Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City were promoted to the Premier League for 2026/27 as champions, runners-up and play-off winners of the English second division. We tracked 24 years of promotions back to 2001/02. Of the 72 promoted teams, only 39 (54.2%) survived their first year in the top division without relegation. Champions of the second division performed strongest, while play-off winners struggled to stay up.
Club by club: Coventry City, Ipswich Town, Hull City.
Who was promoted to the Premier League for 2026/27?
Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City. They came up by three different routes, which is the reason this page splits everything that follows by route: Coventry as champions, Ipswich as runners-up, Hull through the play-offs. They replace Burnley, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers. The season opens on 21 August 2026.
| Club | Route up | Championship position | Points | W-D-L | GF:GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coventry City | Champions | 1st | 95 | 28-11-7 | 97:45 |
| Ipswich Town | Runners-up | 2nd | 84 | 23-15-8 | 80:47 |
| Hull City | Play-off winners | 6th | 73 | 21-10-15 | 70:66 |
2025/26 Championship, 46 matches per club, computed from final scores in our own archive.
How often do promoted teams stay up in the Premier League?
Across 24 promoted cohorts from 2001/02 to 2024/25, 39 of 72 promoted clubs (54.2%) were still in the Premier League the following season and 33 were not. The median promoted club finished on 37 points, the mean on 36.8. The range is wide: the best was Leeds in 2020/21 on 59 points, the worst Derby in 2007/08 on 11 points.
Does it matter how a club goes up?
Based on our analysis, YES. Unsurprisingly, champions survived most often, play-off winners least, with runners-up in between. Every cohort contributes exactly one club to each route, so the three samples are the same size (24 club-seasons each) and are directly comparable.
| Route up | Stayed up | Rate | Median points | Mean points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Champions (1st) | 15 of 24 | 62.5% | 40 | 38.3 |
| Runners-up (2nd) | 13 of 24 | 54.2% | 38 | 37.1 |
| Play-off winners (3rd to 6th) | 11 of 24 | 45.8% | 35 | 34.8 |
Premier League seasons 2001/02 to 2024/25. Route is the club's Championship finishing position the season before. Survival is observed membership the following season, not a computed table.
The gap between the champions' route and the play-off route is 16.7 percentage points across 72 club-seasons. That is a real difference in the record, and it is also a small sample: 24 clubs per route is not many, and a run of three or four seasons either way would move it. Last season is the reminder. Sunderland drew at home with both Manchester clubs and beat Newcastle United home and away, then finished 7th on 54 points. That is a better finish than any play-off promoted club managed inside the graded window, where the high-water mark was West Ham in 2005/06, 9th on 55 points.
Coventry City: back after a 25-year absence
Frank Lampard took charge in November 2024, replacing Mark Robins with the club just above the relegation places, and won the title in his first full season. Haji Wright led the scoring with 18 league goals, one of five Coventry players to reach double figures, per the club's season records.
In the 2025/26 Championship Coventry City finished 1st on 95 points with a 28-11-7 record, scoring 97 and conceding 45. Across those 46 matches 29 went over 2.5 goals (63.0%) and 27 saw both teams score (58.7%). Those are Championship rates, not Premier League rates. The full record is on the Coventry City team page.
Our Premier League archive begins in 2000/01. Coventry City appear in exactly one season of it, 2000/01, which is the season they were relegated. They have not been promoted to the Premier League at any point our archive covers.
Ipswich Town: straight back up, without the manager who did it
Kieran McKenna stepped down on 10 June 2026 after five seasons and three promotions, so the club that went up is not the club that starts the season. Ipswich appointed Gary O'Neil on 23 June 2026 from Strasbourg on a three-year deal, announced on the club's own website. O'Neil has previously managed Bournemouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League.
In the 2025/26 Championship Ipswich Town finished 2nd on 84 points with a 23-15-8 record, scoring 80 and conceding 47. Across those 46 matches 24 went over 2.5 goals (52.2%) and 26 saw both teams score (56.5%). Those are Championship rates, not Premier League rates. The full record is on the Ipswich Town team page.
Previous promotions on record for Ipswich Town: 2024/25 (runners-up, finished 19th on 22 points, relegated).
Hull City: up through a final their opponent should not have reached
Hull reached the final the hard way and then won it in stoppage time, Oli McBurnie scoring in the 95th minute at Wembley in front of 84,506. Sergej Jakirovic had taken over the previous summer.
The final Hull won should not have had Middlesbrough in it. On 19 May 2026 an EFL Independent Disciplinary Commission expelled Southampton from the play-offs after the club admitted three breaches of EFL regulations for sending staff to watch and film opponents' training sessions: Oxford United in December 2025, Ipswich Town in April 2026, and Middlesbrough two days before the play-off semi-final first leg. The commission found that head coach Tonda Eckert had authorised a "contrived and determined plan" and called the approach "deplorable". Southampton had won the semi-final 2-1 on aggregate; Middlesbrough went through in their place. Southampton's appeal was dismissed the following day and the club also starts 2026/27 on −4 points. Reported by Sky Sports, BBC Sport and the Guardian among others.
