England top scorers: The 10 men with the most goals for the Three Lions, ranked!

Harry Kane has become the joint-England top scorer after converting a penalty against France in the World Cup 2022 quarter-final.

He's now just one goal from having the title all to himself – and at just 29 years old, who would bet against him?

But he follows in a long list of goal-getters for the Three Lions. So who are the other England top scorers and how do their records compare to the current captain?

FFT runs you through the biggest hitters in English football history...

10. Vivian Woodward - 29 goals

Caps: 23

The only man on this list to have more goals than games in an England shirt. Woodward was a pre-war hero, notching 29 strikers between 1903 and 1911. His ratio of 1.26 goals per game is an astonishing feat and keeps Frank Lampard (who scored 29 in 106 games) off this list. 

9. Tom Finney - 30 goals

Caps: 76

Preston North End's hero of the '40s and '50s has the lowest goals-to-games ratio (0.39) on this list. Yet that comes as little surprise, given Finney was more of a winger than an all-out striker. 

8. Alan Shearer - 30 goals

Caps: 63

Big Al's Premier League record of 260 goals looks like it will be safe for a good while yet, but his status as a top 10 scorer for England might not last as long. Thirty goals in 63 appearances is an excellent return for the former skipper, however, whose heroics at Euro 96 almost brought football home. 

7. Nat Lofthouse - 30 goals

Caps: 33

Boasting one of the best goals-to-games ratios in England history, Lofthouse was a juggernaut of 1950s football. His 285 goals for Bolton Wanderers make him the Trotters' all-time leading marksman, while his Three Lions strike-rate puts him at a comfortable seventh on the list. 

6. Michael Owen - 40 goals

Caps: 89

Despite an injury-hit career, Owen’s 10 years in the England team are more than many of the names ahead of him. He scored at four separate major tournaments, most memorably as a teenager at the 1998 World Cup when his solo goal against Argentina marked his emergence on the world stage.

5. Jimmy Greaves - 44 goals

Caps: 57

The name in Kane’s sights at club level, with Greaves' Tottenham tally something the current England captain has spoken about hoping to surpass in the future. Greaves’ average of three goals every four games (0.77 goals per match) is the second-highest on this list.

4. Gary Lineker - 48 goals

Caps: 80

The 1986 World Cup Golden Boot winner scored 10 major-tournament goals for England – a record since matched by Kane – and managed five international hat-tricks including four-goal hauls against both Spain in 1987 and Malaysia in 1991. A missed penalty against Brazil in 1992 would have equalled the record then held by Charlton. 

3. Bobby Charlton - 49 goals

Caps: 106

The 1966 World Cup winner scored on his debut in 1958, just two months after surviving the Munich air disaster which killed eight of his Manchester United team-mates. He broke Sir Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse’s previous record of 30 by 1963 and scored twice in the 1966 semi-final, finishing one short of a half-century. He eventually saw his United and England records both overhauled by Rooney. 

2. Wayne Rooney - 53 goals

Caps: 120

Also England’s most-capped outfield player, Rooney only scored once at a World Cup finals tournament, against Uruguay in 2014, but his six European Championship goals leave him fourth among England scorers at major tournaments behind Kane, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer.

1. Harry Kane - 54 goals

Caps: 81

Kane reached 50 goals in just seven years of international football. He won the World Cup Golden Boot in 2018 and, at 29, pushed ahead of Wayne Rooney as England's top scorer after converting a penalty against Italy in a Euro 2024 qualifier.

Just how many more he can put on top to safeguard that status is anyone's guess.