Ranking the top 7 best EFL Championship academies | OneFootball

Football League World has taken a look at the seven strongest academies in the Championship right now

The EFL pyramid is a rich hotbed of talent, and it's the Championship where the finest prospects typically emerge from the conveyor belt and break through before graduating to stardom.

A number of England stars at this summer's World Cup graduated from the confines of Championship academies, such as key figure Jude Bellingham at Birmingham City, Ebere Eze at QPR and even Djed Spence at Middlesbrough - having formerly been with Fulham before making advances towards senior football on Teesside.

Each season, a handful of second-tier outfits will be fortunate enough to hit the jackpot and have an academy product burst onto the scene, often preceding a big-money move to the Premier League in the years to come.

That had Football League World thinking - what Championship clubs actually have the division's best academies?

Those with a Category One status naturally have an advantage, but FLW has looked beyond prestige and ranking, analysing each youth set-up and its production line to rank the seven best academies on offer in the Championship...

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It would be amiss to ignore the burgeoning academy system at Cardiff City, which has blossomed in recent years and spearheaded the Bluebirds' return to the Championship at the very first time of asking under Brian Barry-Murphy in the 2025/26 League One campaign.

The likes of Chris Gunter, Aaron Ramsey and Adam Matthews all represent notable alumni in the history books, and while Cardiff endured a long period of failing to promote from within, a renewed focus on precisely that makes the Welsh outfit a worthy inclusion.

Cian Ashford, Rubin Colwill and Isaak Davies broke through in the Championship, but relegation to League One and the subsequent appointment of a youth-centred head coach in Barry-Murphy has since helped to platform a glut of prodigious talent from the club's academy.

Dylan Lawlor and Ronan Kpakio, aged just 20 and 19, were key performers in the Bluebirds' successful promotion bid and have both been linked with a litany of leading sides in recent months, with the former already valued as high as £10 million.

Joel Colwill, meanwhile, has joined the pair alongside Davies and older brother Rubin in becoming a mainstay under Barry-Murphy and breaking into Craig Bellamy's Wales set-up, and no EFL club currently has more academy graduates in the first-team squad than Cardiff's 11.

There's a huge catchment area in the Welsh capital and beyond, and with Cardiff having shelled out £8 million for the construction of a new state-of-the-art academy base just under three years ago, the focus is clear.

The pathway from youth to first-team football has never been clearer at Cardiff than it is today, and while the existing cohort of Kpakio, Lawlor and the Colwill brothers will all be decisive to how the Bluebirds fare back in the Championship next term, the conveyor belt is going to continue churning out talent and a richly-exciting long-term future awaits on that front.

6 ? ? Derby County

Derby County's recent history has been nothing short of a rollercoaster, but one constant in the chaos has been the academy infrastructure at Moor Farm.

The Rams have held prestigious Category One status since 2014, which they managed to retain throughout the ruinous days prior to David Clowes' 2022 takeover and raised vital funds through the sales of numerous academy graduates.

Derby famously won the U18 Premier League title in 2019 with a squad that featured future stars at both Pride Park in Max Bird, Lee Buchanan, Eiran Cashin, Jason Knight, Louie Sibley and Morgan Whittaker.

All of those players would go on to feature regularly for Derby's first-team and Cashin's emergence was particularly notable, with the defender eventually joining Brighton in January of last year for £9 million.

Away from that contingent, both Jayden Bogle and Max Lowe previously came through at Derby alongside Will Hughes - and later Malcolm Ebiowei, Festy Ebosele and Liam Thompson - showing that the Rams' production line has seldom flattered to deceive.

5 ? ? Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn Rovers may have not had much success on the pitch in recent years, but one thing that cannot be denied is the quality of player that keeps coming through their academy.

The Lancashire outfit's youth system has remained at Category One level throughout their time being owned by the Venky's, and there has been a clear pathway into the first-team for a number of years.

The biggest player to come through the system in recent years is of course Adam Wharton, who made the club a lot of money with his initial £18 million move to Crystal Palace, and he may make Rovers even more in the future if he's to be sold on for a hefty sum.

Other prominent names to come through in recent years are Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya, who did join from Spanish side Cornella at the age of 17 but was on scholarship terms before signing a pro contract, whilst the likes of Ash Phillips, John Buckley, Hayden Carter, Lewis Travis, Scott Wharton, Harry Leonard and Ryan Nyambe have all graduated to play plenty of games at Championship level.

