Rochdale driving test centre
DVSA name: Rochdale (Manchester) · Room G10, Globe House Business, Moss Bridge Road, Rochdale, OL16 5EB
Drive the 5 routes around Rochdale before test day →
Key facts
- Rochdale's pass rate was 48.3% in 2025/26 from 11,563 tests, 1.7 points below the national average of 50.0%.
- That puts it 19 of 31 centres in North West (North West average 49.0%), a mid-table pass rates in the region.
- Since 2021/22 the pass rate has risen by 12.5 points, from 35.8% to 48.3%.
- Male candidates passed at 50.1% and female candidates at 45.7%, a gap of 4.4 points.
- On waiting times, learners who took a test in August 2026 had waited a median of 9.1 weeks since booking (shorter than the national median of 11.9 weeks); the first week with 10% or more of slots still free was 24 weeks ahead.
- 23.1% 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.
Rochdale has improved more than almost any centre in the country. Four years ago its pass rate was 35.8 per cent, among the lowest in England. It is now 48.3 per cent, a rise of 12.5 points, and the trend is still upward.
That does not make it an easy centre yet. It still ranks 216 of 302 nationally and sits a little below the national average. But the gap has closed fast, and it closed without the waiting list growing: the median wait was around nine weeks in July 2026, shorter than the national figure and shorter than at Chadderton or Cheetham Hill.
For a centre testing more than 11,000 candidates a year, a short wait and a rising pass rate together are unusual. The test itself is slow, residential driving, because most of the streets around the centre are now 20 mph.
Drive the Rochdale test routes before test day
5 loops from the centre, 44 km in all, with 13 roundabouts and 140 marked turns. Generated from the road network within 2.5 km of Rochdale; not DVSA’s own routes, but the same roads.
Drive it before test day
Drive all 5 loops around Rochdale from your phone before you ever sit in the car: every roundabout, every junction, in the order you will meet them.
- 5 routes · 44 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 Milnrow Road9.8 km loop with 21 right turns, 19 left turns and a stretch of Oldham Road.9.8 km · 40 turns
- Route 2 · via Kingsway10.0 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 11 right turns, 10 left turns and a stretch of Sir Isaac Newton Way.10.0 km · 26 turns · 5 roundabouts
- Route 3 · via Milnrow Road8.7 km loop with 13 right turns, 12 left turns and a stretch of Kingsway.8.7 km · 25 turns
- Route 4 · via Oldham Road8.1 km loop with 4 roundabouts, 13 right turns, 13 left turns and a stretch of Sir Isaac Newton Way.8.1 km · 30 turns · 4 roundabouts
- Route 5 · via Michael Faraday Avenue7.8 km loop with 4 roundabouts, 10 right turns, 5 left turns and a stretch of Chichester Street.7.8 km · 19 turns · 4 roundabouts
The same access also opens the four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios: the two things a route drive cannot teach you.
The road figures for Rochdale describe the area around the centre rather than the loops themselves, and they describe somewhere unusually slow. Of the roads within two and a half kilometres that carry a speed limit, seven in ten are 20 mph and only about a fifth are 30. Rochdale has pushed 20 across most of its residential streets, and a test here spends a great deal of time in them. The fault that produces is drifting into the high twenties on a clear stretch without noticing the limit has not changed.
The same area count finds 17 mini-roundabouts and 48 signal-controlled junctions within that radius. You will not meet all of them on one test, but the mix says what the examiner has to work with: small roundabouts and traffic lights, rather than the wide multi-lane roundabouts of a new town.
The loops themselves are turn-heavy. One runs 9.8 km and packs in 21 right turns and 19 left, a turn every few hundred metres, and the right turns across oncoming traffic are the demand that keeps coming back. Others use Sir Isaac Newton Way through Kingsway Business Park, where the roundabouts on the loops are concentrated and where the one named roundabout, Milnrow Interchange, sits.
Oldham Road, Milnrow Road, Kingsway, Queensway and Moss Bridge Road carry the through-traffic sections. Vavasour Street, Crawford Street and Albert Royds Street are among the quieter streets the loops drop into. There are 31 schools in the area.
