Sheffield Theory Test Centre: 44.04% pass rate
DVSA recorded 45,068 car theory tests here in April 2025 to March 2026 and 19,847 passes. The fee is £23 a sitting everywhere in Great Britain, so at this rate a pass takes £52.23 of test fees.
Of the 45,068 car theory tests sat at Sheffield in the year to March 2026, 19,847 ended in a pass and 25,221 in a fail. 44.04% is 0.80 points below the 44.84% national figure. That is the 114th highest pass rate of the 165 centres with enough tests to compare, and 5th of 11 in the Yorkshire and The Humber. Sheffield is one of the busiest theory test centres in Great Britain, handling about 3,756 sittings in an average month.
Fees are the same £23 nationwide, which makes the pass rate the whole of the cost story. Every theory pass here takes 2.27 sittings on average, so £52.23 of DVSA fees, within pennies of the £51.29 national figure. Put another way, 56.0% of the £1m paid in theory fees at Sheffield last year bought a test that did not end in a pass, or £580k.
DVSA publishes the split by recorded gender. Women passed at 46.53% here against 41.93%, a difference of 4.60 points, where the national gap is 4.20 points. In fee terms the group with the lower rate spends about £5.42 more per pass at this centre.
Month to month the rate moves about. April 2025 was the strongest month here at 45.7%, January 2026 the weakest at 42.2%, and July 2025 the busiest with 4,112 sittings. A swing of 3.5 points across one year is normal in a sample this size and is not a reason to time a booking.
The direction of travel matters more than any single year. Sheffield held roughly level year on year from 2024/25, and across the 19 years DVSA publishes for this centre the rate has moved from 65.20% in 2007/08 to 44.04% now. Applying today's £23 fee to both, the expected cost of a pass has gone from £35.28 to £52.23.
Sheffield sits 10 miles from Chesterfield, its closest neighbour, which recorded 45.27%. Glossop, 20 miles out, is the strongest of the five nearest at 48.75%, a difference worth £5.05 per pass on paper, and still not worth the journey. Travelling changes nothing you can bank: every centre runs the same question bank and the same 43-out-of-50 pass mark, and DVSA charges the same £23 wherever you sit it.
The lever a candidate actually controls is revision, not location. At £23 a sitting, a single failed attempt costs more than the £4.99 official app and the £15 book put together, and the £52.23 of fees a pass takes at Sheffield is 3.6% of the £1,470 minimum cost of learning to drive on this site's North East lesson band, the closest published row to Yorkshire and The Humber. There is also a clock: a theory pass is valid for 2 years, and letting it lapse before the practical means paying the £23 again from scratch.
Across the Yorkshire and The Humber as a whole, DVSA recorded 263,516 car theory tests at 13 centres over the same twelve months, a pass rate of 42.87% and £53.65 of fees per pass. Sheffield is above that regional figure by 1.17 points.
Sheffield at a glance
- Financial year
- 2025/26
- Tests conducted
- 45,068
- Passes
- 19,847
- Pass rate
- 44.04%
- Rank, Great Britainhighest pass rate first
- 114 of 165
- Rank in Yorkshire and The Humber
- 5 of 11
- Male pass rate24,426 tests
- 41.93%
- Female pass rate20,642 tests
- 46.53%
- Gender gapfemale minus male
- +4.60 pts
- Year on yearfrom 2024/25 (44.09%)
- -0.05 pts
- Years published
- 19
- Region
- Yorkshire and The Humber
- County or unitary
- not recorded
- Nearest other centre
- Chesterfield, 10 mi
- SnapshotDVSA table DRT112A
- 2026-09-05
The £23 fee, applied to Sheffield
The theory test fee does not vary by centre, so this table is the same £23 arithmetic everywhere, run against Sheffield's own published pass rate. It describes what theory testing costs the candidates who book here on average. It is not a prediction for one person, and it is not a reason to travel: the question bank and the pass mark are national.
| Measure | Sheffield | Yorkshire and The Humber | Great Britain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass rate | 44.04% | 42.87% | 44.84% |
| Sittings per pass | 2.27 | 2.33 | 2.23 |
| DVSA fees per pass | £52.23 | £53.65 | £51.29 |
| On top of one £23 sitting | £29.23 | £30.65 | £28.29 |
| Against the national average | +£0.94 | +£2.36 | £0.00 |
| Fees paid on tests that failed | £580,083 | £3.5m | £37.1m |
Sittings per pass is tests conducted divided by passes, so it counts everyone who sat at this centre, including repeat attempts. Fees per pass is that figure multiplied by the £23 DVSA fee. The fee is ours, from the fee page; the counts are DVSA's.
One retake buys nothing
A second sitting is another full £23. There is no retake discount. The official DVSA revision app is £4.99, so a retake costs about 5 times as much as the thing that would have prevented it.
Share of the learner bill
At Sheffield's rate the theory fee works out at 3.6% of the £1,470 minimum cost of learning to drive, alongside lessons at about £30 an hour on this site's North East band, the closest published row to Yorkshire and The Humber. See the full budget.
The two-year clock
A theory pass lasts 2 years. Miss that window before the practical and the £23 is due again. Retakes also need 3 clear working days between attempts, so a fail costs time as well as money.
