UK Firefighter Written Tests: The NFA Paper or a Vendor's Online Test?
Most UK fire services now sift wholetime recruits online with Test Partnership, Talogy, SHL or Arctic Shores. Who still sits the NFA tests, and how to tell.
Search for UK firefighter test practice and most of what comes back describes the national firefighter selection tests as if every service used them. That was true when the government published them in the 2000s. It is not now. Of the fire and rescue services whose careers pages we read in October 2026, most sift wholetime applicants with a vendor's online tests, and the old paper tests survive mainly for on-call recruits and in Wales. Working out which one you face is the first piece of preparation.
The national tests, and what happened to them
The National Firefighter Selection process was funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and published by Communities and Local Government in the mid-2000s. Its written part was three paper ability tests, the National Firefighter Ability tests: Working with Numbers (32 questions in 45 minutes), Understanding Information (25 in 30) and Situational Awareness and Problem Solving (30 in 35), with a behavioural questionnaire beside them.
The last official documents are the December 2009 technical manuals, still on gov.uk and never updated. The practice booklets services host today are the 2005 and 2008 originals. Meanwhile the market moved online: by 2015 the three Welsh services were running a joint online sift with PSI, now Talogy, and Test Partnership built fire-service-specific tests that services adopted through the 2020s.
Who still sits candidates on the paper tests
These services' own pages describe the NFA tests, or a version of them, sat in person:
- North Yorkshire: on-call recruits, at the local station, unless exempt through maths and English qualifications.
- Northumberland: on-call recruits, with the national practice booklet linked.
- Warwickshire: on-call recruits, Working with Numbers and Understanding Information only.
- North Wales: wholetime and on-call, under the name Working with Information Tests, at fire service premises.
- Mid and West Wales: on-call recruits, a 45-minute written paper "in accordance with the National Firefighter and Selection Tests".
- South Wales: wholetime and on-call, on its 2023 information books.
- Northamptonshire: its 2025 wholetime recruitment day included a written assessment on working with numbers, understanding written information and awareness of situations, plus equality, diversity and inclusion.
On-call recruitment is local and runs most of the year, which is why that is where the paper tests hang on. Some services cut them down: two of the three tests, or one shorter combined paper.
Who uses a vendor instead
Test Partnership is the most common, at least sixteen services in our survey, including Cheshire, Cambridgeshire, County Durham and Darlington, Leicestershire, West Midlands, Shropshire, Tyne and Wear and Northern Ireland. Its candidate guide sets out the FRS Ability Tests: a numerical test of 18 questions as six pages of three and a verbal test of 20 as five pages of four, each page on a three-minute clock that moves on by itself, both answered True, False or Cannot Say, with a calculator allowed for the numbers; and a mechanical test of 20 questions at 50 seconds each. Anything left unanswered counts as wrong. Its Assessment for Firefighter is an untimed questionnaire on a seven-point scale, ten statements a page, with no going back.
Talogy, formerly PSI, supplies the FRS Behavioural Styles Questionnaire, an untimed questionnaire of about 20 to 25 minutes on a seven-point scale in blocks of four statements, and a situational judgement test. Cambridgeshire's invitations come through Talogy's Apollo platform, Avon names Talogy products and Greater Manchester a Talogy personality test.
SHL is used at Cleveland, which names its UK Firefighter Talent Screener, at South Yorkshire for 2026 wholetime recruitment and at Surrey. Jersey's on-call "National Firefighter ability tests" turn out to be SHL's Verify Calculation and Verify Verbal Reasoning. Arctic Shores runs game-based assessment at Hampshire and Isle of Wight and at West Yorkshire's first stage.
London Fire Brigade runs its own process, with English and mechanical comprehension tests. In Scotland there is no written psychometric test: the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service screens application answers on an AI-enabled platform and then runs practical selection tests.
How to tell which one you are sitting
- Where you sit it. The NFA tests are paper, at fire service premises, with an administrator reading the instructions aloud. A test you take online at home is almost always a vendor's.
- Who the email is from. Test Partnership invitations come from no-reply@testpartnership.com, and Talogy's Apollo platform sends from noreply-apl@talogytech.com.
- Not what the careers page calls it. The old name has stuck to new products: Oxfordshire's "National firefighter online psychometric tests" run through Test Partnership and Apollo, and Jersey's national tests are SHL's.
- Which booklet is linked. A service that links the national practice booklet, a 2008 Communities and Local Government document, is a strong hint that it sits the paper tests, though some services still host the booklet after moving on.
Pass marks: what is and is not published
No pass mark has ever been published for the NFA tests. What the technical manual does publish is a table for each test that converts a raw score into a T-score against a 2005 sample of firefighter applicants, and the national booklet says each test "is assessed separately, but will be looked at together to form an overall measure of your suitability". The average applicant in that sample got about 74% of Working with Numbers right and about 67% of the other two. Figures such as 60 to 70% on prep sites have no official source.
Services using vendor tests do not publish their cut-offs either, though some say a stage must be passed: Cheshire, for one, makes its Assessment for Firefighter a stage you have to clear.
Practising the right one
If your service sits the paper tests, our NFA practice tests run each one at full length on its real clock, and all three in one session, with each result shown as a T-score on the official 2005 table. If your invitation came from a vendor, start with our Test Partnership, Talogy, SHL or Arctic Shores practice. Our Test Partnership practice covers its general ability tests rather than these fire service versions, so read its FRS candidate guide as well.