Southend-on-Sea test centre: 47.0% pass rate, £416 to get through it.
DVSA conducted 7,526 car practical tests here between April 2025 and March 2026, and 3,537 candidates passed. On the expected-attempts arithmetic that is 2.13 attempts, £132 in DVSA fees and £284 of retake lessons before a licence.
- Pass rate
- 47.0%
- Tests conducted
- 7,526
- National rank
- 236
- Median wait
- 7.5 wk
-3.0 pts vs national
3,537 passes
of 308 ranked centres
July 2026
What passing at Southend-on-Sea costs
Expected cost of the test cycle for the average candidate at a 47.0% centre.
- Expected attempts (1 ÷ pass rate)2.13
- DVSA fees at £62 weekday£132
- Retake lessons (1.13 × 7 hr × £36)£284
- Test cycle at this centre£416
- Against a national-average centre+£40
- Extra queue time from retakes8.5 wk
Add the parts that do not change with the centre and the full bill from provisional to licence at East of England lesson rates is about £2,093: £34 provisional, £23 theory, 45 hours of tuition at £36 (£1,620) and the test cycle above. Full cost stack.
What 47.0% at Southend-on-Sea actually means for your budget.
Southend-on-Sea is a mid-sized centre, putting 7,526 candidates through the car practical test in 2025/26. 3,537 passed, so the centre finished the year on 47.0% and 236th of 308 nationally, 19th of 24 within East of England.
That lands within 3.0 percentage points of the 50.03% national figure and 4.4 points below the 51.4% East of England average, which makes Southend-on-Sea an ordinary centre on the DVSA table and puts the cost question back on preparation rather than location.
Turn 47.0% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 2.13 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Southend-on-Sea pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 2.13 times, or £132. Add 1.13 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the East of England rate of £36 an hour (the closest published band on our regional lesson table), and the extra lessons come to £284. The test cycle at Southend-on-Sea is therefore about £416. Testing here therefore costs about £40 more than the same candidate would spend at a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, purely because of the extra attempt the pass rate implies.
Waiting time at Southend-on-Sea ran to a median 7.5 weeks between booking and test in July 2026, 4.4 weeks below the 11.9-week national median. Across 1.13 expected retakes that is roughly 8.5 weeks of extra queueing before a licence arrives. In the same month DVSA offered 3,388 standard slots inside the booking window here and 5.5% of them were still free to book.
First attempts track the headline closely: 1,658 passes from 3,529 first tests at Southend-on-Sea, 47.0% against 47.0% for all attempts. 67 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 1.90% of them.
Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Southend-on-Sea has fallen by 6.7 points, from 53.7% to 47.0%. Test volume has grown over the same span, from 4,581 to 7,526 tests a year. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £83 to the average candidate.
Male and female candidates are within a point of each other at Southend-on-Sea, 46.6% against 47.5%. Automatic tests made up 29.4% of the workload and passed at 41.0%, 6.0 points below the manual-inclusive rate, worth knowing before paying the automatic lesson premium. Month to month the rate ran from 41.5% in August 2025 to 53.2% in April 2025, a 11.6-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.
None of the similarly sized centres in East of England runs more than five points ahead of Southend-on-Sea 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.
Southend-on-Sea vs its region and the country.
- Rank in East of England
- 19 of 24
- First-attempt rate
- 47.0%
- Zero-fault first passes
- 67
- Automatic pass rate
- 41.0%
- Male candidates
- 46.6%
- Female candidates
- 47.5%
-4.4 pts vs region
3,529 first tests
1.90% of first attempts
29.4% of tests here
4,015 tests
3,511 tests
Down 6.7 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 7.5 weeks, 4.4 below the 11.9-week median across all centres.
A 17-year-old passes at 56.0% here. A 25-year-old passes at 42.3%.
DVSA publishes Southend-on-Sea broken down by single year of age, and the two ends of that range behave like different centres. 1,360 tests were taken here by 17-year-olds and 56.0% of them passed; 194 were taken by 25-year-olds and 42.3% passed. That is 13.8 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 Southend-on-Sea expects 1.78 attempts, £308 in fees and retake lessons. A 25-year-old expects 2.37 attempts and £491, £183 more on identical £62 fees and the same £36 East of England lesson rate. The only thing that moved was the pass rate.
17-year-olds here pass 7.5 points below the 63.6% that 17-year-olds manage nationally. Against East of England, where the same age passes 64.1%, they are 8.1 points behind. Either way, budgeting a 17-year-old against this centre's all-ages 47.0% is pessimistic by 9.0 points.
Southend-on-Sea 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.
None of this says a 17-year-old drives better. DVSA counts who passed, not why. The most likely reading is course continuity: a candidate testing at 17 is usually mid-course with weekly lessons behind them, while an older first-timer more often books a test after a gap. That is a lever, not a birthday, and it is the one part of this page you can actually change.
