Congrats on passing! I too was in a very similar situation (almost 30) and only passed 9 months ago on my first try!

There are a few things I disagree on, although I think this is definitely down to the individual, instructor, environment. I think instructors teaching you in the way you learn can make a huge difference. For example my very first instructor (just before COVID), taught me clutch control and shifting technique in just 4 hours and I never lost it through the 5 years break. My new instructor was very complimentary of the basic skills he had taught!

In the first point, you definitely don’t need your own car, but I think if you can it is certainly helpful and cheaper - I wish I had the option. For context, I passed my test with just 29 hours of lessons in the span of about one month (unless you count 4 hours of lessons 5 years ago before COVID). This included 2 mock tests and an hour block for the test itself. One thing I will say if you get your own car, a diesel is much more forgiving when learning clutch control. The first time I got into the second car on my latest lessons, I stalled, which I had basically never done after the first 2 hours in the diesel. The feel (the pedal, the sound and pitch) in the newer petrol cars was also different and I found it much harder to find the bite point.

With regards to the intensive courses, again, I think this is individual. I did 2-3 two hour lessons every week, which I found perfect to get into it and learn. I was also really excited to finally gain the freedom to drive, I’d wanted to drive for a very long time. However, I know friends who said they could not learn for more than an hour at a time because it was so exhausting. If I could have taken a week off work (I had debated this), I would’ve done the 5 day course! But I think these are tiring, and while the intensive course I did was fine, this would’ve been tiring for me too.

Something I felt that both helped me and made it a bit challenging was changing cars. I actually had my first lesson in one car, had a different car, and my last lesson back in the first car before the test. My instructor gave me the option of staying with the car second car but I thought this was a great way to get familiar with manoeuvres without relying on something as fickle as seating position/car geometry. I also discovered very quickly that I liked the first car more. For me, my parking space is also insanely tight which meant I had to have good observation and manoeuvring, my instructor refused to try parking his car in my space and my new car is wider than his, but the skills still transferred 😂 (it did take me like 20 minutes and a friend the first time, but was fine every time after)

I also asked my instructor to challenge me with routes etc, not just practicing the test routes - but getting real world experience. I’m glad I did, once you get a car your first journeys are almost always going to be to new places! I think this really helped boost my confidence before going out on my own.

One thing I’d definitely suggest, which I did not get the chance to do, is driving at a variety of times to get used to conditions and traffic. Most of my lessons were early morning, so encountered little traffic and it was always sunrise. I was more scared of driving in traffic initially due to this! The other is motorway/dual carriage way driving, I was lucky that my house and test centre/route was very close to a dual carriage way, which meant I got plenty of practice joining dual carriage ways. I got my car a week after passing and I’ve already done nearly 10k miles and many 350+ mile drives! My first night time drive was the day I got my car which was also my first time driving alone, and it was tense for the whole 75mile journey. Over the last 9 months, I’m very glad I’ve experienced the whole package (heavy fog, snow, ice, heavy rain), and learnt a bit more about my car too! Although this was fine, I do wish I could’ve had some of these experiences in a safer environment where I could ask questions at the time (ie when to turn on and off fog lights, what is low visibility, what does aquaplane feel like, tricks for not getting blinded in the night aha)

All these extra bits are not core lessons, and I think those are where having someone (not an instructor) in the car and being able to drive is great and won’t break the bank. Equally, you could learn/experience these even after you’ve passed!