Upgrading is one practical test. You keep your automatic entitlement throughout, take lessons in a manual car under learner rules, book a manual test by phone with the DVSA, and pass it. There is no second theory test, and failing costs you nothing but the fee. The real question is whether you need to do it at all.
Upgrading from an automatic licence to a manual one is a single practical test. There is no separate application, no course you have to complete and no second theory test. Pass a driving test in a manual car and code 78 comes off your licence.
The process is set out by the DVSA on its page for upgrading an automatic car driving licence to a manual, and everything below is built on that. What that page does not cover, and what most of this guide is about, is whether the upgrade is worth doing.
What You Keep
Start here, because the fear that stops people is usually misplaced. Your automatic entitlement is not suspended, conditional or at risk at any point. You hold a full licence for automatic cars the whole way through, including on the day of the manual test, and the DVSA confirms that you can continue driving an automatic car if you fail your driving test in a manual car.
So the downside of attempting the upgrade and failing is the test fee and the lessons. It is not a gamble with the licence you already have.
The Process, In Order
- Find an instructor with a manual car. Any DVSA-approved instructor teaching manual will do.
- Take lessons under learner rules in the manual car, with L plates displayed.
- Book a practical driving test in a manual. This has to be done by phone with the DVSA rather than online.
- Sit the test in a manual car that meets the DVSA rules for test vehicles.
- Pass, and your new licence arrives without code 78. Fail, and nothing changes.
The booking step is the one that trips people up. Manual upgrade tests are not bookable through the ordinary online service, so if you go to the usual booking page and find it will not let you proceed, that is why rather than a fault at your end.
No Second Theory Test
This is the single most common misconception about upgrading, and the answer is clean. The DVSA states plainly that you do not need to take a theory test to upgrade your licence. Your existing full licence is the evidence that you have already met that standard, and no two-year expiry applies to a certificate you no longer need.
It is also the reason upgrading is far less work than learning from scratch. The theory revision, the hazard perception clips and the £23 fee are all behind you permanently.
What It Costs
Two components: the test fee, which is fixed and published, and the lessons, which are not.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Practical test, weekday | £62 |
| Practical test, evening, weekend or bank holiday | £75 |
| Theory test | Not required |
DVSA fees, gov.uk. Correct at 1 September 2026.
Lessons are the variable, and it would be dishonest to put a number on how many you will need. Some people who already drive daily need a handful of hours to get the left foot working and find the rest familiar.
Others find the clutch genuinely awkward and need considerably more. Any instructor quoting a fixed number before watching you drive is guessing. How the test fees stack up is covered in driving test fees explained.
What The Test Itself Involves
A full practical test, not a shortened one. Same eyesight check, same "tell me" and "show me" questions, same reversing manoeuvre, same 20 to 35 minutes of independent driving, and the same standard of no more than 15 driving faults and no serious or dangerous fault.
The DVSA's own wording is that the driving test works in the same way for a manual car as it does an automatic. Nobody makes allowances for the fact that you already hold a licence, and it is worth being ready for that.
Experienced drivers sitting a manual test often collect faults on things they stopped thinking about years ago: mirror checks before signalling, exact observation at junctions, speed in a 20mph zone. The clutch is rarely what fails them.
How Long It Takes, And When To Book
Two clocks run here at different speeds. The first is how long the clutch takes to become second nature, which is a matter of lessons and varies enormously between people. The second is the wait for a test slot, which is entirely out of your hands.
Waiting lists for practical tests in London are long and they move, so there is no useful number to put on this page. Check the current position on gov.uk when you book.
What follows is a sensible order of operations: get the date first and take lessons while you wait, rather than reaching manual standard and then discovering the queue. What you should not do is let an available slot decide when you sit the test. A cancellation next Tuesday is not evidence that your left foot is ready.
What You Are Actually Learning
If you already drive, it helps to know precisely what the manual adds, because the list is shorter than the size of the task suggests. Everything you know about roads, junctions, mirrors and hazards carries across untouched. What is new is one coordination job and one planning job.
The coordination job is the biting point. Your left foot has to find, hold and release a position it cannot see, while your right foot feeds in power and your hands keep the car straight. It feels impossible for about two hours and then it does not.
Moving away on the flat comes first, then on a slope with the parking brake, then on a slope in traffic with somebody sitting close behind you, which is where most people find out whether they have really learned it.
The planning job is gear choice, and this is the part experienced automatic drivers underestimate. In an automatic you arrive at a junction and decide whether to go.
In a manual you have to have decided a step earlier, because the gear must be in place before you need the power. Pulling out of a side street onto Mare Street with a bus closing means being in second before the gap appears rather than while it is closing.
The climb up Kings Head Hill means holding a lower gear for longer than feels natural instead of letting the engine labour. Crawling along the A118 in stopped traffic means a genuinely tiring loop of first, second, clutch, brake and repeat, which is the part of manual driving nobody misses.
