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South EastEnglandDVSA 2025/26

Southampton (Maybush) test centre: 50.3% pass rate, £386 to get through it.

DVSA conducted 10,480 car practical tests here between April 2025 and March 2026, and 5,273 candidates passed. On the expected-attempts arithmetic that is 1.99 attempts, £123 in DVSA fees and £263 of retake lessons before a licence.

Pass rate
50.3%

+0.3 pts vs national

Tests conducted
10,480

5,273 passes

National rank
195

of 308 ranked centres

Median wait
13.1 wk

July 2026

What passing at Southampton (Maybush) costs

Expected cost of the test cycle for the average candidate at a 50.3% centre.

  • Expected attempts (1 ÷ pass rate)1.99
  • DVSA fees at £62 weekday£123
  • Retake lessons (0.99 × 7 hr × £38)£263
  • Test cycle at this centre£386
  • Against a national-average centre-£4
  • Extra queue time from retakes12.9 wk

Add the parts that do not change with the centre and the full bill from provisional to licence at South East lesson rates is about £2,153: £34 provisional, £23 theory, 45 hours of tuition at £38 (£1,710) and the test cycle above. Full cost stack.

Reading the numbers

What 50.3% at Southampton (Maybush) actually means for your budget.

Over 2025/26 the examiners at Southampton (Maybush) conducted 10,480 car practical tests and issued 5,273 passes. The resulting 50.3% makes it a high-volume centre sitting 195th of 308 on the national pass-rate table and 25th of 32 in South East.

That lands within 0.3 percentage points of the 50.03% national figure and 2.9 points below the 53.2% South East average, which makes Southampton (Maybush) an ordinary centre on the DVSA table and puts the cost question back on preparation rather than location.

Turn 50.3% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 1.99 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Southampton (Maybush) pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 1.99 times, or £123. Add 0.99 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the South East rate of £38 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £263. The test cycle at Southampton (Maybush) is therefore about £386. That is within £4 of what the same cycle costs at a centre on the national average, so Southampton (Maybush) is close to cost-neutral as a choice.

A fail at Southampton (Maybush) costs time as well as money. The median wait between booking and testing was 13.1 weeks in July 2026, 1.2 weeks above the 11.9-week national median. At 0.99 expected retakes that is about 12.9 weeks of additional queueing, and most learners keep paying for an hour or two a month through it. In the same month DVSA offered 6,375 standard slots inside the booking window here and 14.3% of them were still free to book.

First attempts track the headline closely: 2,780 passes from 5,495 first tests at Southampton (Maybush), 50.6% against 50.3% for all attempts. 165 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 3.00% of them.

Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Southampton (Maybush) has risen by 7.4 points, from 42.9% to 50.3%. Volume has been steady, 11,316 tests then against 10,480 now. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £113 to the average candidate.

Male candidates passed at 52.3% and female candidates at 47.9%, a gap of 4.5 points across 5,738 and 4,742 tests. Automatic tests made up 30.3% of the workload and passed at 45.0%, 5.3 points below the manual-inclusive rate, worth knowing before paying the automatic lesson premium. Month to month the rate ran from 44.6% in April 2025 to 52.0% in December 2025, a 7.4-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.

Among centres of a similar size in South East, Farnborough runs 9.4 points higher at 59.7%. On the same arithmetic that is roughly £103 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.

Against the benchmarks

Southampton (Maybush) vs its region and the country.

Southampton (Maybush)50.3%
South East average53.2%
Great Britain50.0%
Highest (Pitlochry)73.3%
Lowest (Wolverhampton)34.3%
Rank in South East
25 of 32

-2.9 pts vs region

First-attempt rate
50.6%

5,495 first tests

Zero-fault first passes
165

3.00% of first attempts

Automatic pass rate
45.0%

30.3% of tests here

Male candidates
52.3%

5,738 tests

Female candidates
47.9%

4,742 tests

Ten-year trend

Up 7.4 points since 2021/22.

16171819202122232425

Dashed line: the 50.03% national pass rate for 2025/26.

Median wait, last 13 months
JulAugSepOctNovDecJanFebMarAprMayJunJul

Weeks between booking and taking the test, DVSA table DRT122F. Latest reading 13.1 weeks, 1.2 above the 11.9-week median across all centres.

Pass rate by age

DVSA withholds the age 25 cell at Southampton (Maybush), so there is nothing to compare it with.

Southampton (Maybush) conducted 10,480 tests across all ages, but split into single years the age 25 cell is one DVSA withholds, so there is no published figure to compare and this page does not invent one. 8 of the 10 age rows carry counts; the rest are marked withheld in the table below.

