Norwich City’s highest-paid players vs Ipswich Town’s top earners in 2026 | OneFootball

A comparison of Norwich City and Ipswich Town's salaries last season in the Championship.

Once again, Norwich City and Ipswich Town will be separated a division apart for the 2026-27 season, with The Tractor Boys having gained promotion back up to the Premier League.

The two East Anglian rivals have only spent two seasons together in the same league since 2019, with Ipswich having spent the early part of the 2020s in League One before gaining two promotions in three seasons from the Championship, the second of which came last year.

However, the mood for both may be very different this summer from what it was just a couple of months ago with Ipswich having lost manager Kieran McKenna and Norwich expected to sustain themselves as a promotion challenger in Philippe Clement’s first full season at Carrow Road next season.

In the 2023-24 campaign, as Ipswich finished as second-tier runners-up to Leicester City, Norwich managed to take four points off their arch-rivals but Town completed the double over Norwich last year, with those six points being crucial to finishing as runners-up to Coventry City in the Championship.

The first of those wins, a 3-1 victory at Portman Road in October, ended a 14-match unbeaten streak for Norwich against their rivals, with the second win being the first time either side had managed to do the double over the other since the 2014-15 campaign; a season that ended with Norwich gaining promotion via the play-offs, having defeated Ipswich in the semi-finals.

The teams were separated by 19 points last year but Norwich finished exceptionally strongly to suggest they aren’t too far apart. We have taken a look to see whether or not that was reflected in the salaries of both sides, too.

How Ipswich and Norwich’s payrolls compared in the Championship

According to Capology, Ipswich Town had two players earning £35,000 per week in the Championship last season with defensive duo Leif Davis and Dara O’Shea at the top of their payroll alongside on-loan midfielder Jens Cajuste.

Beyond that, Town also had three players reportedly earning £30,000 per week in veteran and now retired full-back Ashley Young, defensive midfielder Azor Matusiwa and former West Ham United defender Ben Johnson.

In comparison, Norwich also had one player earning £35,000 per week, that being experienced centre-back Shane Duffy, with two players, Jack Stacey and marquee summer signing Mathias Kvistgaarden, matching the £30,000 week Ipswich shelled out for Young, Matusiwa and Johnson.

It is believed that Norwich had 11 players earning £20,000 per week or more, in contrast to Ipswich spending that much per week on 16 players – one of which being Chilean midfielder Marcelino Nunez, who made the controversial move from Norwich to Ipswich last summer.

Only loanees Ivan Azon and Dan Neil, as well as youngster Frankie Runham and the now departed-for-Millwall Elkan Baggott are said to have earned less than £10,000 per week at Ipswich.

Norwich, on the other hand, 19 members of their very big squad earning less than that figure, with some notable players such as Jovon Makama, Mohamed Toure and Oscar Schwartau said to be on £7,500, £5,000 and £5,000 per week respectively.

How Norwich and Ipswich compared to the rest of the Championship

Neither side, who had biggest earners of £35,000 per week, had players inside the top 22 highest-paid players in the Championship last season.

Remarkably, the eventually relegated Leicester City had the top five biggest earners with Harry Winks topping the list at £90,000 per week. Eight of the top 11 were Leicester players.

Naturally, Leicester therefore had comfortably the biggest weekly payroll in the division, forking out £900,500 per week on a squad that has now got them into League One.

Southampton and Sheffield United made up the rest of the top three but Ipswich and Norwich were not too far behind, in fourth and fifth respectively.

Overall, Ipswich spent £569,500 on their payroll, with Norwich spending £478,808 – only further highlighting just how much of an underperformance their first half of the season was before the arrival of Clement.

Ipswich, effectively, managed to overperform their payroll by two places and around £120,000 per week, with Norwich eventually underperforming theirs by four spots and about £70,000, albeit finishing their season extremely strongly.