Pass rate at Rochdale, 2007/08 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 | 11,563 | 48.3% | 50.1% | 45.7% |
| 2024/25 | 9,790 | 41.2% | 43.7% | 37.9% |
| 2023/24 | 7,583 | 38.1% | 42.2% | 34.0% |
| 2022/23 | 6,860 | 37.3% | 42.6% | 32.5% |
| 2021/22 | 6,453 | 35.8% | 39.3% | 31.9% |
| 2020/21 | 1,728 | 39.8% | 44.3% | 35.3% |
| 2019/20 | 6,969 | 30.8% | 37.0% | 25.6% |
| 2018/19 | 7,183 | 34.2% | 40.7% | 29.0% |
North West average 49% · GB 50%
Waiting time for a test at Rochdale
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 | 9.1 | 24 | 42 | 23.1% |
| Jul 2026 | 9.1 | 24 | 43 | 10.6% |
| Jun 2026 | 9.3 | 23.2 | 44 | 12.6% |
| May 2026 | 8.3 | 21.8 | 46 | 19.2% |
| Apr 2026 | 7.3 | 20.8 | 49 | 17.4% |
| Mar 2026 | 5.1 | 22.8 | 60 | 15.6% |
Tell me when the wait at Rochdale drops
One email when DVSA’s monthly figure falls, or goes under the number of weeks you choose. No newsletter.
Test day at Rochdale
The address has a room number in it, and that tells you most of what you need to know. The centre is Room G10 inside Globe House, a shared business centre on Moss Bridge Road, rather than a standalone DVSA building. You are looking for a door into an office building and then a room within it, so give yourself a few extra minutes the first time.
There is no car park for candidates. Two independent listings agree on that, and both say instructors use the residential streets nearby. Plan for it rather than arriving and circling.
Toilets are listed by several sources. Step-free access is mentioned by only one, so if you need it, ring the centre and ask rather than assuming. No source I could confirm describes the waiting room.
Rochdale station is about a kilometre away and serves both trains and Metrolink trams, so this is a straightforward centre to reach from central Manchester without a car.
Sources list car tests here and do not mention motorcycle or lorry testing. Booking, moving and cancelling a test happens only through GOV.UK. December and August have historically been the strongest months, April the weakest.
What DVSA publishes about Rochdale
Taken from the GOV.UK test centre finder, checked 3 September 2026. Where DVSA says nothing, this site says nothing.
- Tests conducted here
- car
- Wheelchair access
- Not published. Ring DVSA before the day rather than assuming.
Learner reports from Rochdale
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 Rochdale.
- 1Junctions - observation
- 2Mirrors - change direction
- 3Junctions - turning right
- 4Response to signs - traffic lights
- 5Control - steering
- 6Move off - safely
Getting there
Room G10, Globe House Business, Moss Bridge RoadRochdale OL16 5EB
Directions in Google Maps · Check centre notes on GOV.UK
Nearby centres
- ChaddertonOldham · OL9 9XA · 8.8 km46.8%-3.2 vs GB12 wkswait
- Bury (Manchester)Bury · BL9 6HH · 9.8 km46.3%-3.7 vs GB7.6 wkswait
- Cheetham Hill (Manchester)Manchester · M8 0AL · 14 km44.7%-5.3 vs GB10.4 wkswait
- Bolton (Manchester)Bolton · BL3 2AW · 19 km51.8%+1.8 vs GB16.2 wkswait
- Bredbury (Manchester)Stockport · SK6 2QT · 20 km56.0%+6.0 vs GB17.1 wkswait
- HalifaxHX2 0HA · 21 km45.0%-5.0 vs GB11.1 wkswait
Questions learners ask about Rochdale
- Is Rochdale an easy test centre?
- Its 48.3% 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 Rochdale?
- In August 2026 the median gap between booking and sitting a test at Rochdale was 9.1 weeks, and you had to look about 24 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 Rochdale driving test centre?
- Rochdale test centre is at Room G10, Globe House Business, Moss Bridge Road, Rochdale, OL16 5EB. 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 Rochdale do a year?
- 11,563 car tests were conducted at Rochdale in 2025/26, of which 5,584 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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