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Birmingham Driving Test Centres and Pass Rates 2026

Six DVSA car test centres serve Birmingham. Across the five with a full year of published data, 13.7 percentage points separate the highest pass rate from the lowest. Here are those pass rates, the August 2026 waiting times, and why your first choice of centre now largely locks in your options.

By LeapFrog Driving Team · Published 17 September 2026

Birmingham has six DVSA car driving test centres, and the gap between them is wide. In the year to March 2026, Birmingham (Shirley) passed 56.57% of candidates while Birmingham (South Yardley) passed 42.84%, according to DVSA's driving test data, table DRT122A.

The six DVSA test centres serving Birmingham

Six centres conduct car tests in and around the city:

  • Birmingham (Cocks Moors)
  • Birmingham (Garretts Green)
  • Birmingham (Kings Heath)
  • Birmingham (Kingstanding)
  • Birmingham (Shirley)
  • Birmingham (South Yardley)

All six have an August 2026 row in DVSA's waiting-times table, DRT122F. The first row for Birmingham (Cocks Moors) in that table is February 2026. An earlier entry, Birmingham (Cocks Moors Woods), also appears in the same table, marked closed. We have not been able to confirm whether the two are the same site.

Two more centres that still appear in older third-party listings are marked closed there: Birmingham (Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham (Wyndley). DVSA prefixes a closed centre with "[z]".

GOV.UK does not offer a browsable list of test centre addresses. GOV.UK's find a driving test centre tool is a postcode search, so confirm your centre's address there rather than trusting a third-party listing. Our Birmingham area page covers the city's postcode districts.

Birmingham pass rates, centre by centre

Car practical pass rates for April 2025 to March 2026, from DVSA's table DRT122A:

  • Birmingham (Shirley): 56.57%, from 9,385 tests
  • Birmingham (Kingstanding): 48.53%, from 16,133 tests
  • Birmingham (Kings Heath): 46.76%, from 9,072 tests
  • Birmingham (Garretts Green): 44.40%, from 22,480 tests
  • Birmingham (South Yardley): 42.84%, from 14,471 tests

That is a spread of 13.7 percentage points inside one city.

Three improved on the year before, on the same DVSA table: Garretts Green from 42.00%, Kingstanding from 44.60% and South Yardley from 41.60% in 2024/25. Kings Heath edged down from 47.00%. Shirley also fell, and by more than Kings Heath did.

Cocks Moors is absent because it cannot fairly be ranked yet. DVSA's pass-rate table DRT122A records a single month for it: 486 tests in March 2026, of which 260 passed. That is one month against a full year everywhere else, so do not read it as Birmingham's easiest centre.

How Birmingham compares with the rest of Great Britain

The Great Britain car pass rate for April 2025 to March 2026 was 50.04%, from 1,998,621 tests, up from 48.67% the year before, per DVSA's table DRT121A. Four of Birmingham's five ranked centres sit below it.

The West Midlands was the lowest-passing English region that year at 46.19%, from 231,032 tests, summed from the monthly rows in DVSA's table DRT121G. Next lowest were the North East at 48.41% and London at 48.83%. Two West Midlands centres anchor the bottom of the national table, ranked from DVSA's table DRT122A. Wolverhampton at 34.26% was the lowest of the 317 centres with published 2025/26 data, and Wednesbury at 34.98% was second lowest.

Birmingham also has the busiest car test centre in the country. Garretts Green conducted 22,480 tests that year, ahead of Goodmayes in London on 21,374, ranked from DVSA's table DRT122A.

What a pass rate does not tell you

A centre's pass rate describes the candidates who turned up there. It does not measure how hard the routes are, and DVSA publishes no ranking of test difficulty.

DVSA's notes caution against comparisons that involve centres with few tests. Low numbers, the notes say, "must be treated with caution", and "any conclusions drawn will therefore not be statistically robust or reliable for any form of analysis or comparison". Every Birmingham centre ranked above reports thousands of tests, so that caveat does not apply to them. The wider point does: a pass rate is not a measure of difficulty. Centres where only one examiner conducted that category of test are also left out of centre-level data, although their tests still count nationally.

