Hendon (London) test centre: 51.4% pass rate, £406 to get through it.
DVSA conducted 11,086 car practical tests here between April 2025 and March 2026, and 5,695 candidates passed. On the expected-attempts arithmetic that is 1.95 attempts, £121 in DVSA fees and £285 of retake lessons before a licence.
- Pass rate
- 51.4%
- Tests conducted
- 11,086
- National rank
- 172
- Median wait
- 11.1 wk
+1.3 pts vs national
5,695 passes
of 308 ranked centres
July 2026
What passing at Hendon (London) costs
Expected cost of the test cycle for the average candidate at a 51.4% centre.
- Expected attempts (1 ÷ pass rate)1.95
- DVSA fees at £62 weekday£121
- Retake lessons (0.95 × 7 hr × £43)£285
- Test cycle at this centre£406
- Against a national-average centre-£19
- Extra queue time from retakes10.5 wk
Add the parts that do not change with the centre and the full bill from provisional to licence at London lesson rates is about £2,398: £34 provisional, £23 theory, 45 hours of tuition at £43 (£1,935) and the test cycle above. Full cost stack.
What 51.4% at Hendon (London) actually means for your budget.
Over 2025/26 the examiners at Hendon (London) conducted 11,086 car practical tests and issued 5,695 passes. The resulting 51.4% makes it a high-volume centre sitting 172nd of 308 on the national pass-rate table and 10th of 26 in London.
That lands within 1.3 percentage points of the 50.03% national figure and 2.6 points above the 48.8% London average, which makes Hendon (London) an ordinary centre on the DVSA table and puts the cost question back on preparation rather than location.
Turn 51.4% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 1.95 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Hendon (London) pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 1.95 times, or £121. Add 0.95 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the London rate of £43 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £285. The test cycle at Hendon (London) is therefore about £406. Testing here therefore saves about £19 against a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, because the higher pass rate buys back part of an attempt.
Waiting time at Hendon (London) ran to a median 11.1 weeks between booking and test in July 2026, 0.8 weeks below the 11.9-week national median. Across 0.95 expected retakes that is roughly 10.5 weeks of extra queueing before a licence arrives. In the same month DVSA offered 4,768 standard slots inside the booking window here and 4.9% of them were still free to book.
The first-attempt picture is harder here than the headline. 5,695 candidates sat their first test at Hendon (London) and 2,843 passed, 49.9%, which is 1.4 points below the all-attempts rate. 72 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 1.26% of them. Budget for the second booking from the start rather than treating it as the exception.
Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Hendon (London) has risen by 6.8 points, from 44.5% to 51.4%. Volume has been steady, 11,233 tests then against 11,086 now. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £108 to the average candidate.
Male candidates passed at 54.3% and female candidates at 47.5%, a gap of 6.8 points across 6,342 and 4,744 tests. Automatic tests accounted for 52.2% of the 11,086 tests and passed at 51.0%, close enough to the overall rate that gearbox choice is a comfort decision here, not a pass-rate one. Month to month the rate ran from 47.0% in April 2025 to 54.6% in December 2025, a 7.6-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.
None of the similarly sized centres in London runs more than five points ahead of Hendon (London) 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.
Hendon (London) vs its region and the country.
- Rank in London
- 10 of 26
- First-attempt rate
- 49.9%
- Zero-fault first passes
- 72
- Automatic pass rate
- 51.0%
- Male candidates
- 54.3%
- Female candidates
- 47.5%
+2.6 pts vs region
5,695 first tests
1.26% of first attempts
52.2% of tests here
6,342 tests
4,744 tests
Up 6.8 points since 2021/22.
Dashed line: the 50.03% national pass rate for 2025/26.
Weeks between booking and taking the test, DVSA table DRT122F. Latest reading 11.1 weeks, 0.8 below the 11.9-week median across all centres.
A 17-year-old passes at 55.9% here. A 25-year-old passes at 46.8%.
The single figure most people quote for Hendon (London) is the all-ages 51.4%. Underneath it, 662 tests by 17-year-olds returned 55.9% and 487 by 25-year-olds returned 46.8%. That is 9.1 points, against 14.9 points between the same two ages across Great Britain.
Put that through the same arithmetic the rest of this page uses and the gap stops being academic. A 17-year-old at Hendon (London) expects 1.79 attempts, £348 in fees and retake lessons. A 25-year-old expects 2.14 attempts and £474, £126 more on identical £62 fees and the same £43 London lesson rate. The only thing that moved was the pass rate.
17-year-olds here pass 7.7 points below the 63.6% that 17-year-olds manage nationally. Against London, where the same age passes 61.0%, they are 5.1 points behind. Either way, budgeting a 17-year-old against this centre's all-ages 51.4% is pessimistic by 4.5 points.
Hendon (London) is large enough that DVSA published every age cell from 17 to 25 with its counts intact, which is true of 187 of the 307 centre pages here. Nothing in the table above is withheld, rounded up from a small base or filled in by us.
Age here is a proxy, and it is worth saying so plainly. The DVSA figures carry no information about lesson history, instructor or hours, so the gap above is what the record shows rather than an explanation of it. The practical implication is about continuity of tuition, not about waiting or not waiting to book.
- Age 17 here
- 55.9%
- Age 25 here
- 46.8%
- Age gap
- +9.1 pts
- Age 17 vs country
- -7.7 pts
662 tests
487 tests
national gap +14.9 pts
63.6% nationally
Pass rate by age at Hendon (London)
DVSA table DRT122D, April 2025 to March 2026. Dashed line is the same age across Great Britain.
