Stoke City has played 34 seasons in the divisions covered here since 1992/93: 10 in the Premier League, 19 in the Championship and 5 in League One. It has been in the Championship since 2018/19 (8 seasons), after 10 seasons in the Premier League. Its best finish was 9th in the Premier League, in 2013/14. Its biggest climb took five seasons: from 8th in League One in 1998/99 to 11th in the Championship in 2003/04. It has been promoted 3 times and relegated twice.
Stoke City
2025/26: 17th in the Championship · 2026/27: Championship
How high can Stoke City realistically go?
Based on finishing 17th in the Championship in 2025/26
About 3 in 10
Of the 153 times a club finished in the bottom half of the Championship between 2004/05 and 2020/21, 41 went up within five seasons.
41 of 153 (27%); likely range 16%–38%, 42 different clubs.
| Reached the top flight within ten seasons | about 4 in 10 48 of 108; range 28%–61% |
Stoke City itself: 2 of the last 10 seasons in the Premier League.
Taking its wage bill into account
Of clubs in a similar position with a wage bill like Stoke City's — the 30th highest of 36 in the top two divisions in 2024/25, 0.2 times the average — this share went on to:
| Were in the top flight within five seasons In this league the wage bill adds little here: the figure is close to the one for position alone. | about 1 in 5 range 11%–34% |
How is this worked out?
A model fitted on every club-season with a published wage bill (England from 2011/12, France from 2008/09) relates each goal to two things: where the club finished and how its wage bill compared with the season's average. Five-year goals are used because the wage records are too recent for ten-year ones. We checked the model on clubs it had not seen: adding the wage bill makes the figures more accurate for most goals, and where it does not, the page says so. The range comes from refitting the model on clubs drawn at random with replacement. Like every figure here, it describes clubs like this one, not a forecast for this club; wage bills include all staff, not only players. This model was added after the registered tests and is descriptive, not one of them.
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: went up within five seasons: 41 of 153; reached the top flight within ten seasons: 48 of 108.
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
10seasons in the Premier League
0league titles
0top-four finishes
3promotions
2relegations
Against the money
About where its money would put it
Over 13 seasons, the average gap was -1.9 places, which is within what chance alone would produce. It finished above its money in 4 of 13 seasons with published figures.
2 seasons followed relegation and came with parachute payments; they are included.
£30mwage bill, 2024/25
30thhighest of 36 clubs with published accounts
18thfinish in the Championship, 2024/25
Where Stoke City finishedWhere its wage bill normally finishes
Season by season
| Season | Finish | Wage bill | Wage rank | Places above its money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 18th, Championship | £30m | 30th of 36 | -4.5 |
| 2023/24 | 17th, Championship | £32m | 27th of 36 | -4.2 |
| 2022/23 | 16th, Championship | £28m | 25th of 39 | -2.6 |
| 2021/22 | 14th, Championship | £36m | 25th of 38 | -3.0 |
| 2019/20 | 16th, Championship | £53m | 22nd of 39 | -9.9 |
| 2018/19 | 17th, Championship | £56m | 21st of 37 | -11.9 |
| 2017/18 | 19th, Premier League | £94m | 13th of 35 | -5.4 |
| 2016/17 | 13th, Premier League | £85m | 13th of 33 | -0.3 |
| 2015/16 | 9th, Premier League | £82m | 10th of 36 | +4.1 |
| 2014/15 | 9th, Premier League | £67m | 17th of 38 | +9.2 |
| 2013/14 | 9th, Premier League | £61m | 15th of 36 | +4.3 |
| 2012/13 | 13th, Premier League | £60m | 12th of 34 | +1.0 |
| 2011/12 | 14th, Premier League | £53m | 11th of 24 | -1.4 |
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 Stoke City's, with recent seasons counting more.
In England
Swansea CityEngland · 11th in the Championship, 2025/26Queens Park RangersEngland · 15th in the Championship, 2025/26West Bromwich AlbionEngland · 21st in the Championship, 2025/26Hull CityEngland · 6th in the Championship, 2025/26
Elsewhere in Europe
MálagaSpain · 4th in the Segunda División, 2025/26Hannover 96Germany · 4th in 2. Bundesliga, 2025/26Sporting GijónSpain · 10th in the Segunda División, 2025/26
Compare Stoke 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.