League 2 may be the fourth tier of English football, but the players in that league still earn a decent wage. But as the league does not get as much coverage as top leagues, people often aren’t sure how much these players are paid.
What is the average wage in League 2? The average League 2 player earns around £130,000 per year. The top earners in the league will earn closer to £170,000 with newer players having an average wage of closer to £80,000. Still a pretty great income playing the game you love.
Specific figures of the salaries of players currently playing in League 2 are not publicly available. It is estimated that the average salary of players in League 2 is currently around £130,000 per week. This is because the average League 2 player earns around £2,500 per week, up significantly since the estimated £1,800 in 2018.
There are certainly some players who will bump this average up. Quite often, loanees are the highest-paid players in lower leagues. Players who League 2 clubs have brought in from Premier League or Championship clubs will be on a much higher wage because the League 2 club will usually not cover all of their wages. This helps to bump the average wage up massively.
What may bring the average wage down is that League 2 will often give more opportunities to younger players. These players will not earn as much because they don’t have the same experience or quality. The average wage as a whole has increased over the last few years.
Per month, League 2 players will earn around £10,000 per month. This means that all of the players in League 2 will be professional because they are earning a full-time wage. It is believed that around 20 players currently in League Two earn more than £200,000 per year, with this figure likely to continue to rise.
What also tends to make the average salary rise is when big spending teams are relegated. They will quite often have much bigger budgets than teams already in League 2 and so they will bring the average salary up quite a lot. This also happens in League 1 and in the Championship.
Are League 2 footballers professional?
League Two may be the fourth tier of English football, but it still plays to an incredibly high standard. The amount of support and revenue that football generates in the UK means there are quite a lot of professional football teams.
League 2 footballers are considered professionals. This is because they earn a full-time wage and do not need to take another job. They are full-time footballers so they will train almost every day and focus purely on football.
Footballers playing in League 2 may not earn quite as much as the players in the Premier League but they are certainly still professional. The average wage in League 2 is around £130,000 per year or £2,500 per week. This is far beyond what these players need to be full-time and so League 2 footballers are professional.
Highest-paid player in League Two
The highest-paid player who is currently contracted to a League Two side is Dom Telford who is a striker for Crawley Town. Telford is rumoured to earn around £4,400 per week which makes him the highest-paid player who is contracted to a League Two team.
Telford came up through the academy ranks at Blackpool but left for Stoke City a year after making his first-team debut. He never played for Stoke, finding himself with Bury and Plymouth Argyle. His breakout season came in the 2021-22 season after he had secured a move to Newport County.
Telford finished that season as League 2s top goal scorer with 25 league goals and he was named in the EFL League Two team of the season. That incredible performance meant Telford had some lucrative offers from League 2 sides and so he decided against staying with Newport.
He instead chose to move to Crawley Town, partly because of the lucrative wage that the team were offering him. He is still with Crawley Town today. This season there have been other players playing in League Two to earn more than Telford.
Matty Longstaff was the highest-paid player in League Two in the first few months of the 2022-23 season. The Newcastle United midfielder signed for Colchester United on loan in September. It was reported that at the time, Longstaff had an average wage of £24,000 per week.
Colchester won’t have been covering all of that wage because it would be way too much for a League Two side to cover. Instead, they would have likely covered part of the salary, with Newcastle United covering the rest. He left Colchester in January to return to Newcastle after picking up a serious knee injury.
So this season Matty Longstaff was the highest-paid League Two player, but he left Colchester in January and he was always contracted to Newcastle United while he was with Colchester.
What is the average wage in League One?
There is certainly a drop down in wage when you go from the top tiers of English football down to the third tier of English football. But these players still earn a large wage compared to the normal person.
It is estimated that League One footballers earn around £7,000 per week, which is around £360,000. This value can go down to around £3,000 per week which tends to be the salary for players who are with worse teams or players who are newer to the league. Players with more experience in the league will often get a bigger salary.
This average is heavily influenced by bigger teams that are relegated down to League One. Sunderland are a great example of that. They have a much bigger budget and so were able to spend a lot more money. This will have brought the average salary up quite considerably because they will not have planned to be playing in League One.
While the general trend is that wages are going up in League One, the number of teams that enter the league and leave the league means the wages change from year to year.