The driving test backlog will not be cleared to the government's target of a seven-week wait until autumn next year, the Transport Secretary has admitted – nearly a year later than originally planned. Heidi Alexander told a committee of MPs on Wednesday that while she understood people's frustrations, “demand is still very high” and there remained “a lot of work to do”. The admission comes as Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency figures show the average waiting time for a test last month stood at nearly 22 weeks, more than four times the pre-pandemic average of about five weeks.
Last November, Alexander announced a package of measures aimed at cracking down on bot-operated bookings and the resale of slots at inflated prices. Since then, a series of changes have been introduced: from 12 May, only learner drivers themselves can book a test – no longer allowing instructors or others to do so. And from 9 June, anyone wanting to move their test can only swap to one of the three test centres closest to where the test is currently booked – a rule designed to stop learners booking the soonest available slot anywhere in the country, then relocating it closer to home.
“Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander says driving test wait time target of seven weeks will not be met until autumn 2026.”
The Transport Secretary said it was too early to draw firm conclusions, but pointed to evidence of “less speculative booking” since the latest changes came into force. The volume of test swaps, she told MPs, had dropped by 70%. “My aspiration is to get us back down to a point where when someone is booking a test, they're not having to wait months on end to get one,” she said.
Yet the scale of the challenge remains stark. Before Covid, the typical wait was around five weeks. The DVSA had originally set a target of reducing the average wait to seven weeks by the end of 2025 – a deadline Alexander pushed back to summer 2026 last November, before admitting on Wednesday that even that would not be met. The new target is autumn 2026.
One persistent problem has been the recruitment and retention of driving examiners. Alexander said there had been a net increase of 147 examiners in the 12 months to May, but made no claim that this was enough to close the gap. The BBC has repeatedly heard from learner drivers who have been forced to buy slots from resellers charging many times the official fee. In December, a BBC investigation found some driving instructors were being offered kickbacks of up to £250 a month to sell their login details to touts.
Since the end of March, only two changes can be made to a booked test – for example, the date or centre location – in a further attempt to limit abuse. But for now, those hoping to pass their test face months of waiting.