- Age 17 here
- 56.0%
- Age 25 here
- 42.3%
- Age gap
- +13.8 pts
- Age 17 vs country
- -7.5 pts
1,360 tests
194 tests
national gap +14.9 pts
63.6% nationally
Pass rate by age at Southend-on-Sea
DVSA table DRT122D, April 2025 to March 2026. Dashed line is the same age across Great Britain.
What each age costs at Southend-on-Sea, 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 East of England rate of £36. 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 | 1,360 | 762 | 56.0% | 1.78 | £308 |
| 18 | 1,095 | 575 | 52.5% | 1.90 | £346 |
| 19 | 525 | 257 | 49.0% | 2.04 | £389 |
| 20 | 323 | 162 | 50.1% | 1.99 | £374 |
| 21 | 281 | 129 | 45.9% | 2.18 | £432 |
| 22 | 320 | 168 | 52.5% | 1.90 | £346 |
| 23 | 245 | 141 | 57.5% | 1.74 | £294 |
| 24 | 198 | 95 | 48.0% | 2.08 | £402 |
| 25 | 194 | 82 | 42.3% | 2.37 | £491 |
| Under 26 | 4,541 | 2,371 | 52.2% | 1.92 | £349 |
| All ages | 7,526 | 3,537 | 47.0% | 2.13 | £416 |
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 Southend-on-Sea
- Expected attempts, age 171.78
- Expected attempts, age 252.37
- Test cycle at age 17£308
- Test cycle at age 25£491
- Cost of waiting from 17 to 25+£183
- Extra queue time from the extra retakes4.3 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 Southend-on-Sea.
| Financial year | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 7,526 | 3,537 | 47.0% | 2.13 | £416 |
| 2024/25 | 4,797 | 2,308 | 48.1% | 2.08 | £401 |
| 2023/24 | 4,573 | 2,223 | 48.6% | 2.06 | £394 |
| 2022/23 | 4,307 | 2,202 | 51.1% | 1.96 | £362 |
| 2021/22 | 4,581 | 2,460 | 53.7% | 1.86 | £333 |
| 2020/21 | 1,201 | 670 | 55.8% | 1.79 | £311 |
| 2019/20 | 6,306 | 3,001 | 47.6% | 2.10 | £408 |
| 2018/19 | 6,825 | 3,115 | 45.6% | 2.19 | £436 |
| 2017/18 | 6,485 | 2,845 | 43.9% | 2.28 | £464 |
| 2016/17 | 6,639 | 2,835 | 42.7% | 2.34 | £483 |
Cost columns apply today’s £62 fee and the current £36 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 11.6-point swing across the year.
Monthly figures are why a single quarter is a poor guide. Nothing about the centre changed between August 2025 and April 2025; the mix of candidates did.
| Month | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 536 | 285 | 53.2% |
| May 2025 | 476 | 238 | 50.0% |
| June 2025 | 567 | 278 | 49.0% |
| July 2025 | 653 | 314 | 48.1% |
| August 2025 | 390 | 162 | 41.5% |
| September 2025 | 615 | 278 | 45.2% |
| October 2025 | 740 | 377 | 51.0% |
| November 2025 | 719 | 305 | 42.4% |
| December 2025 | 638 | 284 | 44.5% |
| January 2026 | 721 | 336 | 46.6% |
| February 2026 | 669 | 329 | 49.2% |
| March 2026 | 802 | 351 | 43.8% |
The five East of England centres closest in size to Southend-on-Sea.
Matched on annual test volume rather than distance, because a centre doing 7,526 tests a year faces a comparable road and traffic mix. Cost column uses the East of England lesson rate of £36 throughout, so the only variable is the pass rate.
| Centre | Pass rate | Tests | Median wait | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southend-on-Sea (this centre) | 47.0% | 7,526 | 7.5 wk | £416 |
| Lowestoft(Mobbs Way) | 43.3% | 7,603 | 14.1 wk | £473 |
| Leighton Buzzard (Stanbridge Road) | 49.9% | 7,667 | 16.6 wk | £377 |
| Loughton (London) | 47.0% | 7,376 | 9.4 wk | £416 |
| St Albans | 50.7% | 7,336 | 6.7 wk | £367 |
| Colchester | 50.6% | 7,756 | 12.4 wk | £368 |
Higher pass rate in East of England
- Clacton-on-Sea48.2%
- Brentwood (London)48.5%
- Basildon49.1%
- Leighton Buzzard (Stanbridge Road)49.9%
Lower pass rate in East of England
- Loughton (London)47.0%
- Watford46.2%
- Bury St Edmunds46.2%
- Lowestoft(Mobbs Way)43.3%
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.