In the 2025/26 Championship Hull City finished 6th on 73 points with a 21-10-15 record, scoring 70 and conceding 66. Across those 46 matches 30 went over 2.5 goals (65.2%) and 30 saw both teams score (65.2%). Those are Championship rates, not Premier League rates. The full record is on the Hull City team page.
Previous promotions on record for Hull City: 2008/09 (play-offs, finished 17th on 35 points, stayed up); 2013/14 (runners-up, finished 16th on 37 points, stayed up); 2016/17 (play-offs, finished 18th on 34 points, relegated).
All three arrive off a relegation
Every one of the three last played Premier League football in a season that ended in relegation. That is a coincidence of timing rather than a pattern, but it does mean none of these squads carries recent experience of a Premier League season that finished well.
| Club | Last PL season | Finished | Points | W-D-L | GD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coventry City | 2000/01 | 19th | 34 | 8-10-20 | −27 |
| Ipswich Town | 2024/25 | 19th | 22 | 4-10-24 | −46 |
| Hull City | 2016/17 | 18th | 34 | 9-7-22 | −43 |
Most recent Premier League season on record for each club, from our own archive of final scores.
What the market makes of the promoted three
Ladbrokes published 2026/27 relegation prices on 21 July 2026 with all three promoted clubs odds-on to go straight back down, Hull the shortest of them. Those are the market's numbers, not ours, and they are quoted here as reporting rather than as anything we are telling you to do with them.
Worth noting only as an observation: the order the market put them in matches the order the historical routes come out in, with the play-off winner shortest to go down. Those two orderings agreeing does not make either one a forecast of what happens this season.
Championship numbers are not Premier League numbers
Promoted clubs arrive with a season of Championship numbers attached, and those numbers describe a different competition. In 2025/26 the Premier League ran 55.0% over 2.5 goals across 380 matches while the Championship ran 50.7% across 552. Both teams scored in 56.1% of Premier League matches against 56.9% in the Championship. The Premier League was the higher-scoring league of the two last season, which is the opposite of the usual assumption. Every rate on our Coventry, Ipswich and Hull team pages is labelled with the competition it came from for that reason.
How this was measured
- Source. Our own match archive of Premier League and Championship final scores, 2000/01 to 2025/26: 9,880 Premier League matches and 14,352 Championship matches, none unscored.
- Who counts as promoted. A club in the Premier League in a season that was in the Championship the season before and not in the Premier League the season before. That yields exactly three clubs in every cohort, which is the check that the definition is behaving.
- Stayed up. Observed membership: the club appears in the Premier League again the following season. Deliberately not a computed table, because our source does not carry administrative points deductions and we do not implement head-to-head tiebreaks. That also fixes the sample at 72 club-seasons through 2024/25, since the following season has to have been played.
- Route. The club's Championship finishing position the previous season, from a table computed on points, then goal difference, then goals scored. Position 1 is champions, 2 runners-up, 3 to 6 play-offs. Every promoted club in the window came from the previous season's Championship top six, which is the validation that the table order is right.
- What is not ours. Managers, transfers, the play-off ruling and the bookmaker prices are attributed inline to official announcements or named outlets. None of them come from our archive and none are used in any figure above.
Next steps
Frequently asked questions
Who got promoted to the Premier League for the 2026/27 season?
Coventry City won the Championship, Ipswich Town finished second, and Hull City won the play-off final. They replace Burnley, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, who were relegated from the 2025/26 Premier League.
How many promoted teams get relegated straight back down?
In our archive of 24 promoted cohorts covering Premier League seasons 2001/02 to 2024/25, 33 of 72 promoted clubs went straight back down, so 54.2% stayed up. The median promoted club finished on 37 points.
Do play-off winners do worse than Championship champions in the Premier League?
In this sample, yes. Champions stayed up 62.5% of the time and play-off winners 45.8%, with runners-up at 54.2%. Each route has only 24 club-seasons behind it, so the difference is real in the record but rests on a small sample.
Why was Southampton expelled from the Championship play-offs?
An EFL Independent Disciplinary Commission expelled Southampton on 19 May 2026 after the club admitted sending staff to watch and film three opponents' training sessions. Middlesbrough replaced them in the final, Southampton's appeal was dismissed the next day, and the club starts 2026/27 on −4 points.
When does the 2026/27 Premier League season start?
The season opens on 21 August 2026 and ends on 30 May 2027. The opening weekend was put back a week because of the 2026 World Cup.
Related: All 20 Premier League team pages · EPL betting guide · Soccer odds board
Every figure on this page is a historical measurement of what already happened, produced by a committed, re-runnable script over our own odds archive. Past frequencies are not forecasts and are not betting advice: Nebula Insights publishes no picks, no selections and no recommended wagers. 18+ only.