Fifa has confirmed England will be one of eight seeded teams when the World Cup draw takes place this week.
They will thus avoid favourites Spain and Brazil, who are two of the other seeded sides, in the group stage.
Argentina, Germany, the Netherlands, holders Italy and hosts South Africa make up the remaining seeded nations.
The 32 qualifiers will be assembled into eight groups on Friday in Cape Town when the draw is made from 1745 GMT for next summer’s tournament.
England are ranked only ninth in the Fifa world rankings but the impressive qualification campaign by Fabio Capello’s squad has reaped rewards.
Portugal, currently ranked fifth, and France, who are seventh, had problems making the big tournament in South Africa and have thus missed out on the seedings, which reflect October’s positions in the official table rather than those from November - the month in which the play-offs took place.
The eight seeds will all be in pot one, with the remaining three pots drawn on regional boundaries.
Each seeded nation will face one team in pot two - a side from Asia, north or central America, or Oceania - one from pot three, which has five African and three South American sides, and one from the exclusively European pot four.
Hosts South Africa will be automatically positioned as A1, the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H but will always be in position ‘1′ of their group.
Groups will be drawn from A to H and the positions in the group will be drawn for pots two to four.
No two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group).
For example, South Africa cannot play the African teams from pot three and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams.
Pots for Friday’s draw: eight groups of four countries to be drawn, each group containing one country from each pot.
Pot 1 (seeds): South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England
Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania and North/Central America): Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Mexico, Honduras
Pot 3 (Africa and South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay
Pot 4 (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia