Huntly test centre: 63.7% pass rate, £233 to get through it.

Huntly is a very small centre by DVSA standards: 245 car practical tests in 2025/26, of which 156 were passes, giving 63.7%. 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 28th of 308 nationally and 20th of 67 in Scotland.

That is 13.6 percentage points above the 50.03% recorded across all 317 centres, and 14.3 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 63.7% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 1.57 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Huntly pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 1.57 times, or £97. Add 0.57 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the Scotland rate of £34 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £136. The test cycle at Huntly is therefore about £233. Testing here therefore saves about £129 against a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, because the higher pass rate buys back part of an attempt.

A fail at Huntly costs time as well as money. The median wait between booking and testing was 13.3 weeks in July 2026, 1.4 weeks above the 11.9-week national median. At 0.57 expected retakes that is about 7.6 weeks of additional queueing, and most learners keep paying for an hour or two a month through it. In the same month DVSA offered 31 standard slots inside the booking window here and 0.0% of them were still free to book.

First attempts track the headline closely: 98 passes from 156 first tests at Huntly, 62.8% against 63.7% for all attempts. 2 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 1.28% of them.

Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Huntly has risen by 2.4 points, from 61.3% to 63.7%. Volume has been steady, 287 tests then against 245 now. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £18 to the average candidate.

Male and female candidates are within a point of each other at Huntly, 63.5% against 63.9%. Month to month the rate ran from 55.0% in March 2026 to 70.0% in July 2025, a 15.0-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.

Among centres of a similar size in Scotland, Girvan runs 8.3 points higher at 72.0%. On the same arithmetic that is roughly £55 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.