What each age costs at Hendon (London), on the same arithmetic as the rest of this page.
Expected attempts is 1 ÷ the pass rate for that age, fees are £62 an attempt and retake lessons are 7 hours at the London rate of £43. Ages where DVSA withheld the counts are shown as withheld and are not priced: a rate the agency would not put a denominator against is not a rate to budget from.
| Age | Tests conducted | Passes | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | 662 | 370 | 55.9% | 1.79 | £348 |
| 18 | 778 | 392 | 50.4% | 1.98 | £419 |
| 19 | 791 | 405 | 51.2% | 1.95 | £408 |
| 20 | 648 | 331 | 51.1% | 1.96 | £410 |
| 21 | 558 | 287 | 51.4% | 1.94 | £405 |
| 22 | 504 | 256 | 50.8% | 1.97 | £414 |
| 23 | 462 | 238 | 51.5% | 1.94 | £404 |
| 24 | 490 | 254 | 51.8% | 1.93 | £399 |
| 25 | 487 | 228 | 46.8% | 2.14 | £474 |
| Under 26 | 5,380 | 2,761 | 51.3% | 1.95 | £406 |
| All ages | 11,086 | 5,695 | 51.4% | 1.95 | £406 |
The under-26 row is DVSA’s own block total from DRT122D and counts the withheld cells, so it will exceed the sum of the ages printed above it wherever a cell is withheld. The all-ages row is DRT122A, the figure the rest of this page uses. Nothing on this table is estimated or back-filled.
What the age gap is worth at Hendon (London)
- Expected attempts, age 171.79
- Expected attempts, age 252.14
- Test cycle at age 17£348
- Test cycle at age 25£474
- Cost of waiting from 17 to 25+£126
- Extra queue time from the extra retakes3.8 wk
Pass rates are DVSA’s. The pounds are ours, on the same fee and lesson rate the rest of this page uses, applied to each age’s published rate and nothing else. Age is not the cause: the DVSA figures describe who passed, not why, and a 17-year-old mid-course typically arrives with recent, continuous tuition behind them. The national age curve.
Every published financial year at Hendon (London).
| Financial year | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 11,086 | 5,695 | 51.4% | 1.95 | £406 |
| 2024/25 | 11,608 | 5,751 | 49.5% | 2.02 | £432 |
| 2023/24 | 12,222 | 5,850 | 47.9% | 2.09 | £457 |
| 2022/23 | 13,717 | 5,961 | 43.5% | 2.30 | £534 |
| 2021/22 | 11,233 | 5,004 | 44.5% | 2.24 | £514 |
| 2020/21 | 1,747 | 755 | 43.2% | 2.31 | £539 |
| 2019/20 | 13,595 | 5,409 | 39.8% | 2.51 | £611 |
| 2018/19 | 12,048 | 4,985 | 41.4% | 2.42 | £576 |
| 2017/18 | 10,619 | 4,733 | 44.6% | 2.24 | £513 |
| 2016/17 | 11,205 | 5,240 | 46.8% | 2.14 | £475 |
Cost columns apply today’s £62 fee and the current £43 lesson rate to each year’s pass rate, so the column isolates what the pass rate does to the bill. The fee itself has moved over time; see fee history.
A 7.6-point swing across the year.
Monthly figures are why a single quarter is a poor guide. Nothing about the centre changed between April 2025 and December 2025; the mix of candidates did.
| Month | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 884 | 415 | 47.0% |
| May 2025 | 931 | 460 | 49.4% |
| June 2025 | 1,064 | 520 | 48.9% |
| July 2025 | 1,203 | 625 | 52.0% |
| August 2025 | 791 | 425 | 53.7% |
| September 2025 | 869 | 416 | 47.9% |
| October 2025 | 697 | 356 | 51.1% |
| November 2025 | 876 | 466 | 53.2% |
| December 2025 | 779 | 425 | 54.6% |
| January 2026 | 860 | 443 | 51.5% |
| February 2026 | 1,018 | 537 | 52.8% |
| March 2026 | 1,114 | 607 | 54.5% |
The five London centres closest in size to Hendon (London).
Matched on annual test volume rather than distance, because a centre doing 11,086 tests a year faces a comparable road and traffic mix. Cost column uses the London lesson rate of £43 throughout, so the only variable is the pass rate.
| Centre | Pass rate | Tests | Median wait | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hendon (London) (this centre) | 51.4% | 11,086 | 11.1 wk | £406 |
| Wood Green (London) | 46.8% | 11,379 | 12.6 wk | £474 |
| Tolworth (London) | 53.6% | 10,164 | 10.3 wk | £376 |
| West Wickham (London) | 51.6% | 12,249 | 10.6 wk | £402 |
| Tottenham | 48.9% | 9,844 | 10.3 wk | £442 |
| Mill Hill (London) | 51.4% | 9,797 | 14.7 wk | £405 |
Higher pass rate in London
- Mill Hill (London)51.4%
- West Wickham (London)51.6%
- Erith (London)51.6%
- Uxbridge (London)52.3%
Lower pass rate in London
- Morden (London)51.0%
- Isleworth (Fleming Way)50.4%
- Barnet (London)49.9%
- Pinner (London)49.7%
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), DRT122E (Automatic car driving test pass rates by gender: test centres, 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.
Age figures are single years of age from DRT122D and are reproduced exactly as published, withheld cells included. DVSA replaces the counts in small age cells with “..”, in most cases while still printing that cell’s pass rate; those cells are shown here as withheld and are excluded from every comparison, ranking and cost figure on this page. Nothing withheld is reconstructed from the block total.