the headline closely: 940 passes from 1,937 first tests at Aberdeen North, 48.5% against 48.2% for all attempts. 58 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 2.99% of them.
Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Aberdeen North has fallen by 7.5 points, from 55.7% to 48.2%. Volume has been steady, 3,976 tests then against 3,906 now. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £84 to the average candidate.
Male candidates passed at 47.4% and female candidates at 49.0%, a gap of 1.6 points across 2,002 and 1,904 tests. Automatic tests made up 36.0% of the workload and passed at 40.6%, 7.5 points below the manual-inclusive rate, worth knowing before paying the automatic lesson premium. Month to month the rate ran from 39.6% in August 2025 to 58.2% in December 2025, a 18.6-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.
Among centres of a similar size in Scotland, Dundee runs 9.1 points higher at 57.3%. On the same arithmetic that is roughly £99 of expected difference. Before moving, price the switch: a new instructor or extra travel for route familiarity typically costs £60 to £120 plus two settling-in lessons, which eats most of a gap under about eight points.
Aberdeen North vs its region and the country.
- Rank in Scotland
- 55 of 67
- First-attempt rate
- 48.5%
- Zero-fault first passes
- 58
- Automatic pass rate
- 40.6%
- Male candidates
- 47.4%
- Female candidates
- 49.0%
-1.2 pts vs region
1,937 first tests
2.99% of first attempts
36.0% of tests here
2,002 tests
1,904 tests
Down 7.5 points since 2021/22.
Dashed line: the 50.03% national pass rate for 2025/26.
Weeks between booking and taking the test, DVSA table DRT122F. Latest reading 15.4 weeks, 3.5 above the 11.9-week median across all centres.
A 17-year-old passes at 62.5% here. A 25-year-old passes at 52.4%.
The single figure most people quote for Aberdeen North is the all-ages 48.2%. Underneath it, 565 tests by 17-year-olds returned 62.5% and 103 by 25-year-olds returned 52.4%. That is 10.1 points, against 14.9 points between the same two ages across Great Britain.
Put that through the same arithmetic the rest of this page uses and the gap stops being academic. A 17-year-old at Aberdeen North expects 1.60 attempts, £242 in fees and retake lessons. A 25-year-old expects 1.91 attempts and £334, £92 more on identical £62 fees and the same £34 Scotland lesson rate. The only thing that moved was the pass rate.
17-year-olds here pass 1.1 points below the 63.6% that 17-year-olds manage nationally. Against Scotland, where the same age passes 63.7%, they are 1.3 points behind. Either way, budgeting a 17-year-old against this centre's all-ages 48.2% is pessimistic by 14.3 points.
Aberdeen North is large enough that DVSA published every age cell from 17 to 25 with its counts intact, which is true of 187 of the 307 centre pages here. Nothing in the table above is withheld, rounded up from a small base or filled in by us.
Age here is a proxy, and it is worth saying so plainly. The DVSA figures carry no information about lesson history, instructor or hours, so the gap above is what the record shows rather than an explanation of it. The practical implication is about continuity of tuition, not about waiting or not waiting to book.
- Age 17 here
- 62.5%
- Age 25 here
- 52.4%
- Age gap
- +10.1 pts
- Age 17 vs country
- -1.1 pts
565 tests
103 tests
national gap +14.9 pts
63.6% nationally
Pass rate by age at Aberdeen North
DVSA table DRT122D, April 2025 to March 2026. Dashed line is the same age across Great Britain.
What each age costs at Aberdeen North, on the same arithmetic as the rest of this page.
Expected attempts is 1 ÷ the pass rate for that age, fees are £62 an attempt and retake lessons are 7 hours at the Scotland rate of £34. Ages where DVSA withheld the counts are shown as withheld and are not priced: a rate the agency would not put a denominator against is not a rate to budget from.
| Age | Tests conducted | Passes | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | 565 | 353 | 62.5% | 1.60 | £242 |
| 18 | 326 | 169 | 51.8% | 1.93 | £341 |
| 19 | 192 | 109 | 56.8% | 1.76 | £290 |
| 20 | 136 | 74 | 54.4% | 1.84 | £313 |
| 21 | 139 | 71 | 51.1% | 1.96 | £349 |
| 22 | 143 | 74 | 51.8% | 1.93 | £342 |
| 23 | 115 | 64 | 55.6% | 1.80 | £301 |
| 24 | 104 | 53 | 51.0% | 1.96 | £351 |
| 25 | 103 | 54 | 52.4% | 1.91 | £334 |
| Under 26 | 1,823 | 1,021 | 56.0% | 1.79 | £298 |
| All ages | 3,906 | 1,881 | 48.2% | 2.08 | £385 |
The under-26 row is DVSA’s own block total from DRT122D and counts the withheld cells, so it will exceed the sum of the ages printed above it wherever a cell is withheld. The all-ages row is DRT122A, the figure the rest of this page uses. Nothing on this table is estimated or back-filled.
