Ruth Cadbury MP has warned that long waits for driving tests are preventing young people from accessing jobs and beginning their careers.
The Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth highlighted new research from the Centre for Social Justice examining the connection between the driving-test backlog and the number of young people not in education, employment or training.
Cadbury, who chairs the House of Commons Transport Committee, said:
“For many people across the country, the ability to drive is essential to work in the trades, social care and many other industries—including political organising.
“Holding a driving licence is a requirement on 17 per cent of job adverts.”
The Centre for Social Justice estimates that learners face waits of up to 21 weeks and warns that delays are particularly damaging for young people seeking employment in sectors where driving is essential.
Its research found that approximately one in six vacancies requires a driving licence. That rises to around one in three jobs in care and more than two-thirds of plumbing roles.
Cadbury said:
“Unacceptably long waits for a driving test mean that many young people are locked out of accessing jobs that, with a driving licence, would be open to them.
“With many school leavers having received their grades in recent weeks, it should not be driving-test availability that holds them back from beginning their career or exploring all their options.”
The report comes amid wider concern about the number of 18 to 24-year-olds who are not working, studying or undertaking training.
It argues that driving-test availability should be treated as an employment and social-mobility issue, rather than simply as an inconvenience for learners.
The Centre for Social Justice has called for regional driving-test hubs where spare testing capacity held by large employers could be made available to further education colleges, apprentices and smaller businesses.
It also recommends allowing colleges to use training budgets to pay for lessons and tests when gaining a licence is directly connected to a job opportunity.
Labour inherited a driving-test system struggling with the consequences of the pandemic, shortages of examiners and a booking process exploited by bots and unofficial brokers.
The government has since introduced measures to increase capacity and make the booking system fairer.
Almost 305,000 additional tests have been delivered since June 2025, while the number of driving examiners has reached its highest level for several years.
Military driving examiners have been deployed to support civilian test centres, new examiners have been recruited and eligible staff have been encouraged to return temporarily to testing duties.
The government has also acted against unofficial booking services that used automated systems to secure appointments before reselling them to learners at inflated prices.
Official figures show that the median waiting time across Great Britain was 11.1 weeks in July. However, this national figure conceals substantial local differences, with some learners and areas still facing much longer delays.
The increased number of tests demonstrates that Labour’s intervention is beginning to expand capacity, but Cadbury’s warning underlines the need to move faster.
A driving licence can open access to apprenticeships, construction, social care, logistics and jobs in rural or poorly connected communities. Long delays therefore risk hitting hardest those young people who already face the greatest barriers to employment.
Reducing waiting times would not only help learners get on the road. It would support Labour’s wider ambition to bring down youth unemployment, tackle economic inactivity and ensure that every young person has the opportunity to build a secure working life.