The most recent big breakout star of the Rovers academy is Northern Ireland international centre-back Tom Atcheson, who could earn himself a big move in years to come, and with the likes of Igor Tyjon and Valentin Joseph coming through to potentially play a part in 2026-27, Blackburn's youth setup is still flourishing.

4 ? ? Charlton Athletic

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South London is a real hotbed of talent in its own right and that has enabled Charlton Athletic to consistently boast one of the stronger academy systems within the EFL pyramid.

Between 2015 and 2018, Charlton sold on three future Premier League stars in Joe Gomez, Ezri Konsa and Ademola Lookman.

The trio have all enjoyed outstanding careers after leaving the Valley; Gomez has racked up nearly 300 appearances for Liverpool and has won the Premier League on two occasions along with the 2018/19 Champions League title, whereas Konsa has been a cornerstone of Aston Villa's rise under Unai Emery while becoming a key asset to Thomas Tuchel's England squad and Lookman finished in 15th in the final rankings for the 2024 Ballon d'Or after scoring a hattrick in Atalanta's Europa League final victory over Bayer Leverkusen and is now starring for Atletico Madrid.

Away from those three, Karlan Grant and Alfie Doughty both began strong EFL careers with the Addicks and there's still plenty of optimism surrounding flying winger Tyreece Campbell and imposing striker Miles Leaburn, who are waving the flag for the club's academy system and will need to have a consistent impact in the Championship next season if Nathan Jones side are to dodge the drop.

3 ? ? West Ham

With the size of London's catchment area, all the talented young players in the capital have to be somewhat shared out, and West Ham have certainly had their fair share of talents come through the ranks - they've been nicknamed the Academy of Football in the past for a reason.

You only have to go back to the days of Bobby Moore and that successful Hammers side to see the historic relevance, and more recently in the late 1990s and early 2000s, you had Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe all come through at Upton Park.

More recently, the list of talents, whilst not as strong as that particular fivesome, has still continued to flow, with the biggest success story being Declan Rice, who joined at the age of 14 after leaving Chelsea.

Those include players that have moved on in recent years such as Ben Johnson and Divin Mubama, who appeared for West Ham in the Premier League, and also Burnley stalwart Josh Cullen.

More recently, Freddie Potts and Ollie Scarles have broke through into Nuno Espirito Santo's plans, and you would expect both will kick on in the Championship under the Portuguese coach.

2 ? ? Norwich City

Based in Norfolk, Norwich City can always feel like a long way away from other big cities, but one positive for the club is that with their Category One academy, put together with the catchment area they have full domination over, the Canaries have been able to bring some proper talents through.

The most recent one to depart for big money is winger Jonathan Rowe, who left for Marseille in 2024 after a breakout year at Carrow Road in the Championship, and he follows a long line of players who have made an impact at second tier level at the very least.

Both Jacob and Josh Murphy were products of the City academy and have played Premier League football, Andrew Omobamidele is out at Strasbourg, Carlton Morris has turned into a top Championship striker for Derby County, whilst Adam Idah, Todd Cantwell and Max Aarons have all made it.

There doesn't appear to be any Canaries graduates challenging for Philippe Clement's first-team right now apart from striker Errol Mundle-Smith, which is perhaps a sign of how strong his current options are, although teenager Ajay Tavares recently secured himself a move to Barcelona, which shows the work the youth setup is doing is still trending in the right direction.

1 ? ? Southampton

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Without doubt, the most prolific academy in the second tier of English football has to be Southampton, which produces a sensational amount of talent - some of which has gone on to become world-class.

You only have to look back to the 2000s when both Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott came through the ranks to know that the Saints do youth coaching the right way, and that has continued on through the years - James Ward-Prowse, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw, and more recently you've had Tyler Dibling move on for big money, with stalwarts like Will Smallbone, Matt Targett and Harrison Reed all products of the system too.

There's perhaps been less coming through making first-team impacts in recent years, but the emergence of Cameron Bragg - who was given a chance by Tonda Eckert - last season was impressive, and Jay Robinson is in and around the first-team and could be about to have a very good season, and you also have Dom Ballard who was sold last summer by the Saints, who exploded into life with Leyton Orient with a 23-goal haul in League One.

If Southampton aren't promoted back to the Premier League in 2026-27 though, they lose their parachute payments, and if that is to happen, then focus on the academy could become more important - there will be hopes that another golden generation is soon on the way at St Mary's Stadium, much like the late 2000s and early 2010s.