Benbecula Island test centre: 72.9% pass rate, £174 to get through it.

Benbecula Island is a very small centre by DVSA standards: 107 car practical tests in 2025/26, of which 78 were passes, giving 72.9%. At that volume a run of two or three unusual weeks moves the annual figure visibly, so treat the number as a guide to the roads rather than a precise ranking. It sits 2nd of 308 nationally and 2nd of 67 in Scotland.

That is 22.9 percentage points above the 50.03% recorded across all 317 centres, and 23.6 points above the 49.3% Scotland average. A centre in this band is usually working quieter road layouts with fewer forced lane decisions, not a softer marking standard: the DVSA marking sheet is national.

Turn 72.9% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 1.37 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Benbecula Island pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 1.37 times, or £85. Add 0.37 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the Scotland rate of £34 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £88. The test cycle at Benbecula Island is therefore about £174. Testing here therefore saves about £188 against a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, because the higher pass rate buys back part of an attempt.

Waiting time at Benbecula Island ran to a median 10.6 weeks between booking and test in July 2026, 1.3 weeks below the 11.9-week national median. Across 0.37 expected retakes that is roughly 3.9 weeks of extra queueing before a licence arrives. In the same month DVSA offered 71 standard slots inside the booking window here and 35.2% of them were still free to book.

First attempts track the headline closely: 52 passes from 71 first tests at Benbecula Island, 73.2% against 72.9% for all attempts. 1 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 1.41% of them.

Since 2009/10 the pass rate at Benbecula Island has risen by 19.9 points, from 53.0% to 72.9%. Test volume has grown over the same span, from 66 to 107 tests a year. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £154 to the average candidate.

Male candidates passed at 68.4% and female candidates at 78.0%, a gap of 9.6 points across 57 and 50 tests.

None of the similarly sized centres in Scotland runs more than five points ahead of Benbecula Island on pass rate, so travelling elsewhere is unlikely to pay for itself once you add an unfamiliar route, the travel and the settling-in lessons. The cheaper lever here is preparation on the roads your instructor already knows.