Speke (Liverpool) test centre: 40.5% pass rate, £481 to get through it.
DVSA conducted 8,159 car practical tests here between April 2025 and March 2026, and 3,308 candidates passed. On the expected-attempts arithmetic that is 2.47 attempts, £153 in DVSA fees and £329 of retake lessons before a licence.
- Pass rate
- 40.5%
- Tests conducted
- 8,159
- National rank
- 295
- Median wait
- 8.3 wk
-9.5 pts vs national
3,308 passes
of 308 ranked centres
July 2026
What passing at Speke (Liverpool) costs
Expected cost of the test cycle for the average candidate at a 40.5% centre.
- Expected attempts (1 ÷ pass rate)2.47
- DVSA fees at £62 weekday£153
- Retake lessons (1.47 × 7 hr × £32)£329
- Test cycle at this centre£481
- Against a national-average centre+£133
- Extra queue time from retakes12.2 wk
Add the parts that do not change with the centre and the full bill from provisional to licence at North West lesson rates is about £1,978: £34 provisional, £23 theory, 45 hours of tuition at £32 (£1,440) and the test cycle above. Full cost stack.
What 40.5% at Speke (Liverpool) actually means for your budget.
Speke (Liverpool) is a high-volume centre, putting 8,159 candidates through the car practical test in 2025/26. 3,308 passed, so the centre finished the year on 40.5% and 295th of 308 nationally, 30th of 31 within North West.
That is 9.5 percentage points below the 50.03% national figure, and 8.5 points below the 49.0% average for North West. Low pass rates cluster where test routes carry heavy traffic, multi-lane junctions and frequent bus lanes. The examiners are not stricter; the roads give a candidate more chances to make a serious fault.
Turn 40.5% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 2.47 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Speke (Liverpool) pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 2.47 times, or £153. Add 1.47 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the North West rate of £32 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £329. The test cycle at Speke (Liverpool) is therefore about £481. Testing here therefore costs about £133 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 Speke (Liverpool) ran to a median 8.3 weeks between booking and test in July 2026, 3.6 weeks below the 11.9-week national median. Across 1.47 expected retakes that is roughly 12.2 weeks of extra queueing before a licence arrives. In the same month DVSA offered 2,742 standard slots inside the booking window here and 13.5% of them were still free to book.
First attempts track the headline closely: 1,360 passes from 3,280 first tests at Speke (Liverpool), 41.5% against 40.5% for all attempts. 29 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 0.88% of them.
Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Speke (Liverpool) has risen by 7.4 points, from 33.1% to 40.5%. Volume has been steady, 7,898 tests then against 8,159 now. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £158 to the average candidate.
Male candidates passed at 39.7% and female candidates at 41.7%, a gap of 2.0 points across 4,771 and 3,388 tests. Automatic tests made up 31.0% of the workload and passed at 37.2%, 3.3 points below the manual-inclusive rate, worth knowing before paying the automatic lesson premium. Month to month the rate ran from 37.0% in February 2026 to 43.6% in June 2025, a 6.5-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.
Among centres of a similar size in North West, Southport (Liverpool) runs 16.0 points higher at 56.5%. On the same arithmetic that is roughly £199 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.
Speke (Liverpool) vs its region and the country.
- Rank in North West
- 30 of 31
- First-attempt rate
- 41.5%
- Zero-fault first passes
- 29
- Automatic pass rate
- 37.2%
- Male candidates
- 39.7%
- Female candidates
- 41.7%
-8.5 pts vs region
3,280 first tests
0.88% of first attempts
31.0% of tests here
4,771 tests
3,388 tests
Up 7.4 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 8.3 weeks, 3.6 below the 11.9-week median across all centres.
A 17-year-old passes at 54.3% here. A 25-year-old passes at 44.5%.
DVSA publishes Speke (Liverpool) broken down by single year of age, and the two ends of that range behave like different centres. 569 tests were taken here by 17-year-olds and 54.3% of them passed; 319 were taken by 25-year-olds and 44.5% passed. That is 9.8 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 Speke (Liverpool) expects 1.84 attempts, £303 in fees and retake lessons. A 25-year-old expects 2.25 attempts and £419, £116 more on identical £62 fees and the same £32 North West lesson rate. The only thing that moved was the pass rate.