So do not read 56.57% as your personal odds at Shirley. Read it as what happened across 9,385 other tests.

Waiting times at each Birmingham centre

DVSA also publishes the median wait between booking and test. For August 2026, from table DRT122F:

  • Birmingham (Cocks Moors): 3.1 weeks
  • Birmingham (Garretts Green): 7.0 weeks
  • Birmingham (South Yardley): 10.0 weeks
  • Birmingham (Kings Heath): 11.7 weeks
  • Birmingham (Shirley): 16.2 weeks
  • Birmingham (Kingstanding): 23.0 weeks

The Great Britain median that month was 11.1 weeks and the West Midlands median 12.1 weeks, per DVSA's table DRT121G.

Table DRT122F also gives the share of tests taken within 7 weeks of booking:

  • Birmingham (Cocks Moors): 92.8%
  • Birmingham (Garretts Green): 43.9%
  • Birmingham (South Yardley): 32.3%
  • Birmingham (Kings Heath): 47.1%
  • Birmingham (Shirley): 29.0%
  • Birmingham (Kingstanding): 29.6%

At the other end, 50.4% of Kingstanding tests and 46.7% of Shirley tests came more than 21 weeks after booking, against 0.6% at Cocks Moors.

This data is backward-looking: it describes people who took a test in August 2026, not the wait you will be offered today. DVSA also states that data since April 2025 is provisional and "will be refreshed on a quarterly basis".

Notice the trade-off. Shirley has the city's highest pass rate and its second-longest median wait.

Why your choice of centre now matters more than it used to

Three 2026 rule changes made your first pick close to final.

The same guidance puts the consequence plainly. It tells learners to "only book at a test centre you intend to use - you will only be able to move your test to nearby centres". Work out which centre suits you before you pay, not afterwards.

Booking your own test in Birmingham, and what it costs

Only you can do it. GOV.UK's book your driving test page says: "You must book your driving test yourself. If you need to change, swap or cancel it, you'll also need to do this yourself. Your driving instructor is not allowed to do this for you." You must also usually have passed your theory test first.

The fees go straight to DVSA. Its GOV.UK driving test cost page lists:

  • Car theory test: £23
  • Car practical test on a weekday: £62
  • Car practical test in the evening, at a weekend or on a bank holiday: £75

That page warns that unofficial websites usually charge more.

The GOV.UK book your driving test page also says new appointments are released at 6am every Monday, 24 weeks in advance. GOV.UK's change your driving test appointment guidance says a full refund needs at least 10 full working days' notice. It counts Monday to Saturday as working days, but not Sundays or public holidays.

LeapFrog is not open for bookings yet. When we launch, Test Booking Assist will be guidance only: readiness, timing and which centre fits your lessons. It will never include booking, changing or cancelling a test, because the law does not allow that. Our step-by-step guide to booking your own driving test in 2026 walks through the process.

Quick answers

Which Birmingham test centre has the highest pass rate? Birmingham (Shirley), at 56.57% for April 2025 to March 2026 in DVSA's table DRT122A. That is a record of past candidates, not a forecast for you.

Can I book a test at any centre in the city? Yes, you can choose any centre with availability. GOV.UK advises booking the one you intend to use, because your options narrow afterwards.

Can I switch to a quieter centre after booking? Only within limits. You get two changes on a car test. Since 9 June 2026, you can only move to the 3 nearest centres, plus the one you are booked at.

Does a higher pass rate mean an easier test? No. DVSA publishes no measure of route difficulty. A pass rate describes the candidates who turned up at a centre, not the routes they drove.

Getting ready for the centre you pick

The number you can move is not the centre's pass rate. It is your own readiness. Pick the centre whose waiting time fits when you will genuinely be test-ready.

LeapFrog has not launched yet. If you are learning in Birmingham, join the waitlist to hear when we do. If you are an approved driving instructor in the city, register your interest in Birmingham pupil leads.

Sources

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