New data has revealed the full scale of the driving test backlog gripping parts of the UK, with one Scottish test centre now showing waits of almost seven months between booking and taking a test.
The figures, based on the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) monthly statistics for 313 test centres, show Forfar in Angus has the longest median waiting time in the country at 29.7 weeks. It’s the worst of a cluster of Scottish centres dominating the bottom of the table — Scottish test centres occupy six of the nine longest waits nationally. The DVSA only began publishing centre-by-centre figures in June, following a recommendation from a National Audit Office report into the backlog.
The 10 longest waits in the UK (June 2026):
- Forfar (Scotland) – 29.7 weeks
- Callander (Scotland) – 27.7 weeks
- Arbroath (Scotland) – 27 weeks
- Bedford (England) – 25.1 weeks
- Leighton Buzzard (England) – 24 weeks
- Dunoon (Scotland) – 23.9 weeks
- Hawick (Scotland) – 23.6 weeks
- Livingston (Scotland) – 23.1 weeks
- Pinner (England) – 23.1 weeks
- Edinburgh (Currie) (Scotland) – 23 weeks
Nationally, the picture is mixed depending on which measure you look at. The DVSA says the median waiting time across Great Britain was 10.7 weeks in June — meaning half of all candidates waited less than that, and half waited more. But the longer-standing measure the agency uses internally, based on how many weeks ahead at least 10% of weekly appointments remain bookable, put the average wait at 20.9 weeks across the UK in June, up sharply from 5.8 weeks back in February 2020. Separately, the average waiting time between booking and taking a test in June was 17.3 weeks or longer at 60 test centres — including major hubs in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.
The government had targeted bringing the average wait down to seven weeks by the end of last year; that target was missed, and Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has since warned it may not be hit until autumn 2027. RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding welcomed the DVSA’s move to publish centre-level data, saying it shows “where management attention is most keenly needed in order to get the waiting time back down,” while acknowledging a four-month wait is still “way longer than the DVSA ultimately hopes to achieve.” A DVSA spokesperson said test slot availability was at its highest point since November 2024 and that almost 280,000 extra tests have been carried out since June 2025, alongside steps including recruiting more examiners, drafting in military examiners, and reforming the booking system to tackle bot-driven resales.
For learners stuck at one of the worst-hit centres, test slots can be booked up to 24 weeks in advance, and DVSA rules introduced this year limit how many times a booking can be changed — so it’s worth checking waiting times at nearby centres before committing to a date, since candidates aren’t tied to testing near where they live.
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