Growing gap in access to internships, study suggests

The gap between working class and middle class graduates accessing work-related internships is growing, research suggests.

The Sutton Trust said the trend is driven by employers continuing to underpay interns, and giving opportunities to family and friends rather than advertising them.

A poll of more than 1,200 recent graduates, conducted by Public First for the Sutton Trust, showed half have undertaken an internship, a growth of 12% since 2018.

Graduates in London were significantly more likely to have undertaken an internship than those in the West Midlands, Yorkshire, Scotland and Wales.

Almost a third of graduates say they were only able to access their current job thanks to their internship.

But the report added the gap between working-class graduates and their middle-class peers in accessing internships has widened since 2018, now standing at 20% compared to 12% in 2018.

The proportion of working-class graduates completing an internship is now 36% compared to 55% for their middle-class peers, said the education charity.

It warned confusion over the law and a lack of enforcement means some employers are escaping sanction for offering unpaid or underpaid internships for work that should pay the legal minimum wage.

Most current unpaid or underpaid internships are likely to be illegal under existing regulations, but the current system relies on interns themselves reporting non-paying employers, the trust said.

Around three-fifths of internships undertaken by recent graduates were unpaid or underpaid, the study indicated.

Almost one in four were paid less than the minimum wage, 17% came with expenses only, and a fifth had no compensation at all.

Graduates who undertook unpaid internships were able to do so because they received money from parents, lived at home or with family or friends, or used savings, it was found.

Internships were almost twice as likely to have been found through family and friends in an organisation compared to an advertisement, said the Sutton Trust.

Chief executive Nick Harrison said: “Internships are an increasingly critical route into the best jobs and it’s shocking that in this day and age, many employers still pay interns below the minimum wage, or worse, nothing at all.

“The Government has pledged to ban unpaid internships, which is absolutely the right thing to do. Clearly not all young people can get support from the bank of mum and dad so banning this outdated practice will help to level the playing field for these valuable opportunities.

“As well as paying interns properly, there’s also a whole lot more that employers must do to make sure they’re accessing a wider pool of talent, such as advertising internship opportunities rather than taking in family and friends of their existing staff or biggest customers.”