Nottingham driving test centre
DVSA name: Nottingham (Colwick ) · Private Road No 5, Colwick Industrial Estate, Nottingham, NG4 2JU
Drive the 5 routes around Nottingham before test day →
Key facts
- Nottingham's pass rate was 46.4% in 2025/26 from 15,150 tests, 3.6 points below the national average of 50.0%.
- That puts it 18 of 20 centres in East Midlands (East Midlands average 50.8%), one of the lower pass rates in the region, 4.4 points below it.
- Since 2021/22 the pass rate has fallen by 2.1 points, from 48.5% to 46.4%.
- On waiting times, learners who took a test in August 2026 had waited a median of 8.3 weeks since booking (shorter than the national median of 11.9 weeks); the first week with 10% or more of slots still free was 23.2 weeks ahead.
- A year earlier (August 2025) the median wait was 12.6 weeks, so waits have shortened by about 4.3 weeks.
- 30.1% of the standard slots in the booking window were still unbooked in August 2026, which usually means a cancellation or new date is realistic here.
Colwick's address tells you most of what you need to know. The centre sits on Private Road No 5, inside an industrial estate east of Nottingham, with the River Trent on one side and the railway on the other. The first minute of a test is wide, quiet and slow. The rest of it is not. Routes leave the estate towards Netherfield, Carlton and Gedling, and the driving gets busier and faster the further out you go. Colwick handles more than 15,000 tests a year and draws candidates from the whole eastern half of the city, including learners who could have booked closer in. The pass rate sits near the bottom of the East Midlands table and has been drifting down rather than up.
Drive the Nottingham test routes before test day
5 loops from the centre, 109 km in all, with 46 roundabouts and 140 marked turns. Generated from the road network within 2.5 km of Nottingham; not DVSA’s own routes, but the same roads.
Drive it before test day
Drive all 5 loops around Nottingham from your phone before you ever sit in the car: every roundabout, every junction, in the order you will meet them.
- 5 routes · 109 km · 140 marked turns
- Examiner-style marking on signalling and observation
- Street View tour of each route
- Every roundabout and junction, in the order you'll meet them
- The four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios, included
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- Route 1 · via Daleside Road East24.9 km loop with 12 roundabouts, 11 right turns, 13 left turns and a stretch of Colwick Loop Road.24.9 km · 36 turns · 12 roundabouts
- Route 2 · via Daleside Road East25.1 km loop with 8 roundabouts, 12 right turns, 10 left turns and a stretch of Colwick Loop Road.25.1 km · 30 turns · 8 roundabouts
- Route 3 · via Colwick Loop Road24.3 km loop with 12 roundabouts, 11 right turns, 9 left turns and a stretch of Daleside Road East.24.3 km · 32 turns · 12 roundabouts
- Route 4 · via Colwick Loop Road24.5 km loop with 12 roundabouts, 8 right turns, 11 left turns and a stretch of Daleside Road East.24.5 km · 31 turns · 12 roundabouts
- Route 5 · via Colwick Loop Road10.4 km loop with 2 roundabouts, 4 right turns, 5 left turns and a stretch of Trent Valley Road.10.4 km · 11 turns · 2 roundabouts
The same access also opens the four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios: the two things a route drive cannot teach you.
Colwick is not a slow-speed test. Only about 13 per cent of the tagged roads within two and a half kilometres of the centre are 20 mph, while 27 per cent are 40 and a further handful are faster still. Compare that with the inner-city centres, where most of the driving happens below 30, and you can see where Colwick separates candidates: it asks you to change speed properly and often, and to hold a higher limit without drifting over it.
The other unusual thing about this area is the railway. Ten level crossings sit inside the same radius, a legacy of the freight lines that serve the estate and the river wharves. You may not meet one on the day, but drive over a few beforehand. Edging onto a crossing with nowhere to go is a serious fault, not a driving error.
Beyond the estate, the pattern is large junctions rather than tight streets. There are 61 sets of traffic signals in the area and seven mini-roundabouts, and the roundabouts that ask the most of you are the ones at Netherfield and on the retail park approaches, where lane choice has to be made early. The practice loops on this page keep coming back to Sneinton Dale, Shelford Road and Victoria Park Way for that reason.
Manoeuvres are usually done on the estate, where open car parks make bay parking straightforward, or on the residential streets around Carlton Hill, where parked cars on both sides make a parallel park much harder. Thirty schools sit inside the area, so an afternoon slot brings a school run with it.
Pass rate at Nottingham, 2008/09 to 2025/26
Share of car tests passed each April-to-March year. Dashed line: Great Britain average for 2025/26.
