The Southern Counties East Football League is an English football league established in 1966, which has teams based in Kent and Southeast London. Its two divisions are allocated at Step 5 and Step 6 of the National League System (which equates to Levels 9–10 of the overall English football league system). At its inception it was known for two seasons as the Kent Premier League and then, until 2013, as the Kent League.

There is no direct connection between this league and a previous Kent League that existed from 1894 to 1959, despite many clubs having spells of membership in both leagues.

The current league was formed in 1966, from teams in and around the county of Kent, when the Thames & Medway Combination (which had its origins in 1896) was expanded and renamed the Kent Premier League.^[1] The league began with fourteen teams - five of the six members of the final Thames & Medway Combination season (Deal Town Reserves, Orpington Athletic, Sittingbourne Reserves, Snowdown CW and Tonbridge Reserves) plus nine additional members (Ashford Town Reserves, Bexley United Reserves, Canterbury City Reserves, Faversham Town, Folkestone Town Reserves, Margate Reserves, Ramsgate Athletic Reserves, Sheppey United Reserves,Tunbridge Wells Rangers Reserves). Additionally the teams contested a league cup competition. Two years later in 1968 the league was renamed the Kent Football League.^[2]

During its first ten years many of the league's members were reserve sides of Southern League teams; in 1975 there was an unsuccessful proposal to exclude reserves teams from the primary division and instigate a second division.^[3] There followed several seasons by the league of discouragement of reserves teams^[4][5] until the 1978–79 season when a division for first teams only was established, titled Division One and reserve teams were shifted into a newly formed Division Two (which didn't exclude first teams); a Division Two knock-out cup competition was also initiated. Subsequently all divisions below the league's top division were known as the 'Reserves Section' and there was no automatic promotion/relegation from the Reserves Section into/from the top division.

The league continued with this format until the 1998–1999 season when the divisions were renamed as the Premier Division and Division One (from Division One and Division Two respectively) - with floodlights being a requirement for clubs in the Premier Division.^[6] The following season Division One was split into two equal ranked regional (North and South) Divisions with a play-off match between the two winners to decide the Division One champion. After reverting to a single Division One for the 2000–01 season, for both the 2001–02 and 2002–03 seasons Division One was again split into North and South Divisions. Thereafter for the following nine seasons the Reserves section was divded into two merit based divisions, Division One and Division Two, with promotion/relegation between the two divisions; Division One initially comprised the higher ranked teams from the two regional Division One leagues with the new Division Two taking the remaining teams. For the 2012–2013 season, the final one the league was known as the Kent League, the competition reverted to a two division format comprising the Premier Division and Reserves Section Division One.

In 2013 the league changed its name to the Southern Counties East League, to reflect that many of its member clubs no longer played within the county of Kent.^[7] and reverted to a single division for three seasons. At the end of the 2015–16 season, the league merged with the Kent Invicta League: the former single Southern Counties East League was designated as the Premier Division and the former Kent Invicta league became Division One.^[8][9]

From 1982 the league became a designated feeder league to the Southern League and during the following twenty seasons nine Kent League clubs gained promotion. From 2004, following further rationalisation of the structure of non-League football which saw the redrawing of the border between the Southern Football League and the Isthmian League, the Premier Division champions are promoted to the Isthmian League.

Prior to the 2011–12 season clubs could be relegated to the Kent County League, although in practice this rarely happened, albeit clubs had moved in the opposite direction on being elected to the Kent League. The formation of the new Kent Invicta Football League for the 2011–12 season created a league at Step 6 rather than Step 7 allowing for a less steep transition; clubs were regularly promoted from the Kent Invicta League but until it amalgamated with the SCEFL in 2015 no clubs were relegated to this step 6 league.

Following their sponsorship of the Kent League Cup for the 1984–85 season,^[10] cable-making company Winstonlead extended their sponsorship to cover the League and this ran for 15 seasons between 1985 and 1999 during which period the competition was styled as the Winstonlead Kent League. They were succeeded by brewing company Bass as sponsors for three seasons during which the league was titled the Bass Brewers Kent League.^[11] In 2002 Kent based travel agency business Go Travel were the sponsor with the competition known as the Go Travel Kent League. The sponsor changed in 2005 to the Kent on Sunday newspaper and for a single season, 2005–06, the league was known as the Kentish Observer League.^[12] There followed two years without a title sponsor until 2008 when it was sponsored for two seasons by Bulmers and named the Bulmers Cider Kent League.^[13] For the 2010–11 season, training and consultancy business Safety Net Associates were the sponsors with the league known as the Safety Net Associates Kent League.^[14] Thereafter for two seasons commencing with the 2011–12 season the league was sponsored by Hürlimann Sternbräu lager (brewed by Kentish brewers Shepherd Neame) and billed as the Kent Hurlimann Football League.^[15] After six seasons without a title sponsor, in November 2019 shipping company Sea Pioneer was named as sponsor with the competition known as the Sea Pioneer Southern Counties East Football League^[16] – this arrangement ceased with the interruption of football in March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The League's knock-out cup competitions have intermittently attracted separate sponsorship: from 2011 to 2018 the Challenge Cup was sponsored by sportswear brand Macron; the Reserves Section cup was known for the 2008–09 season as the HAUC (Highways Agency Utilities Committee) Reserves Cup and for the following two seasons to 2010–11 was sponsored by (infrastructure provider) Blu3.

Since 2016–17 the Premier Division is designated at Step 5 with Division One at Step 6 of the National League System (which equates to Levels 9–10 of the overall English football league system). Clubs are able to move upwards to the Step 4 divisions of the Isthmian League; teams are relegated into the Kent County League which is the feeder league into Division One.

As of the 2023–24 season the two divisions comprise the following clubs

• Cray Wanderers celebrate winning the title in 1981
• Maidstone United celebrate winning the title in 2006