Ranking every Premier League club by their wage bill in 2024-25

Premier League champions Manchester City comfortably spend more on wages than any other club in England – according to industry estimates – while table-toppers Liverpool are only fifth in the Premier League wage bill table for 2024-25.

We’re over a quarter of the way through the Premier League season, and wage bills are as decent marker as any as to where any given club ‘should’ be in the table – but which are getting bang for their buck and which are underperforming?

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City juggernaut are faltering in their bid for a fifth successive Premier League title, but they do remain second in the table; their lofty ambitions match their outgoings on players. They’re the only club in the Premier League to break the £200million barrier when it comes to their annual wage bill.

Their city rivals Manchester United topped this list last season.

The structure at Old Trafford has changed amid their new ownership, while offloading the likes of Donny van de Beek, Raphael Varane and Anthony Martial in the summer has seen them fall down one place in the wage bill table, spending about £16million less a year than their city rivals.

Chelsea are up in fourth, which ought to be no great surprise given the sheer size of Enzo Maresca’s squad, while Arsenal are in third – but paying considerably more in player wages than their ‘big six’ rivals Liverpool and Tottenham.

Alongside the Premier League’s traditional ‘big six’, Aston Villa and Newcastle United are the only other clubs to break the £100million barrier on annual wage spend – which makes sense given that they’ve qualified for the Champions League in 2023-24 and 2022-23 respectively.

Still, when you look at these numbers it can only be considered punching above their weight for them to both to be once again challenging for a place in the Premier League’s top four.

Elsewhere, Everton have made big strides in recent years to try and streamline their squad and cut their wage bill, but Sean Dyche’s squad still take more home in wages than the likes of Bournemouth, Brighton, Fulham and Wolves – all of whom finished above them last term.

At the bottom end of the table, newly-promoted Ipswich Town unsurprisingly sit at the bottom of the wages table, spending £8million a year less than any other club. But the fact that Brentford are comfortably midtable once again while spending the second-least on wages is yet another reminder of what a brilliant job Thomas Frank is doing.

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We’re obliged to note that that these are only industry estimates and are unlikely to be 100% accurate, although the numbers and placings in the table ought to give us a broadly correct picture.

We’ll be keeping this table updated throughout the 2024-25 campaign, so keep checking back for the latest figures.

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Here’s the full rundown of how much each Premier League club pays in wages for the upcoming 2024-25 season, with estimates via Capology.

1. Manchester City – £201,864,000
2. Manchester United – £185,580,000
3. Arsenal – £172,146,000
4. Chelsea – £171,210,000
5. Liverpool – £128,804,000
6. Tottenham – £104,806,000
7. Aston Villa – £104,676,000
8. Newcastle United – £103,272,000
9. West Ham United – £90,220,000
10. Crystal Palace – £69,810,000
11. Everton – £69,342,000
12. Fulham – £68,406,000
13. Leicester City – £65,416,000
14. Nottingham Forest – £63,492,000
15. Brighton – £60,658,000
16. Southampton – £56,030,000
17. Bournemouth – £54,704,000
18. Wolves – £53,222,000
19. Brentford – £41,470,000
20. Ipswich Town – £33,176,000