How Much Do Premier League Referees Get Paid? (2025/26)

How Much Do Premier League Referees Get Paid? 

This article contains detailed and recent information about the salaries of referee officials including the referee assistants, VAR officials and the referee themselves, and their comparison to other leagues. 

Every weekend, Premier League referees step onto the pitch in front of tens of thousands of fans, make split-second decisions worth millions of pounds to clubs, and then spend the following days reading about how badly they got it wrong. It is one of the more thankless jobs in sport, and yet the financial rewards have grown substantially over the past two decades.

So exactly how much do Premier League referees get paid? The short answer is considerably more than most people assume, though significantly less than the players they are officiating. Here is the full picture for the 2025/26 season.

Premier League Referee Salary in 2025/26

The average annual salary for a Premier League referee is currently around £180,000, according to figures shared publicly by PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) chief refereeing officer Howard Webb. That figure includes base salary, match fees, and bonuses combined.

The base salary alone ranges from roughly £73,000 for newer Select Group One referees up to £148,000 for the most experienced officials. On top of that, every Premier League match a referee takes charge of earns them an additional fee of approximately £1,150. Given that a referee might officiate 25 to 35 Premier League matches across a full season, those match fees add a meaningful sum on top of the base salary.

The highest-earning referees, names like Anthony Taylor and Michael Oliver who have been at the top of the Select Group for years, are reported to earn up to £250,000 per year when all income streams are factored in.

What Is Select Group One?

Premier League referees are not just any officials. They belong to Select Group One (SG1), which is the highest tier of refereeing in English football, managed by PGMOL. There are around 20 to 21 referees in this group at any given time, and they are employed as full-time professionals. They do not referee on weekends and then go back to a day job during the week. Officiating is their career.

Getting into Select Group One requires years of progression through the lower levels of English football. A referee starts at grassroots level, moves through the National League system, earns selection into the EFL (English Football League), and from there may eventually be identified for promotion to the Premier League tier. The process typically takes ten to fifteen years or more for those who make it.

PGMOL also maintains a supplementary list of referees being developed for SG1. These officials may referee Premier League matches but are not yet full members of the core group. Their pay tends to sit closer to the lower end of the salary range.

How Much Do Premier League Assistant Referees Get Paid?

Assistant referees (the officials running the lines on either side of the pitch) are paid separately from the main referee. According to Howard Webb’s publicly shared figures, Select Group One assistant referees earn an average salary of around £110,000 per year.

Their per-match fee is lower than the main referee’s, at approximately £850 per game. When you add that to their base salary across a full season of Premier League matches, the total annual earnings for assistant referees typically fall in the £60,000 to £110,000 range depending on experience and the number of games they are assigned.

Select Group One currently includes 29 assistant referee positions. This group includes Sian Massey-Ellis and Natalie Aspinall, who are the Premier League’s two female officials and have both officiated at international level including the Women’s World Cup.

VAR Officials: What Do They Earn?

Since VAR was introduced to the Premier League in 2019, there is now an additional layer of officiating that takes place off the pitch. VAR officials work from a video operation room (VOR) in Stockley Park, reviewing decisions in real time during matches.

Full-time dedicated VAR assistant referees are on a separate retainer, reportedly around £30,000, plus a per-game fee similar to on-field assistants. The VAR system uses officials drawn from Select Group One, meaning a referee who is not assigned an on-pitch role in a given week may be working as VAR instead. Their existing salary already covers this as part of their full-time role.

Pay Per Match: Breaking It Down

To give a clearer picture of what a single Premier League match is worth to each official on the day:

• Main referee: approximately £1,150 per match

• Each assistant referee: approximately £850 per match

• Fourth official: a similar fee to assistant referees

• VAR and assistant VAR: covered within their annual employment rather than as separate per-game bonuses

A referee who takes charge of 30 Premier League matches in a season earns around £34,500 in match fees alone on top of their base salary. For a senior official on £148,000 base, that brings total in-season earnings well past £180,000 before any bonuses or additional competition fees.

Additional Earnings: European and International Matches

Premier League referees who earn selection for UEFA and FIFA competitions can add further income on top of their domestic salary. A referee appointed to a UEFA Champions League match earns approximately £7,000 to £10,000 per game from UEFA. World Cup and European Championship appointments come with separate FIFA and UEFA fees plus a tournament base payment.

