Mapping the Birthplaces of Premier League Footballers: UK's Top-Producing Towns and Cities

Premier League clubs urged to shop local to save their nearest footballing highstreet.

The English footballing pyramid is one of the most historic organisations in the world. Awash with billions of pounds of money and irresistibly magnetic to the prodigiously talented world over.

Many dream of becoming an elite footballer, playing a game they love and earning staggering sums of money in the process.

There is no doubt that luck plays a major role in youngsters making it as professional footballers. Only 180 of the 1.5 million boys and girls playing organised youth football at any one time, will make it as a Premier League professional. Stark is the commonly accepted 0.012% success rate, more break than make!

And while developing more and better home-grown players is supposedly at the heart of everything that the Premier League, and its 20 top-flight clubs, do, the requirement of at least eight homegrown players out of a squad of 25 could easily be perceived as box ticking.

“He’s one of our own”: is the chant that has come to define football through most of the last decade, but is its pertinence warranted? 

Past all of the romanticism and rich history of four professional divisions comprising 92 clubs, the structure also has a genuine purpose and clear direction. And given the riches now present in the Premier League, player development often takes place in the Championship, League One or League Two.

Lower leagues in the EFL in particular have provided good building blocks for young talents; the likes of Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa, Brentford, Exeter City), Ben White (Brighton, Leeds, Peterborough, Newport County), and Jamie Vardy (Leicester, Fleetwood, Halifax, Stocksbridge Park Steels) developing their trade – helping clubs to improve but also enhancing their chances of first-team football nearer the top of the pile.

So there is a clear path, but is it anywhere near as worn as it could, or should, be?

In all, OLBG’s Football Hotbeds has analysed the birth towns and cities of 1,326 home-grown stars and the results were startling, with 410 of a total 1,186 towns and cities across the UK represented, equating to a 34.56% geographical spread. To be clear that leaves 65.44% of the UK as unharnessed potential.

Highest Producing Town or City for UK Born Premier League or EFL Footballers

The highest producing town or city for Premier League or EFL players is Manchester, the sixth largest English district by population, with 568,996 residents, that has accounted for 42 stars across the top four divisions or 3.17% of the total British representation.

In second place is Liverpool. The city is also home to two football clubs, Liverpool and Everton and is just one player behind, with a total count of 40. This means 3.02% of players are born in earshot of either Anfield or Goodison Park. 

Sheffield (29), Birmingham (25) and Kingston upon Thames (18) make up the top five, as Croydon and Nottingham have 17 each each in joint sixth. Rounding out the top 10 on the list are Lambeth and Glasgow who provide 16 and Coventry who are one worse off with 15.

Which London Boroughs Have Produced The Most Premier League or EFL Players?

It is joint honours in terms of the London league as Lambeth and Southwark are the birth place of 18 players each. 18 players from each borough and this means the two districts make up a total of 14.34% when looking at the London-based pool of current league players.

Sitting third in the list is Croydon with 17 representatives, one better than Kingston upon Thames with 16 and rounding out the top five is Waltham Forest with 15 players.

Which Areas of The UK Have Produced The Most Premier League or EFL Footballers?

As revealed above, 251 players were born in London, and therefore, it is no surprise that the amalgamation of all 32 boroughs puts the region at the top of the table. However, if we take the capital out of the equation, it is Greater Manchester which rules the roost. 

London itself represents 18.93% of our data sample; the offering of Greater Manchester’s 106 players is responsible for 7.99%. The North West is undoubtedly a hotbed of English football, as Merseyside is not far behind in fourth.

71 Premier League or EFL players have come from this region; were it not for another four more, it would have seen Merseyside pip the West Midlands into third. Add Greater Manchester and Merseyside together, and it is the birth region of 177 separate players. 

Then again, one cannot overlook Yorkshire either. For the purposes of the data collection, we have split the country into further regions. The South offers up 51 players; the West is not far behind with 38 of their own. 

Another way we can look at this is by Premier League club representation. If we look at the 20 clubs that competed the 2024/25 season, here is how things look from a homegrown point of view. 

To clarify, this is not saying that 20 players were born in Ipswich. Instead, it is 20 UK players within the Ipswich Town squad. There are 192 in total when looking at this sample and considering there were 1,326 players analysed, it shows how continental the Premier League is these days. 

Just 14.47% of the players plied their trade in the 2024/25 edition of the Premier League, just over of 1 in 7 in terms of ratio for all UK-based players in our data sample. A figure that is likely to erode further as the race to stay top tier only intensifies further.

Unsurprisingly, the more competitive the team, the less reliance on domestic talent. Title chasing Arsenal could call upon five players during this season. 2023/24 Champions Manchester City relied on nine - two more than crosstown rivals United.

The argument here is that the UK-based stars has more minutes, they would be more beneficial to those clubs chasing the biggest prizes. Then again, the one commodity these team do not have is time and with no time to spare when it comes to the title race, the likes of Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta have a habit of going continental.

Methodology

Player data collected from FBREF and top four English leagues. All players who played in the 2024/25 season and were born in either England, Scotland or Wales. 

Birth Data collected from Wikipedia .

Data correct as of 7th April 2025.

Editorial Information

This article was researched and fact-checked by Dan Tracey who also then added the words - Dan is a multi-talented writer, data analyst and podcaster whose six-year career in the sports data sphere has seen incredible successes. From helping UEFA create their annual technical reports to writing articles for Sports Betting Websites, including sites like TheLinesUS and Goal