How Charlton Athletic, Birmingham City and Wrexham AFC's wage bills compare to Championship clubs | OneFootball

FLW looks at how the three newly-promoted sides' financial situations compare to their second-tier counterparts

The recent bank holiday weekend signalled the end of yet another compelling season in the EFL, with 71 of the 72 spots in the Championship, League One and League Two now confirmed.

Compared to any season which had gone before, the 2024/25 campaign was one which brought plenty of spotlight onto the third tier as a result of both Birmingham City and Wrexham's ambitious American ownership groups.

Blues caught the eye of many straight from the off, with the West Midlands side breaking the divisional transfer record three times, with the last of those deals seeing Jay Stansfield move to St Andrew's on a remarkable seven-year contract after the West Midlands side parted with an eight-figure fee for his services.

Chris Davies' side went on to break the EFL points record with a total of 111 and the Red Dragons also became the first side in English football history to achieve three successive promotions - returning to the second tier for the first time in 43 years - whilst Nathan Jones returned the Addicks to the division for the first time since 2020 after a remarkable run of form ended with a 1-0 success over Leyton Orient in the play-off final.

With that being said, FLW looks at each club's current wage bill and looks at how it fares against their upcoming divisional rivals.

Birmingham City, Wrexham and Charlton Athletic's wage bills in League One

Unsurprisingly, with the aforementioned league and club-record spending spree, Birmingham had, by far and away, the highest wage bill in League One, with ESTIMATED figures from Capology giving a weekly figure of £308,000, which amounts to a season total of £16,016,000.

Given the fact that Wrexham posted a club-record turnover of £26.275m in their recently published accounts, it also won't shock many that only Huddersfield Town separated the North Wales outfit from their promotion rivals when it came to the wage bill table, with the club ESTIMATED to have a weekly payroll of £205,200 and an annual sum of £10,670,400.

And, whilst Charlton were one of several ex-Premier League sides present in the third tier during the campaign, Jones' squad, which still possessed plenty of former Championship players, represented the 10th-largest wage bill in the division, which was also below both Cambridge United and Bristol Rovers, who were both relegated to League Two.

The South London outfit's weekly payroll amounted to an ESTIMATED figure of just £111,154 and a total of £5,780,000 across the club's eventual 53-game season in all competitions.

How Birmingham City, Wrexham and Charlton Athletic's wage bills compare to 2025/26 Championship clubs

Unsurprisingly, the three sides with by far and away the largest wage bills in next season's Championship at present are the newly-relegated trio of Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton, with all three clubs also receiving parachute payments.

However, only 10 sides - including the aforementioned trio - have a larger wage bill than Blues' current figure, which is also said to be £20,154 greater per week than Sunderland's across the recently concluded campaign, with the Black Cats going on to achieve promotion to the Premier League.

Despite being expected to spend big alongside the B9 outfit, Wrexham's estimated wage bill would only be greater than Portsmouth's figure of £164,750 per week, with Charlton's aforementioned figure leaving the Reds with - comfortably - the lowest in the second tier next term. However, in Jones, they have a manager who has defied the odds at the level previously when in charge of Luton Town, which is a feat those at the Valley will be hoping is achieved once more.