Sheffield month by month, April 2025 to March 2026
Best month April 2025 at 45.7%, weakest January 2026 at 42.2%, busiest July 2025 with 4,112 sittings.
| Month | Tests | Passes | Rate | Fees per pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 25 | 3,585 | 1,637 | 45.7% | £50.37 |
| May 25 | 3,795 | 1,691 | 44.6% | £51.62 |
| Jun 25 | 3,591 | 1,611 | 44.9% | £51.27 |
| Jul 25 | 4,112 | 1,839 | 44.7% | £51.43 |
| Aug 25 | 3,893 | 1,687 | 43.3% | £53.08 |
| Sep 25 | 4,071 | 1,739 | 42.7% | £53.84 |
| Oct 25 | 4,095 | 1,792 | 43.8% | £52.56 |
| Nov 25 | 3,669 | 1,568 | 42.7% | £53.82 |
| Dec 25 | 2,799 | 1,189 | 42.5% | £54.14 |
| Jan 26 | 3,686 | 1,555 | 42.2% | £54.52 |
| Feb 26 | 3,793 | 1,732 | 45.7% | £50.37 |
| Mar 26 | 3,979 | 1,807 | 45.4% | £50.65 |
What the pass rate alone has done to the bill
Today's £23 fee applied to each year's published pass rate at Sheffield. The fee is held constant on purpose, so the only thing moving the right-hand column is how often candidates passed.
| Year | Tests | Passes | Pass rate | Fees per pass at today's £23 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 45,068 | 19,847 | 44.04% | £52.23 |
| 2024/25 | 43,049 | 18,982 | 44.09% | £52.16 |
| 2023/24 | 39,072 | 17,609 | 45.07% | £51.03 |
| 2022/23 | 36,273 | 15,427 | 42.53% | £54.08 |
| 2021/22 | 31,822 | 14,973 | 47.10% | £48.88 |
| 2020/21 | 10,745 | 5,726 | 53.29% | £43.16 |
| 2019/20 | 27,365 | 12,551 | 45.87% | £50.15 |
| 2018/19 | 26,026 | 12,034 | 46.24% | £49.74 |
| 2017/18 | 28,309 | 13,735 | 48.52% | £47.40 |
| 2016/17 | 28,316 | 13,919 | 49.16% | £46.79 |
| 2015/16 | 27,637 | 13,774 | 49.84% | £46.15 |
| 2014/15 | 23,736 | 12,379 | 52.15% | £44.10 |
| 2013/14 | 21,820 | 11,119 | 50.96% | £45.14 |
| 2012/13 | 17,485 | 10,475 | 59.91% | £38.39 |
| 2011/12 | 18,909 | 11,723 | 62.00% | £37.10 |
| 2010/11 | 19,094 | 12,231 | 64.06% | £35.91 |
| 2009/10 | 19,598 | 12,610 | 64.34% | £35.75 |
| 2008/09 | 18,340 | 12,080 | 65.87% | £34.92 |
| 2007/08 | 21,387 | 13,945 | 65.20% | £35.27 |
Theory test centres near Sheffield
The five closest centres by road-distance proxy. DVSA publishes no address for a theory test centre, so distances are measured town centre to town centre and are indicative. They are here for context, not as a shopping list: the fee and the test are identical at all of them.
| Centre | Distance | Tests | Pass rate | Fees per pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chesterfield | 10 mi | 16,248 | 45.27% | £50.81 |
| Worksop | 15 mi | 218 | 44.50% | £51.69 |
| Doncaster | 17 mi | 27,263 | 41.32% | £55.67 |
| Glossop | 20 mi | 279 | 48.75% | £47.18 |
| Huddersfield | 22 mi | 28,154 | 42.75% | £53.80 |
More centres on the the Yorkshire and The Humber page, which covers 13 centres and 263,516 tests, or in the full directory.
Where these figures come from
Test volumes, passes, pass rates and gender splits on this page are published statistics from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, taken from the GOV.UK statistical data set Driving test and theory test data: cars:
- DRT112A, Car theory test pass rates by gender and month: test centres. Updated 2026-07-17, covering April 2007 to March 2026.
- DRT111A, Car theory tests conducted, passed and pass rates by financial quarter and financial year: Great Britain. Updated 2026-09-03, covering April 2007 to June 2026.
Centre-level figures cover the April 2025 to March 2026 financial year, the most recent full year DVSA publishes at centre level. Snapshot taken 2026-09-05. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
DVSA publishes no region or address for theory test centres. Each centre is named after its town, and the town's country, region, county and centre point come from OS Open Names. Source: Ordnance Survey Open Names, via postcodes.io, Open Government Licence v3.0.
Every pound on this page is theorytestcost.com's own arithmetic on the £23 DVSA fee and the cost figures published elsewhere on this site. DVSA publishes no prices and none of the money here comes from DVSA.
theorytestcost.com is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the DVSA, the DVA or GOV.UK. Pass rates are DVSA published statistics reproduced under the Open Government Licence, not our assessment of any centre. Great Britain only: theory tests in Northern Ireland are run separately by the DVA. DVSA cautions that centre figures below about 100 tests a year are not robust for comparison, and withholds a centre's figures entirely where publishing them could identify an individual.