Those who take only a passing interest in the world of women’s football might not be aware of just how in-depth it runs, offering more than just the Women’s Super League.
Elsewhere on this site, you can read about the history of both the WSL and the WSL 2, in addition to the Women’s National League North and the Women’s National League South, alongside all parts of the women’s football pyramid in England.
Within that, the Women’s National League Division 1 sits in the pyramid at the fourth level, being split into four different divisions that are based on the geographical positioning of the clubs that play in them.
The League’s History
The history of the Women’s National League Division 1 is tied up in the history of women’s football in general. What makes things slightly more confusing is the fact that the top-flight of the women’s game in England was initially known as the Women’s National League, which had a national premier division and two other divisions below it that were the Northern Division and Southern Division.
The Football Association took over the top-flight for the 1994-1995 campaign, renaming it as the FA Women’s Premier League, but it was the creation of the Women’s Super League that threw everything into a small degree of chaos.
After the 2012-2013 season, for example, the creation of the WSL 2 saw the National Division scrapped altogether. The Women’s Premier League was then restructured, seeing the four Combination Women’s Football Leagues brought in as a new Division 1, meaning that level three in the pyramid was now made up of the Northern and Southern National League divisions ,whilst a level below were four groups of Division One leagues split up into North, Midlands, South East and South West, carved out of the old Combination Leagues and brought into the broader national structure as the fourth tier of English women’s football.
The final change came in 2018 when the league received its current name and branding. The rebranding from the FA Women’s Premier League to the FA Women’s National League was partly a reversion to the spirit of the competition’s original 1991 name, and gave the structure the cleaner, more recognisable identity it carries today. The result is that the leagues are as follows:
- FA Women’s National League Division 1 Midlands
- FA Women’s National League Division 1 North
- FA Women’s National League Division 1 South West
- FA Women’s National League Division 1 South East
The Format
Each division has 12 teams competing in a 22-game season. The regional groupings are designed to limit travel burdens at the semi-professional and amateur end of the pyramid, whilst preserving competitive integrity across broadly comparable geographical pools. The champions of each Division 1 group are promoted to the respective Northern or Southern Premier Division, subject to meeting licensing criteria, providing a clear pathway to the third tier of English women’s football. For 2025-2026, there was a further change, whereby two additional teams were promoted from the fourth tier, alongside the four division winners.
These extra places were determined by play-offs, with the second-placed sides in Division 1 North and Division 1 Midlands facing each other for one place and the two second-placed sides in Division 1 South West and Division 1 South East competing for the other spot. This one-off change was made in order to retain divisions of 12 teams across Tiers 2, 3 and 4 for the 2026-2027 season, following the approved expansion of the Barclays Women’s Super League. Relegation remained unaffected, with the two bottom-placed sides from each division dropping down into their respective regional fifth-tier leagues.
Teams are ranked by points, then goal difference, then goals scored, which is the standard three-tier tiebreaker system across English football. All Division 1 clubs also enter the FA Women’s National League Cup. The 2025-2026 season saw a change to the format of the FA Women’s League Cup, with the introduction of a group stage and entry of Professional Game Academy sides. Clubs eliminated early from the League Cup enter the FA Women’s National League Plate, ensuring continued competitive football beyond the initial cup exit.