Hume, who was named Northern Ireland Player of the Year for 2025, believes there are “benefits” to both joining an academy side at the earliest opportunity and racking up senior games in the Irish Premiership before moving.
“If you stay in the Irish league you will achieve first-team football quicker and get yourself established,” he added.
“Going across at 16, you could get stuck when you’re in between first team and 21s, but every pathway is different.
“It just depends on the personality and attitude of the player that’s doing it, and if you truly believe you deserve to play.”
Hume’s own journey has taken him from the Irish Premiership to the Premier League in just four years and he said the play-off victory at Wembley and Sunderland’s start to the season in the Premier League made 2025 the “best year” of his career so far.
“Those moments [in the play-offs] and rolling on into the Premier League, the start we have had and the amount of games I have played, it’s been a dream really,” he continued.
“When I first signed in the January window [2022] we were second in League One and I signed hoping I was going to play and we’d win promotion.
“I obviously got one of those things and didn’t play as much as I wanted to.
“That was disappointing at the time, but I finally got the chance in the Championship the year after and kept myself in the team and here we are a good few years later. The journey has been amazing, I couldn’t have pictured it any better.”