Kyle of Lochalsh test centre: 57.4% pass rate, £285 to get through it.

Kyle of Lochalsh is a very small centre by DVSA standards: 136 car practical tests in 2025/26, of which 78 were passes, giving 57.4%. 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 71st of 308 nationally and 33rd of 67 in Scotland.

That is 7.3 percentage points above the 50.03% recorded across all 317 centres, and 8.0 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 57.4% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 1.74 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Kyle of Lochalsh pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 1.74 times, or £108. Add 0.74 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the Scotland rate of £34 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £177. The test cycle at Kyle of Lochalsh is therefore about £285. Testing here therefore saves about £77 against a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, because the higher pass rate buys back part of an attempt.

A fail at Kyle of Lochalsh costs time as well as money. The median wait between booking and testing was 14.1 weeks in July 2026, 2.2 weeks above the 11.9-week national median. At 0.74 expected retakes that is about 10.5 weeks of additional queueing, and most learners keep paying for an hour or two a month through it. In the same month DVSA offered 14 standard slots inside the booking window here and 0.0% of them were still free to book.

First attempts track the headline closely: 35 passes from 62 first tests at Kyle of Lochalsh, 56.5% against 57.4% for all attempts. 6 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 9.68% of them.

Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Kyle of Lochalsh has fallen by 15.2 points, from 72.5% to 57.4%. Volume has been steady, 120 tests then against 136 now. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £109 to the average candidate.

Male candidates passed at 58.1% and female candidates at 56.5%, a gap of 1.7 points across 74 and 62 tests.

Among centres of a similar size in Scotland, Pitlochry runs 15.9 points higher at 73.3%. On the same arithmetic that is roughly £114 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.