Skipton driving test centre
Foundry House, Carleton Road, Skipton, BD23 2BE
Drive the 5 routes around Skipton before test day →
Key facts
- Skipton's pass rate was 57.3% in 2025/26 from 3,197 tests, 7.3 points above the national average of 50.0%.
- That puts it 5 of 27 centres in Yorkshire and The Humber (Yorkshire and The Humber average 50.4%), one of the higher pass rates in the region, 6.9 points above it.
- Since 2021/22 the pass rate has risen by 2.6 points, from 54.7% to 57.3%.
- Male candidates passed at 60.2% and female candidates at 54%, a gap of 6.2 points, wider than at most centres.
- On waiting times, learners who took a test in August 2026 had waited a median of 11 weeks since booking; the first week with 10% or more of slots still free was 23.8 weeks ahead.
- A year earlier (August 2025) the median wait was 19.2 weeks, so waits have shortened by about 8.2 weeks.
Skipton is a market town test with a dual carriageway attached. Around two thirds of the roads within two and a half kilometres of the centre are 30 mph town streets, but a quarter are at the national limit, and the A629 bypass runs along the edge of everything. A single loop can take you from a queue on Keighley Road to a dual carriageway slip road and back into a 20 zone outside a school inside a quarter of an hour. The centre is at Foundry House on Carleton Road, a short walk from the station. It is one of the busier centres in the Dales, with more than three thousand tests a year, and the wait has come down sharply over the last twelve months.
Drive the Skipton test routes before test day
5 loops from the centre, 57 km in all, with 23 roundabouts and 97 marked turns. Generated from the road network within 2.5 km of Skipton; not DVSA’s own routes, but the same roads.
Drive it before test day
Drive all 5 loops around Skipton from your phone before you ever sit in the car: every roundabout, every junction, in the order you will meet them.
- 5 routes · 57 km · 97 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 Rotary Way11.9 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 8 right turns, 13 left turns and a stretch of Carleton Road.11.9 km · 26 turns · 5 roundabouts
- Route 2 · via Rotary Way11.1 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 10 right turns, 5 left turns and a stretch of Keighley Road.11.1 km · 20 turns · 5 roundabouts
- Route 3 · via Heslaker Lane11.5 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 5 right turns, 4 left turns and a stretch of Skipton Bypass.11.5 km · 14 turns · 5 roundabouts
- Route 4 · via Rotary Way12.7 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 7 right turns, 8 left turns and a stretch of Skipton Bypass.12.7 km · 20 turns · 5 roundabouts
- Route 5 · via Rotary Way9.6 km loop with 3 roundabouts, 8 right turns, 6 left turns and a stretch of Keighley Road.9.6 km · 17 turns · 3 roundabouts
The same access also opens the four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios: the two things a route drive cannot teach you.
Skipton gives you two tests in one. The town half is 30 mph and dense: Keighley Road, Gargrave Road, Newmarket Street, Brook Street and Belmont Street carry the traffic through a centre that was not built for it, and ten sets of signals plus seven mini-roundabouts sit inside two and a half kilometres. Gargrave Road and Keighley Road also carry the conventional roundabouts, so the same two roads give you both kinds of junction within a few minutes of each other.
The other half is fast. A quarter of the tagged roads nearby are at the national limit, and the practice loops on this page use the Skipton Bypass, which is dual carriageway. That brings the things a town test never asks for: building speed on a slip road, choosing a lane early, holding position while traffic joins from the left, and coming back off at a roundabout without arriving too quickly. Candidates who have only practised in the town centre usually find this the harder half.
Four level crossings sit within the same radius, so a barrier stop is a real possibility rather than a theoretical one. Twelve schools sit there too, which is where the 20 mph stretches come from; those are small in share but they arrive suddenly, and the drop from 30 has to happen before the sign.
The quieter roads for manoeuvres are the residential ones off Carleton Road and Cawder Lane, Cawder Road and Greatwood Avenue, with Eller Lane and Skipton Old Road giving the loops their narrow, climbing sections.
Pass rate at Skipton, 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 | 3,197 | 57.3% | 60.2% | 54.0% |
| 2024/25 | 2,812 | 54.4% | 56.9% | 51.4% |
| 2023/24 | 3,120 | 53.7% | 56.5% | 50.8% |
| 2022/23 | 2,700 | 53.0% | 56.0% | 49.9% |
| 2021/22 | 3,059 | 54.7% | 58.0% | 50.9% |
| 2020/21 | 1,021 | 57.1% | 60.6% | 54.0% |
| 2019/20 | 2,494 | 51.3% | 56.8% | 46.2% |
| 2018/19 | 2,599 | 49.7% | 52.3% | 47.3% |
Yorkshire and The Humber average 50.4% · GB 50%
Waiting time for a test at Skipton
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 | 11 | 23.8 | 40 | 37.8% |
| Jul 2026 | 11 | 23.3 | 44 | 29.7% |
| Jun 2026 | 9 | 24 | 46 | 23.2% |
| May 2026 | 7.1 | 23 | 50 | 23% |
| Apr 2026 | 6.1 | 23.5 | 53 | 17.8% |
| Mar 2026 | 6.4 | 23.8 | 51 | 25.3% |
Tell me when the wait at Skipton drops
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Test day at Skipton
The centre occupies Foundry House on Carleton Road, on the south-eastern side of town. Skipton station is about half a kilometre away, so walking in from the train is easy, and that is worth knowing because candidate parking is not published for this centre. Foundry House is an office building with other tenants; the sensible plan is to be dropped at the door, or to park on a nearby street and walk the last few minutes rather than circling.
DVSA publishes two useful things about this centre. It provides car tests and ADI part 3 tests, and it can be accessed if you use a wheelchair. If you need anything beyond step-free access, ring the booking line rather than turning up hoping.
The morning follows the standard pattern: licence check, insurance declaration, then the eyesight check outside on a parked number plate before you get into the car. Most drives begin on Carleton Road by joining traffic heading towards town or out towards Rotary Way, so the opening minute involves a move-off into a real stream of traffic rather than a quiet start. With twelve schools inside the same radius, a mid-afternoon slot can also mean the first junctions are busy with pedestrians.
What DVSA publishes about Skipton
Taken from the GOV.UK test centre finder, checked 3 September 2026. Where DVSA says nothing, this site says nothing.
- Tests conducted here
- carADI part 3
- Wheelchair access
- DVSA states you can access this centre in a wheelchair.
Learner reports from Skipton
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 Skipton.
- 1Junctions - observation
- 2Mirrors - change direction
- 3Junctions - turning right
- 4Response to signs - traffic lights
- 5Control - steering
- 6Move off - safely
Getting there
Foundry House, Carleton RoadSkipton BD23 2BE
Directions in Google Maps · Check centre notes on GOV.UK
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Questions learners ask about Skipton
- Is Skipton an easy test centre?
- By the numbers, yes: 57.3% of car tests were passed there in 2025/26, against 50.0% nationally. Pass rates reflect the local roads and who takes tests there as much as the examiners, so treat it as a guide, not a guarantee.
- How long is the wait for a driving test at Skipton?
- In August 2026 the median gap between booking and sitting a test at Skipton was 11 weeks, and you had to look about 23.8 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 Skipton driving test centre?
- Skipton test centre is at Foundry House, Carleton Road, Skipton, BD23 2BE. 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 Skipton do a year?
- 3,197 car tests were conducted at Skipton in 2025/26, of which 1,831 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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