East of England test centres: 51.4% average, a 23.1-point spread and £297 between the best and worst.
DVSA ran 195,108 car practical tests across 24 East of England centres in April 2025 to March 2026 and 100,226 candidates passed. The gap between Ipswich at 62.3% and Luton at 39.2% is worth about £297 of expected fees and retake lessons.
- Regional pass rate
- 51.4%
- Test centres
- 24
- Median wait
- 11.1 wk
- Lesson rate
- £32-£40
+1.3 pts vs national
24 with full data
across the region, July 2026
per hour, manual
East of England learner budget
At the East of England average of 51.4% and £36 an hour.
- Provisional licence£34
- Theory test£23
- 45 hours at £36£1,620
- DVSA fees (1.95 attempts)£121
- Retake lessons£239
- Typical East of England total£2,036
Excludes learner insurance and costs after passing. Full cost stack.
East of England passes above the national rate.
Across 24 centres, East of England recorded 51.4% in April 2025 to March 2026, 1.3 percentage points above the 50.03% figure for Great Britain, which ranks it 4 of 11 DVSA regions. That is 195,108 tests and 100,226 passes.
The regional average hides the choice that actually matters. Ipswich finished the year on 62.3% from 11,466 tests, Luton on 39.2% from 7,759. On the expected-attempts model the first implies 1.61 attempts and £252 of fees and retake lessons, the second 2.55 attempts and £549. The 23.1-point spread is therefore a £297 decision.
Waiting time varies as widely as the pass rate. Bedford showed a median 27.1 weeks between booking and test in the latest DVSA reading, against 3.6 weeks at Brentwood (London). The regional median is 11.1 weeks, and the national median across all 317 centres is 11.9. Queue length is the part of a fail that a cost table misses: each retake pushes the licence back by roughly the local median, with insurance and lesson top-ups running through it.
Cambridge (Brookmount Court) is the busiest centre in East of England at 13,689 tests, passing 53.8%. Lesson rates across East of England run £32 to £40 an hour for manual tuition, which is what turns a percentage point of pass rate into a pound figure: at £36 an hour, each extra expected attempt costs £314 in fee and follow-up lessons.
All 24 East of England test centres, ranked.
Test cycle cost is the expected DVSA fees plus retake lessons at the East of England rate of £36 an hour, so the column compares centres on the one variable that changes: how many attempts the pass rate implies.
| # | Test centre | Pass rate | Tests | 1st attempt | Wait | Attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ipswich | 62.3% | 11,466 | 63.0% | 8 wk | 1.61 | £252 |
| 2 | Norwich (Peachman Way) | 61.7% | 12,541 | 63.1% | 10.1 wk | 1.62 | £257 |
| 3 | Letchworth | 57.5% | 5,243 | 59.3% | 25 wk | 1.74 | £294 |
| 4 | Chelmsford | 55.4% | 9,107 | 55.0% | 17 wk | 1.81 | £315 |
| 5 | Stevenage | 55.3% | 4,622 | 55.8% | 6.7 wk | 1.81 | £316 |
| 6 | Cambridge (Brookmount Court) | 53.8% | 13,689 | 53.4% | 20.1 wk | 1.86 | £332 |
| 7 | Bedford | 53.7% | 8,854 | 54.4% | 27.1 wk | 1.86 | £333 |
| 8 | Peterborough | 52.8% | 10,551 | 53.2% | 17 wk | 1.89 | £343 |
| 9 | Kings Lynn | 51.9% | 6,694 | 52.9% | 15.4 wk | 1.93 | £353 |
| 10 | Bishops Stortford | 51.3% | 6,409 | 50.9% | 10.4 wk | 1.95 | £360 |
| 11 | Borehamwood (London) | 50.8% | 7,195 | 49.2% | 10.9 wk | 1.97 | £367 |
| 12 | St Albans | 50.7% | 7,336 | 49.4% | 6.7 wk | 1.97 | £367 |
| 13 | Colchester | 50.6% | 7,756 | 51.1% | 12.4 wk | 1.98 | £368 |
| 14 | Tilbury | 50.4% | 5,083 | 50.3% | 7.1 wk | 1.99 | £372 |
| 15 | Leighton Buzzard (Stanbridge Road) | 49.9% | 7,667 | 48.8% | 16.6 wk | 2.00 | £377 |
| 16 | Basildon | 49.1% | 8,359 | 49.0% | 4.8 wk | 2.04 | £387 |
| 17 | Brentwood (London) | 48.5% | 5,791 | 47.1% | 3.6 wk | 2.06 | £395 |
| 18 | Clacton-on-Sea | 48.2% | 4,840 | 48.9% | 14.2 wk | 2.07 | £399 |
| 19 | Southend-on-Sea | 47.0% | 7,526 | 47.0% | 7.5 wk | 2.13 | £416 |
| 20 | Loughton (London) | 47.0% | 7,376 | 48.0% | 9.4 wk | 2.13 | £416 |
| 21 | Watford | 46.2% | 12,939 | 44.8% | 15.4 wk | 2.16 | £427 |
| 22 | Bury St Edmunds | 46.2% | 8,702 | 46.9% | 11.1 wk | 2.17 | £428 |
| 23 | Lowestoft(Mobbs Way) | 43.3% | 7,603 | 44.1% | 14.1 wk | 2.31 | £473 |
| 24 | Luton | 39.2% | 7,759 | 35.8% | 10.3 wk | 2.55 | £549 |
17-year-olds in East of England pass at 64.1%. 25-year-olds pass at 48.2%.
DVSA table DRT122D splits each centre by single year of age. Across East of England that is a 15.9-point spread, against 14.9 points nationally, from 34,611 tests at 17 and 5,096 at 25. On this page’s arithmetic, at the £36 East of England lesson rate, the gap is worth £162 in expected fees and retake lessons.
Aggregated from the age cells DVSA published at the 24 East of England centres in that table. Cells the agency withholds are left out, never estimated, so this curve rests only on published counts. Each centre page below carries its own age split where its cells are large enough to publish. The national age curve and how to read it.
East of England, pass rate by age
- Age 17
- 64.1%
- Age 25
- 48.2%
- Gap
- 15.9 pts
Where East of England sits among the eleven DVSA regions.
Other regions
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) 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.
The age curve is aggregated from the single-year-of-age cells DVSA published for the 24 East of England centres in DRT122D. DVSA withholds the counts in small age cells; those cells are excluded here rather than estimated or back-filled from a block total.