How Much Does It Cost to Learn to Drive?

Learning to drive is a valuable skill, though it often comes with significant costs.

Whether you’re helping a loved one financially through their lessons or financing your own learning, it doesn’t hurt to understand how much it will cost you before you commit to the various expenses that come with learning to drive.

From doing your lessons to booking your tests, there are a few expenditures to consider when going through the cost of getting out on the roads.

Understanding roughly how much this process costs can better prepare you for when this expense is up and running.

Cost of Provisional Driving Licence

The first expenditure of the journey to learning how to drive is your provisional license.

In the UK, the cost of applying for a provisional license online is £34. If you wish to apply via post, it will cost £43.

Even though you’re not able to start lessons until the age of 17, you can apply for a provisional driving license at 15 years and 9 months old.

If you need to replace a lost, damaged or stolen licence, it will cost you £20, but hopefully that won’t be necessary!

So best case scenario and you don’t need a replacement provisional, your first expenditure will set you back £34/£43.

Want to save money on this step? Apply for your provisional online today.

Cost of Driving Lessons

Now for the biggie – your driving lessons.

Driving lessons are the most expensive part of your learner driver journey, with expenses for lessons varying for different people.

The cost of your lessons will vary on how much the instructor you choose will charge per hour and how many hours you take until you’re test-ready.

In the UK, the average price of a driving lesson is £35-£45 per hour.

You can, however, save money through buying lesson times in bulk, as some instructors will offer a packaged set of hours for a discounted price.

According to the DVSA, it takes the average person 45 hours of lessons to pass their test, along with an additional 20 hours of private practice.

However, it’s important to understand that everyone has a different number of hours they need to pass their driving test – some may take fewer than 45 hours of lessons, some might need more.

Since we’re breaking down the cost of learning to drive, let’s take the average of 45 hours of lessons and multiply it by £40 (meeting in the middle of the hourly lesson rate in the UK).

That means on average, driving lessons will cost around £1,800 before sitting your test.

As touched on previously, however, this is just an average and may cost less or more depending on the rate of an instructor and how many hours of lessons you take before sitting your test.

Cost of Theory Test

Before hitting the roads in a practical test capacity, your theory test must be passed.

You can sit this test from your 17th birthday onwards, with the average person taking 2-3 times to pass.

This test will set you back £25 no matter what time or day you book for.

Hopefully that’s all it will set you back, but be prepared to pay more just in case that theory test trips you up one or more times. When you feel you're ready to sit your theory test, conveniently  book the test online.

Cost of Practical Driving Test

Once you’ve passed your theory and feel like the amassed hours of lessons have made you test-ready, it’s time to book your practical driving test.

Excluding your accumulated lessons, the day of your driving test will turn out to be the most expensive part of your journey to a driver’s license.

To start, it is highly recommended to have a lesson right before your driving test. This gives you the chance to warm up and have last minute practice on the roads and manoeuvres you may or may not be struggling with.

Typically, this pre-test lesson will be either one hour or one and a half hours long to give you plenty of time.

With that said, the lesson on the day will cost you whatever the hourly rate is of your instructor.

The test that you will have booked before has different prices depending on what day of the week you book.

If you opt for a weekday, your practical driving test will cost £68. For evenings, weekends, and bank holidays, the test will cost £82.

Therefore based on the average hourly rate of a lesson being in the region of £40, the day of your test can set you back £108 on a weekday or £122 on an evening, weekend, or bank holiday (if your pre-test lesson is an hour long).

Estimated Cost of Learning to Drive

So, we have considered the costs of the following factors:

• Provisional license
• Driving lessons
• Theory test
• Practical driving test

Based on the expenditure of all factors leading to your practical test, the average cost of learning to drive (being test-ready) is approximately £1,967.

The calculation of this cost is based on the average cost of lessons and hours it takes to be test-ready, passing the theory test first time, a 1 hour lesson before the practical test (at the £40 average hourly rate), and booking your test on a standard weekday.

Of course, the price for learning to drive is entirely situational, as some individuals may need more than one attempt at the theory test.

Another factor is that different people are test-ready at different times, requiring varying amounts of preparation and practice before feeling confident enough to pass. This leads to different learner drivers spending different amounts of money on driving lessons.

Now that you know what to expect, start planning today!

Compare instructors, set aside a driving lesson fund, and begin your journey towards the freedom of the open road.