None of it is difficult in isolation. What makes it feel hard is doing it while also driving, which is why an hour on quiet streets first is time well spent even for somebody who has held a licence for a decade.
Where Experienced Drivers Lose This Test
The clutch is rarely what fails an upgrade candidate. Habits are.
You have been driving unsupervised for years, and in that time your driving has quietly drifted away from the test standard in ways you cannot see from the inside. The DVSA's top ten reasons for failing the driving test reads almost like an inventory of the habits experience erodes: observation at junctions, mirrors before changing direction, positioning on a right turn, response to traffic lights, and speed.
- Mirror checks that happen after the decision rather than before it, or not at all on a road you know well
- Rolling junctions, where you have looked but not really stopped, or stopped but not looked twice
- Right turn positioning that works fine at home and is wrong on the marking sheet
- Speed in a 20mph zone, which now covers a great deal of Hackney and Tower Hamlets and catches drivers who learned when it did not
- Steering technique and hand position, which examiners mark for control rather than style
The eyesight check catches people too, and it deserves more respect than it usually gets. The standard is reading a number plate from 20 metres, about the length of five parked cars, wearing whatever glasses or lenses you normally drive in.
Fail it and gov.uk is blunt about what follows: the test ends there and your licence will be revoked. For an upgrade candidate that means losing the automatic entitlement you already hold, which is the one genuine risk in this whole process and the reason to get your eyes checked before you book rather than after.
So budget a couple of lessons for the standard rather than the clutch, and ask the instructor to mark you as an examiner would. It is cheaper to hear about the drift from an instructor than from an examiner at £62 a go. What gets marked is set out in what the examiner marks on a driving test.
Who Should Actually Do This
Upgrading makes clear sense in a small number of situations, and it is worth checking whether you are in one before you spend the money.
- You want driving work, or a job where you might be handed any van in the fleet
- You hire cars abroad regularly and are tired of the automatic surcharge
- A manual car has appeared in your household and you want to be able to drive it
- You are shopping at the cheap end of the used market where manuals dominate
- You want to tow, or drive something specialised that only comes as a manual
Who Should Not Bother
Most people, honestly. If you drive an automatic, expect to keep driving automatics, and cannot name a specific occasion in the last two years when the restriction cost you something, upgrading is buying an option you will not exercise.
Two reasons in particular are worth resisting. The first is the feeling that an automatic licence is somehow a lesser qualification. It is not: it is a full category B licence with one restriction, and nobody except an insurer or a fleet manager will ever look at the code.
The second is the idea that you should upgrade in case things change. New car sales are legislated towards zero emission by 2035, and every zero emission car is an automatic, so the drift is going the other way. That argument is set out in your automatic licence and electric cars.
If you are earlier in the process and have not yet chosen which licence to earn first, read automatic or manual licence: how to choose before you spend anything, because choosing well the first time is cheaper than upgrading later.
One Thing We Cannot Help With
Wharf Driving School teaches in automatic cars only. Manual tuition was discontinued, which means we are not the right school for this particular job and would be doing you no favours by pretending otherwise. If you need a manual upgrade, look for a local instructor with a manual dual-control car and a good record with licence upgrades rather than beginner courses.
What we can help with is the decision, and the automatic hours either side of it. If you are unsure whether the upgrade is worth it in your situation, get in touch and ask. If you are still at the beginning of everything, the whole sequence is in learning to drive in East London.
This school teaches in automatic cars only, so a manual upgrade is not something we can take you through. We would rather say so than take the booking.
Book a lessonQuestions about upgrading
Do I have to retake my theory test to upgrade to manual?
No. The DVSA states that you do not need to take a theory test to upgrade your licence. Only the practical test in a manual car is required.
Can I book the manual upgrade test online?
No. It has to be booked by phone with the DVSA. The ordinary online booking service does not handle upgrade tests, which is why it appears not to work when you try.
What happens if I fail the manual test?
Nothing changes. You keep your automatic entitlement and can carry on driving automatic cars exactly as before. You lose the test fee and can book again.
Do I need L plates while learning in a manual?
Yes. The DVSA is explicit that you must follow all the usual rules when learning to drive in a manual car, including displaying L plates.
How many manual lessons will I need?
There is no honest fixed answer, and anyone quoting one before watching you drive is guessing. Confident daily drivers often need a small number of hours to get the clutch working; others need considerably more.
Can Wharf teach me in a manual?
No. This school teaches in automatic cars only and manual tuition was discontinued, so a manual upgrade needs a different instructor.
If you are weighing up whether to upgrade at all, or you want automatic hours before you decide, get in touch and we will give you a straight answer either way.
Book a lessonMore in Automatic driving
Published 1 September 2026. Prices and DVSA figures are checked when this page is revised. If anything here has changed, ring us and we will confirm it.