Hull City has played 34 seasons in the divisions covered here since 1992/93: 5 in the Premier League, 15 in the Championship, 6 in League One and 8 in League Two. It has been in the Championship since 2021/22 (5 seasons), after 1 season in League One. It goes up to the Premier League for 2026/27. Its best finish was 16th in the Premier League, in 2013/14. Its biggest climb took five seasons: from 13th in League Two in 2002/03 to 3rd in the Championship in 2007/08. It has been promoted 7 times and relegated 5 times.
Hull City
2025/26: 6th in the Championship, promoted · 2026/27: Premier League
How high can Hull City realistically go?
Based on finishing 6th in the Championship in 2025/26 and going up
About 4 in 10
Of the 51 times a club was promoted from the Championship between 2004/05 and 2020/21, 19 stayed up for all of the next five seasons.
19 of 51 (37%); likely range 24%–54%, 30 different clubs.
| Reached the top six within ten seasons | about 1 in 9 4 of 36; range 3%–23% |
Hull City itself: 1 of the last 10 seasons in the Premier League.
How do we know?
We took every season since 2004/05 in which a club finished in the same part of the same league, and followed each club forward. The figure is the share that reached each goal. Ten-year goals use finishes from 2004/05 to 2015/16, five-year goals from 2004/05 to 2020/21, so every case has had the full time to play out; results run to the end of 2025/26.
It describes what happened to clubs in this position, not a forecast for one club. A club with much more money or history than is usual for its position has better chances than the figure suggests, which is why the club's own record is shown underneath.
The likely range is a 95% interval worked out by resampling clubs rather than seasons, because the same club often appears several times. It is wide where only a few clubs have been in a position, and two leagues whose ranges overlap may not really differ. Reserve teams such as Barcelona B or Real Madrid Castilla are left out of these counts, because they cannot be promoted into their first team's division.
Counts: stayed up for all of the next five seasons: 19 of 51; reached the top six within ten seasons: 4 of 36.
The story so far
Final position each seasonRinged dots are titles
How to read this chart
Every club in the divisions covered is placed on one ladder each season: the champions are 1st, and the top club of the second division comes straight after the bottom club of the first. Shaded bands are the divisions. Hover over or tap a dot for the season.
34seasons since 1992/93
5seasons in the Premier League
0league titles
0top-four finishes
7promotions
5relegations
Against the money
About where its money would put it
Over 12 seasons, the average gap was +0.2 places, which is within what chance alone would produce. It finished above its money in 7 of 12 seasons with published figures.
5 seasons followed relegation and came with parachute payments; they are included.
£37mwage bill, 2024/25
28thhighest of 36 clubs with published accounts
21stfinish in the Championship, 2024/25
Where Hull City finishedWhere its wage bill normally finishes
Season by season
| Season | Finish | Wage bill | Wage rank | Places above its money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 21st, Championship | £37m | 28th of 36 | -8.2 |
| 2023/24 | 7th, Championship | £30m | 30th of 36 | +6.4 |
| 2022/23 | 15th, Championship | £24m | 32nd of 39 | -1.0 |
| 2021/22 | 20th, Championship | £13m | 37th of 38 | -0.1 |
| 2019/20 | 24th, Championship | £18m | 35th of 39 | -7.7 |
| 2018/19 | 13th, Championship | £25m | 31st of 37 | +0.5 |
| 2017/18 | 18th, Championship | £31m | 29th of 35 | -5.4 |
| 2016/17 | 18th, Premier League | £61m | 19th of 33 | +1.5 |
| 2015/16 | 4th, Championship | £30m | 26th of 36 | +3.9 |
| 2014/15 | 18th, Premier League | £56m | 19th of 38 | +3.9 |
| 2013/14 | 16th, Premier League | £43m | 20th of 36 | +4.1 |
| 2012/13 | 2nd, Championship | £26m | 23rd of 34 | +4.5 |
How do we know?
For every season, we compare each club's wage bill with the average in the top two divisions, and work out the finish that wage bill usually brings, allowing for differences between seasons and assuming a bigger wage bill never lowers the expected finish. The gap between that and the actual finish, averaged over the seasons, is the figure above. An overall verdict needs at least eight seasons, and a signed number is given only when the gap is clearly larger than chance.
Wage bills are the staff costs in each club's statutory accounts at Companies House (all staff, not only players), read without any language model and checked against the note's own components and the next year's accounts. Seasons where two readings disagree by more than 2% are left out.
On average, most of a big over-performance fades: clubs that finished at least four places above their money (on average 6.4 places) were +2.0 places the next season, so about 69% of it disappeared and the rest persisted. Some clubs beat their money season after season. It mixes good management, luck and resources the measure cannot see, so it is not a score for how well a club is run.
Clubs with a similar path
Clubs whose finishing positions over the last 15 seasons were closest to Hull City's, with recent seasons counting more.
In England
Birmingham CityEngland · 10th in the Championship, 2025/26MiddlesbroughEngland · 5th in the Championship, 2025/26Derby CountyEngland · 8th in the Championship, 2025/26Queens Park RangersEngland · 15th in the Championship, 2025/26
Elsewhere in Europe
PalermoItaly · 4th in Serie B, 2025/26Sporting GijónSpain · 10th in the Segunda División, 2025/26Eintracht BraunschweigGermany · 15th in 2. Bundesliga, 2025/26
Compare Hull City with another club
Sources
- Final tables to 2025/26. Top-flight positions follow the official classification, including head-to-head tie-breaks and point deductions. Lower-division positions before 2025/26 are worked out from match results and can differ from official tables where points were deducted.
- Relegations include dropping out of the divisions covered.
- All figures can be downloaded on the data page. Spotted a mistake? Report it with a source.