Month by month, 2025/26
By year and gender
| Year | Tests | Pass rate | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 15,150 | 46.4% | 45.8% | 47.3% |
| 2024/25 | 11,849 | 45.5% | 45.3% | 45.8% |
| 2023/24 | 10,453 | 45.3% | 46.0% | 44.4% |
| 2022/23 | 9,323 | 47.7% | 48.5% | 46.6% |
| 2021/22 | 7,957 | 48.5% | 50.7% | 46.2% |
| 2020/21 | 2,513 | 49.1% | 52.2% | 46.0% |
| 2019/20 | 8,584 | 44.6% | 47.0% | 42.4% |
| 2018/19 | 8,923 | 47.3% | 49.8% | 45.0% |
East Midlands average 50.8% · GB 50%
Waiting time for a test at Nottingham
Median weeks between booking and taking the test, for tests taken each month. Dashed line: GB median for August 2026.
| Month | Median wait | Weeks to free slots | Slots offered | Still free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 8.3 | 23.2 | 45 | 30.1% |
| Jul 2026 | 8.3 | 24 | 48 | 31% |
| Jun 2026 | 13.3 | 23.8 | 39 | 35.8% |
| May 2026 | 14.9 | 24 | 37 | 40.2% |
| Apr 2026 | 12 | 24 | 40 | 36.3% |
| Mar 2026 | 10.7 | 24 | 45 | 36% |
Tell me when the wait at Nottingham drops
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Test day at Nottingham
Set the sat nav to NG4 2JU and expect to be looking for a numbered road rather than a street name. Private Road No 5 is one of several inside Colwick Industrial Estate, so give yourself a few minutes to find the right turning the first time. Like most centres built on an estate, this one has its own off-street parking rather than kerbside spaces, which is typical of the type. Instructors will usually know exactly where to wait.
This is a multi-purpose centre. As well as car tests it runs motorcycle module 1 and module 2, so part of the site is given over to a motorcycle manoeuvring area, and you may see riders working through it while you wait. Toilets and level access into the building are reported by local schools, though not published by DVSA.
If you are coming by public transport, Netherfield station is about 800 metres away, a walk of roughly ten minutes. Tests are booked, moved and cancelled only through GOV.UK. Once the examiner has checked your licence and taken the insurance declaration, the drive begins on the estate roads, which is a gentle place to settle before the first junction.
What DVSA publishes about Nottingham
Taken from the GOV.UK test centre finder, checked 3 September 2026. Where DVSA says nothing, this site says nothing.
- Tests conducted here
- carmotorcycle module 1 (off-road)motorcycle module 2 (on-road)
- Wheelchair access
- DVSA states you can access this centre in a wheelchair.
Other tests at Nottingham
This centre is not car only. DVSA publishes results for these categories separately, and they are taken by different candidates on different vehicles, so the rates are not comparable with the car figure above.
Learner reports from Nottingham
No reports yet for this centre. If you tested here, the first one is yours to write.
What examiners mark most often
DVSA does not publish faults by centre, but it does publish them nationally. These collected the most marks across every car test in Great Britain in 2025/26, and they are the same ones you will be marked on at Nottingham.
- 1Junctions - observation
- 2Mirrors - change direction
- 3Junctions - turning right
- 4Response to signs - traffic lights
- 5Control - steering
- 6Move off - safely
Getting there
Private Road No 5, Colwick Industrial EstateNottingham NG4 2JU
Directions in Google Maps · Check centre notes on GOV.UK
Nearby centres
- Nottingham (Chilwell)Beeston · NG9 6DZ · 13 km49.9%-0.1 vs GB7.7 wkswait
- LoughboroughLE11 1JP · 21 km42.3%-7.7 vs GB23 wkswait
- AshfieldSutton-in-Ashfield · NG17 5LA · 22 km57.3%+7.3 vs GB18.2 wkswait
- Melton MowbrayLE13 0UL · 24 km69.7%+19.7 vs GB23.3 wkswait
- Derby (Alvaston)Derby · DE21 7AY · 25 km51.8%+1.8 vs GB7.4 wkswait
- Leicester (Cannock Street)Leicester · LE4 9HT · 33 km40.2%-9.8 vs GB6.4 wkswait
Questions learners ask about Nottingham
- Is Nottingham an easy test centre?
- Its 46.4% pass rate in 2025/26 is below the 50.0% national average. Busy urban roads and complex junctions usually explain lower rates; knowing the local routes closes most of that gap.
- How long is the wait for a driving test at Nottingham?
- In August 2026 the median gap between booking and sitting a test at Nottingham was 8.3 weeks, and you had to look about 23.2 weeks ahead to find a week with at least 10% of slots free. DVSA publishes this monthly; the figure above updates when they do.
- Where is Nottingham driving test centre?
- Nottingham test centre is at Private Road No 5, Colwick Industrial Estate, Nottingham, NG4 2JU. Arrive at least 10 minutes early with your provisional licence; parking rules vary by centre, so check the learner reports below.
- How many driving tests does Nottingham do a year?
- 15,150 car tests were conducted at Nottingham in 2025/26, of which 7,032 were passed.
Source: DVSA tables DRT122A (pass rates by centre and month) and DRT122F (waiting times and availability), Open Government Licence v3.0. PassRank adds the comparisons and rankings.
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