17-year-olds here pass 9.3 points below the 63.6% that 17-year-olds manage nationally. Against North West, where the same age passes 63.5%, they are 9.1 points behind. Either way, budgeting a 17-year-old against this centre's all-ages 40.5% is pessimistic by 13.8 points.
Speke (Liverpool) 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
- 54.3%
- Age 25 here
- 44.5%
- Age gap
- +9.8 pts
- Age 17 vs country
- -9.3 pts
569 tests
319 tests
national gap +14.9 pts
63.6% nationally
Pass rate by age at Speke (Liverpool)
DVSA table DRT122D, April 2025 to March 2026. Dashed line is the same age across Great Britain.
What each age costs at Speke (Liverpool), 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 North West rate of £32. 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 | 569 | 309 | 54.3% | 1.84 | £303 |
| 18 | 762 | 380 | 49.9% | 2.01 | £349 |
| 19 | 569 | 263 | 46.2% | 2.16 | £395 |
| 20 | 469 | 203 | 43.3% | 2.31 | £437 |
| 21 | 393 | 202 | 51.4% | 1.95 | £332 |
| 22 | 381 | 174 | 45.7% | 2.19 | £402 |
| 23 | 349 | 147 | 42.1% | 2.37 | £455 |
| 24 | 322 | 139 | 43.2% | 2.32 | £438 |
| 25 | 319 | 142 | 44.5% | 2.25 | £419 |
| Under 26 | 4,133 | 1,959 | 47.4% | 2.11 | £379 |
| All ages | 8,159 | 3,308 | 40.5% | 2.47 | £481 |
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 Speke (Liverpool)
- Expected attempts, age 171.84
- Expected attempts, age 252.25
- Test cycle at age 17£303
- Test cycle at age 25£419
- Cost of waiting from 17 to 25+£116
- Extra queue time from the extra retakes3.3 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 Speke (Liverpool).
| Financial year | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 8,159 | 3,308 | 40.5% | 2.47 | £481 |
| 2024/25 | 6,986 | 2,696 | 38.6% | 2.59 | £517 |
| 2023/24 | 9,213 | 3,051 | 33.1% | 3.02 | £640 |
| 2022/23 | 8,382 | 2,428 | 29.0% | 3.45 | £763 |
| 2021/22 | 7,898 | 2,616 | 33.1% | 3.02 | £640 |
| 2020/21 | 2,403 | 956 | 39.8% | 2.51 | £495 |
| 2019/20 | 7,445 | 2,514 | 33.8% | 2.96 | £623 |
| 2018/19 | 6,763 | 2,196 | 32.5% | 3.08 | £657 |
Cost columns apply today’s £62 fee and the current £32 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 6.5-point swing across the year.
Monthly figures are why a single quarter is a poor guide. Nothing about the centre changed between February 2026 and June 2025; the mix of candidates did.
| Month | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 634 | 273 | 43.1% |
| May 2025 | 647 | 261 | 40.3% |
| June 2025 | 638 | 278 | 43.6% |
| July 2025 | 806 | 330 | 40.9% |
| August 2025 | 681 | 295 | 43.3% |
| September 2025 | 752 | 285 | 37.9% |
| October 2025 | 724 | 288 | 39.8% |
| November 2025 | 553 | 218 | 39.4% |
| December 2025 | 653 | 264 | 40.4% |
| January 2026 | 647 | 258 | 39.9% |
| February 2026 | 637 | 236 | 37.0% |
| March 2026 | 787 | 322 | 40.9% |
The five North West centres closest in size to Speke (Liverpool).
Matched on annual test volume rather than distance, because a centre doing 8,159 tests a year faces a comparable road and traffic mix. Cost column uses the North West lesson rate of £32 throughout, so the only variable is the pass rate.
| Centre | Pass rate | Tests | Median wait | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speke (Liverpool) (this centre) | 40.5% | 8,159 | 8.3 wk | £481 |
| Southport (Liverpool) | 56.5% | 7,949 | 16.9 wk | £282 |
| Warrington | 55.5% | 7,550 | 10.6 wk | £291 |
| Blackpool | 51.8% | 8,948 | 8.9 wk | £328 |
| Preston | 56.3% | 9,194 | 18.4 wk | £284 |
| Chester | 47.3% | 9,212 | 14.4 wk | £380 |
Higher pass rate in North West
- St Helens (Liverpool)40.9%
- Widnes42.7%
- Crewe43.8%
- Atherton (Manchester)44.3%
Lower pass rate in North West
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.