Across South East as a whole the same two ages are 64.6% and 53.0%, which on this page's arithmetic is £242 against £352 in fees and retake lessons at the £38 South East rate. That is regional context for Southampton (Maybush), not a figure for Southampton (Maybush), and it is offered as exactly that.

17-year-olds here pass 3.6 points below the 63.6% that 17-year-olds manage nationally. Against South East, where the same age passes 64.6%, they are 4.7 points behind. Either way, budgeting a 17-year-old against this centre's all-ages 50.3% is pessimistic by 9.6 points.

DVSA withheld the counts for ages 16 and 25 at Southampton (Maybush), which it does where a cell is small enough that publishing the numbers could identify candidates. For ages 16 and 25 the agency still printed a pass rate; those rates appear in the table below exactly as published, and are used for nothing else on this page, because a percentage with no denominator cannot carry a cost estimate.

Age 17 here
59.9%

1,692 tests

Age 25 here
n/a

counts withheld

Age gap
abstains

national gap +14.9 pts

Age 17 vs country
-3.6 pts

63.6% nationally

Pass rate by age, South East

This centre's own cells are mostly withheld, so the curve shown is the South East aggregate from the same table.

171819202122232425

What each age costs at Southampton (Maybush), 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 South East rate of £38. 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.

Car practical test pass rate by single year of age at Southampton (Maybush), with the expected cost at each age
AgeTests conductedPassesPass rateExpected attemptsTest cycle cost
16withheldwithheld50.0%not pricednot priced
171,6921,01459.9%1.67£281
181,33174856.2%1.78£318
1978640751.8%1.93£367
2051426050.6%1.98£382
2150724648.5%2.06£410
2247324351.4%1.95£373
2336019052.8%1.89£355
2435217048.3%2.07£413
25withheldwithheld51.4%not pricednot priced
Under 266,3303,44054.3%1.84£338
All ages10,4805,27350.3%1.99£386

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 (here: ages 16 and 25). The all-ages row is DRT122A, the figure the rest of this page uses. Nothing on this table is estimated or back-filled.

Read it at the level that holds up

Of the 10 age rows DVSA publishes for Southampton (Maybush), 8 carry counts and 8 clear the 100-test floor, which is why the age 17 against age 25 comparison and its cost consequence are left blank above rather than filled with a number that would not survive a second look. Pooled across all 32 South East centres the same cells are large enough to read, and the national age curve rests on 301,662 tests at age 17 alone.

Year by year

Every published financial year at Southampton (Maybush).

Car practical test volumes and pass rates at Southampton (Maybush) by financial year
Financial yearConductedPassedPass rateExpected attemptsTest cycle cost
2025/2610,4805,27350.3%1.99£386
2024/258,9544,21747.1%2.12£430
2023/2412,8095,65044.1%2.27£478
2022/2312,9655,58543.1%2.32£495
2021/2211,3164,85542.9%2.33£499
2020/212,6411,24247.0%2.13£431
2019/207,9853,39142.5%2.35£506
2018/197,2953,34245.8%2.18£450
2017/187,4363,47546.7%2.14£436
2016/177,6753,55146.3%2.16£443

Cost columns apply today’s £62 fee and the current £38 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.

Month by month, April 2025 to March 2026

A 7.4-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.

Monthly car practical test volumes and pass rates at Southampton (Maybush)
MonthConductedPassedPass rate
April 202565029044.6%
May 202571135850.4%
June 202577939751.0%
July 202585343751.2%
August 202579439850.1%
September 202578339450.3%
October 202599547447.6%
November 202587543749.9%
December 202570736852.0%
January 202686044651.9%
February 20261,11056951.3%
March 20261,36370551.7%
Comparable centres

The five South East centres closest in size to Southampton (Maybush).

Matched on annual test volume rather than distance, because a centre doing 10,480 tests a year faces a comparable road and traffic mix. Cost column uses the South East lesson rate of £38 throughout, so the only variable is the pass rate.

Comparable test centres near Southampton (Maybush)
CentrePass rateTestsMedian waitTest cycle cost
Southampton (Maybush) (this centre)50.3%10,48013.1 wk£386
Farnborough59.7%10,48216 wk£283
Slough (London)50.8%10,5096 wk£379
Herne Bay55.9%10,6747 wk£320
Burgess Hill45.5%11,23714.9 wk£455
Crawley42.7%11,30510.4 wk£502

Higher pass rate in South East

Lower pass rate in South East

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. Southampton (Maybush) does not have enough published age volume for a centre-level comparison, so the age curve shown is the South East aggregate.