Preston North End's record transfer signing is Alfie Devine, signed permanently from Tottenham Hotspur for £6m in July 2026 after a season on loan. Their record sale is Jordan Hugill's £10m deadline day move to West Ham United in January 2018 — a transfer that worked out considerably better for Preston than it did for the club that bought him.
A Record That Survived Twenty-Three Years
Before Devine, Preston's transfer record belonged to a genuinely different era. David Healy's £1.8m move from Manchester United in 2000 stood as the club record for very nearly 23 years, surviving multiple promotion pushes and relegations before Milutin Osmajić's £2.1m arrival from Cádiz finally broke it in 2023. Devine's £6m fee, confirmed when Preston exercised the option to sign him permanently, then nearly tripled Osmajić's own record just three years later — the fastest acceleration in the club's transfer history by a wide margin.
Hugill's Deadline Day Windfall
Jordan Hugill's £10m deadline day move to West Ham United in January 2018 remains comfortably Preston's biggest-ever sale, for a player originally signed from Port Vale for a nominal fee. West Ham's side of the deal went badly, with Hugill restricted to only a handful of appearances before being sold on at a significant loss.
Preston's transfer record stood at £1.8m for 23 years, then moved twice in three seasons, culminating in a £6m fee for a player who had not even completed a full season on loan at the club before the permanent deal was struck.
Hugill's £10m sale fee still sits below the record sales of fellow Lancashire clubs Blackburn Rovers (£22m) and Bolton Wanderers (£15m), a reminder of where Preston sit in the regional pecking order even at their own transfer peak.
