List of English football first tier top scorers

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The top tier in English football today is the Premier League, replacing the Football League First Division for the 1992–93 inaugural season. Since the 1888–89 season, the first year of top flight football, 110 different individual players have been named top scorer. Players from Tottenham Hotspur have been named top scorer more than players from any other club, appearing thirteen times on this list. Jimmy Greaves, the all-time top goal scorer in top flight history, won it four times whilst at Tottenham. Nineteen different nationalities are represented and although the vast majority of players are English, there were sixteen times where the top scorer in the First Division was Scottish. Since the Premier League started, the player (or players) is awarded the Golden Boot Trophy, for the most league goals in the season. In the Premier League era, Thierry Henry has won the Golden Boot more times than anyone else, winning this accolade four times, all with Arsenal.^[1] Wayne Rooney, the Premier League's third highest goal scorer, does not appear on this list at all.

Once a rarity, a more widespread assortment of nationalities has achieved this success in recent years; in the 2018–19 season, it was shared between three players from different African countries, then in the 2021–22 season, Son Heung-min from South Korea finished level with Egypt's Mohamed Salah. Sergio Agüero won the award once, scoring 26 in the 2014–15 season. The Argentinian striker scored 184 goals between 2011 and 2021 to become the top foreign top flight goal scorer.^[2]

Since the turn of the millennium only three Englishmen have won the award. In the 1999–2000 season Kevin Phillips won with 30 goals for Sunderland.^[3] This was a record for most goals by a debut player, in a 38 match season, until Erling Haaland broke it in the 2022–23 season. Harry Kane won the golden boot in successive seasons when he scored 25 in 2015–16 and then 29 in the 2016–17 season. He won it again in the 2020–21 season with 23.^[1] The third is Jamie Vardy; the Leicester City striker scored 23 goals in the 2019–20 season.^[1] Everton striker Dixie Dean holds the record for most goals scored in a single season, with 60 goals in the 1927–28 season. Dean's 310 goals scored for Everton is still the record for most goals scored for one club, and Dean also still holds the records for most hat-tricks, overall and in a single season.^[4]