The 20 highest-paid players in the Premier League revealed

Martin Macdonald

• Updated: 10 Oct 2025 12:01 BST
• 3 min read

Analysis

The Premier League is the money-spinning, money-making and money-spending juggernaut competition in world football, with billions of pounds being spent on transfers and wages each season.

In this past summer alone, the transfer record was smashed twice by the same club as Liverpool bought Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for £116 million only to purchase Alexander Isak for £125m from Newcastle on deadline day.

With transfer fees increasing every year, so do player wages.

According to Salary Leaks, the club with the highest wage bill is Manchester City who in 2025/26 will pay their players £201.5m in basic wages. Arsenal are second at £180m, while the club with the lowest wage bill is Burnley at £40.2m - a fifth of Man City' budget.

Spotrac recently confirmed a list of the highest-paid players in the Premier League for the 2025/26 campaign.

The highest-paid player in England's top-flight is officially Erling Haaland, who makes more than half-a-million pounds per week. £525,000 per week, to be exact.

The Norwegian signed a new nine-year deal with Man City in January of 2025 to tie him to the club until 2034. News of the contract extension came against the context of the club fighting the Premier League over more than 100 charges of alleged financial breaches.

Haaland's previous deal was worth £400,000 per week.

Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk previously had contracts that expired in the summer of 2025 but they both signed extensions with Liverpool and remain in the top five highest-paid players in the league in second and third position respectively on £400,000 per week and £350,000 per week. Casemiro is actually joint-third, however, as he also earns £350,000 per week at Manchester United.

It's no wonder that Chelsea have changed their policy of paying players so much in wages as squad outcast Raheem Sterling is actually the fifth-highest paid player in the league on £325,000 per week. The Blues desperately attempted to get rid of the winger in the summer but no club wanted to match that salary.

He is currently training alone, having been ousted by manager Enzo Maresca.

There are only five clubs represented in the top 20 - Man City, Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Man City are by far the most-represented club in the top 20 with seven players on the list. Haaland, Omar Marmoush, Bernardo Silva, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Ruben Dias, John Stones and Tijani Reijnders all earn at least £230,000 per week.

Arsenal have five players on the list - Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus, William Saliba, Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard.

Saliba is 13th on the list but is actually likely to be higher now as he very recently signed a new deal with the Gunners.

Marcus Rashford is on the list as even though he is on loan at Barcelona, he remains a Man Utd player and they are indeed contributing to some of his wages.