It is worth noting that since 2023, PGMOL has prohibited its referees from officiating in other domestic leagues during their off-season, specifically leagues like the Saudi Pro League and UAE Pro League that had previously been a source of significant extra income for some officials. The ban was introduced to avoid potential conflicts of interest, which effectively closed off one of the most lucrative sidelines that senior referees had previously enjoyed.

How Does This Compare to Other Leagues?

Premier League referee pay is among the highest for domestic league officials in the world, though it is not at the very top.

La Liga (Spain): Spanish referees earn an average of around €265,000 per year, making La Liga one of the highest-paying domestic leagues for officials in Europe.

Bundesliga (Germany): Bundesliga referees earn approximately €125,000 per year on average, placing them below both the Premier League and La Liga in terms of base referee pay.

Serie A (Italy) and Ligue 1 (France): Both leagues pay their top referees in a similar range to the Bundesliga, though exact figures vary by contract.

UEFA Champions League: Elite referees appointed to Champions League knockout matches can earn £7,000 to £10,000 per game, with final appointments paying more.

FIFA World Cup: Referees selected for the World Cup receive a base fee of around $70,000 for the tournament, plus individual match fees.

On a per-match basis across a full season, Premier League referees are well compensated. But it is the La Liga system, which pays higher base salaries and has historically had fewer restrictions on outside earnings, that currently edges ahead on total annual income for top officials.

How Does Referee Pay Compare to Player Wages?

The comparison is stark, and it is worth being honest about it. While a top Premier League referee earns up to £250,000 per year, the average Premier League player salary is estimated at over £3 million per year. The highest-earning players in the league take home £10 million to £20 million annually.

A referee’s annual salary, even at the top end, is roughly what a mid-table Premier League squad player earns in three to four weeks. That contrast is part of why refereeing debates about pay and conditions tend to resurface regularly in football media.

That said, £180,000 per year places Premier League referees comfortably in the top few percent of earners in the United Kingdom, and the job comes with a defined career structure, full-time employment, and the professional support of PGMOL behind them.

A Brief History of Premier League Referee Pay

It was not always this way. Before PGMOL was created in 2001, Premier League referees were mostly part-time. They had day jobs and officiated on weekends. The initial PGMOL structure guaranteed every top-flight referee a base salary of £35,000, which was transformative at the time.

Former referee Keith Hackett memorably described the shift: officials who had previously grabbed fast food between matches were suddenly eating at Michelin-starred restaurants. The professionalisation of refereeing changed the culture of officiating significantly.

Since then, salaries have more than quadrupled. The introduction of VAR, the growing commercial scale of the Premier League, and increased scrutiny on officiating have all pushed the case for better referee compensation. Howard Webb, who took over as chief refereeing officer in 2022, has been relatively open about salary figures compared to his predecessors, which has helped improve public understanding of what officials actually earn.

What It Takes to Become a Premier League Referee

The pathway to becoming a Select Group One referee is long, and the vast majority of people who start it never reach the top. The entry point is completing the FA Referees Course through your local County FA, which certifies you as a Level 7 referee. From there, officials progress through Levels 6, 5, 4, 3, 2B, and 2A before reaching Level 1, which covers the EFL and Premier League.

At each stage, referees are assessed through match observations, fitness tests, and performance reviews. Moving from the National League tier (Level 2A) into the professional game requires passing a formal interview process with PGMOL as well as meeting ongoing performance standards.

Most referees who make Select Group One have been officiating for fifteen years or more. The career arc is genuinely long, which is part of why the professional salary structure matters so much. It makes refereeing a viable full-time career rather than an expensive hobby that requires a separate income.

Conclusion 

Premier League referees are paid well, and the figures justify the professional demands of the role. An average total earnings of £180,000 per year, with the possibility of reaching £250,000 for the most senior officials, reflects a compensation structure that has grown significantly since professionalisation began in 2001.

The job is difficult in ways that are hard to fully appreciate from the outside. Every decision is scrutinised across social media, press coverage, and increasingly sophisticated video analysis. Officials have to maintain peak fitness, pass regular assessments, and manage high-pressure situations involving players earning ten to fifty times their own salary.

Whether the pay is proportionate to those demands is a question football fans tend to have strong opinions about. What the numbers show is that Premier League refereeing, once a part-time role for dedicated amateurs, has become a genuine profession with genuine professional-level compensation.

The gap between what referees earn and what players earn will never close. But the gap between what refereeing used to pay and what it pays now is the more interesting story.