What the age gap is worth at Aberdeen North
- Expected attempts, age 171.60
- Expected attempts, age 251.91
- Test cycle at age 17£242
- Test cycle at age 25£334
- Cost of waiting from 17 to 25+£92
- Extra queue time from the extra retakes4.8 wk
Pass rates are DVSA’s. The pounds are ours, on the same fee and lesson rate the rest of this page uses, applied to each age’s published rate and nothing else. Age is not the cause: the DVSA figures describe who passed, not why, and a 17-year-old mid-course typically arrives with recent, continuous tuition behind them. The national age curve.
Every published financial year at Aberdeen North.
| Financial year | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 3,906 | 1,881 | 48.2% | 2.08 | £385 |
| 2024/25 | 1,724 | 743 | 43.1% | 2.32 | £458 |
| 2023/24 | 4,337 | 1,884 | 43.4% | 2.30 | £453 |
| 2022/23 | 4,307 | 2,057 | 47.8% | 2.09 | £390 |
| 2021/22 | 3,976 | 2,213 | 55.7% | 1.80 | £301 |
| 2020/21 | 1,003 | 566 | 56.4% | 1.77 | £294 |
| 2019/20 | 3,962 | 2,016 | 50.9% | 1.97 | £352 |
| 2018/19 | 3,671 | 2,039 | 55.5% | 1.80 | £302 |
| 2017/18 | 4,100 | 2,319 | 56.6% | 1.77 | £292 |
| 2016/17 | 3,764 | 1,873 | 49.8% | 2.01 | £365 |
Cost columns apply today’s £62 fee and the current £34 lesson rate to each year’s pass rate, so the column isolates what the pass rate does to the bill. The fee itself has moved over time; see fee history.
A 18.6-point swing across the year.
Monthly figures are why a single quarter is a poor guide. Nothing about the centre changed between August 2025 and December 2025; the mix of candidates did.
| Month | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 292 | 137 | 46.9% |
| May 2025 | 318 | 152 | 47.8% |
| June 2025 | 357 | 162 | 45.4% |
| July 2025 | 297 | 134 | 45.1% |
| August 2025 | 323 | 128 | 39.6% |
| September 2025 | 420 | 175 | 41.7% |
| October 2025 | 270 | 115 | 42.6% |
| November 2025 | 317 | 153 | 48.3% |
| December 2025 | 299 | 174 | 58.2% |
| January 2026 | 238 | 128 | 53.8% |
| February 2026 | 367 | 194 | 52.9% |
| March 2026 | 408 | 229 | 56.1% |
The five Scotland centres closest in size to Aberdeen North.
Matched on annual test volume rather than distance, because a centre doing 3,906 tests a year faces a comparable road and traffic mix. Cost column uses the Scotland lesson rate of £34 throughout, so the only variable is the pass rate.
| Centre | Pass rate | Tests | Median wait | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aberdeen North (this centre) | 48.2% | 3,906 | 15.4 wk | £385 |
| Grangemouth | 50.7% | 3,761 | 23.1 wk | £354 |
| Dundee | 57.3% | 3,742 | 8.8 wk | £286 |
| Greenock | 41.7% | 3,547 | 9 wk | £481 |
| Kirkcaldy | 50.9% | 4,313 | 17.4 wk | £352 |
| Inverness (Longman Drive) | 45.9% | 3,252 | 5.9 wk | £416 |
Higher pass rate in Scotland
- Paisley48.6%
- Perth (Arran Road)48.8%
- Edinburgh (Musselburgh)49.5%
- Bishopbriggs49.8%
Lower pass rate in Scotland
- Glasgow (Baillieston)47.4%
- Galashiels47.4%
- Airdrie47.4%
- Inverness (Longman Drive)45.9%
Source and provenance
Pass rates, test volumes, gender splits and waiting times on this page are published statistics from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), taken from Driving test and theory test data: cars, tables DRT122A (Car driving test pass rates by gender and month: test centres, updated 2026-06-25), DRT122C (Car driving test pass rates by first driving attempt and gender, including zero faults: test centres, updated 2026-06-25), DRT122D (Car driving test pass rates by age (17 to 25 year olds), year and test centre, updated 2026-06-25), DRT122E (Automatic car driving test pass rates by gender: test centres, updated 2026-06-25) and DRT122F (Car driving test waiting times and availability by driving test centre, updated 2026-08-12). Centre-level figures cover the April 2025 to March 2026 financial year; the national quarterly series runs to June 2026. Snapshot taken 2026-09-04.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Cost figures are drivingtestcost.com’s own, from the GOV.UK fee schedule and our regional lesson survey; DVSA publishes no prices and none of the money on this page comes from DVSA.
drivingtestcost.com is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the DVSA, the DVA or GOV.UK. Pass rates are DVSA published statistics reproduced under the Open Government Licence, not our assessment of any centre. Great Britain only; Northern Ireland tests are run separately by the DVA. DVSA cautions that centre figures below about 100 tests a year are not robust for comparison.
Age figures are single years of age from DRT122D and are reproduced exactly as published, withheld cells included. DVSA replaces the counts in small age cells with “..”, in most cases while still printing that cell’s pass rate; those cells are shown here as withheld and are excluded from every comparison, ranking and cost figure on this page. Nothing withheld is reconstructed from the block total.