By Luke Grierson, Third Year, Politics and International Relations
Minimum wage, based in central London, and six to eight weeks long. Many undergraduate internships meet multiple, if not all, of these criteria - which for many students are huge barriers. Currently, too many students are prevented from grasping these opportunities because of financial, geographic, and social constraints. If employers are serious about improving social mobility, they must proactively change how their internship opportunities work to make them more accessible. To be truly accessible, internships need to pay fairer, cover accommodation and transport costs, and be more evenly distributed across the UK.
It’s clear that disadvantaged students lose out. Young people from a professional family background are three times more likely to have completed an internship than those with working-class or long-term unemployed parental backgrounds. While some employers, such as the Civil Service, have recently ringfenced opportunities for working-class students, these measures fail to provide the accessibility required to truly promote social mobility.
Money is a substantial barrier. Only 37 per cent of internships paid the national minimum wage or more in 2024. For the many students who spend their summer breaks working at pubs, restaurants, and warehouses to earn enough money to cover the basic cost of living in Bristol, this poses a significant barrier. An eight week commitment to being underpaid, compared to a summer of consistent hospitality work, is just not viable to some. The result of this is the exclusion of students who can’t afford to not earn a stable and decent wage over the summer from many of these vital early-career experiences.
The geographic distribution of opportunities worsens things. In London, 80 per cent of employers offer an internship, compared to 60 per cent nationally. This London-centric skew is replicated in the percentage of students from London having at least one internship sitting at 64 per cent, compared to only 47 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber. The figure in Scotland was 41 per cent, and in Wales a damning 35 per cent. Students based in Wales are a shocking 29 per cent less likely to complete an internship than their London based counterparts, a stark reflection of the capitals economic dominance and a clear divide in the geographic distribution of opportunities.
For students outside of London and the south-east, the challenge is compounded. Most coveted internships are London based and require a full-time commitment, meaning students from outside of London and the South-East have to scramble to find overpriced accommodation in long term Airbnb lets or student halls. These lets often come at the cost of over half the total internship earnings and provide little home comforts or room for work. The financial loss due to this often excludes those from outside of the capital who cannot afford its sky-high prices.
Amelia Edwards
Organisations that claim to promote social mobility must act to make their internships more accessible to the students they apparently want to attract. Opportunities must be better paid, include accommodation and travel support, and diverge outside of London. The United Kingdom already suffers from some of the highest inter-regional inequalities in the industrialised world. Offering more accessible work-experience opportunities would be a simple and pertinent way to begin closing the gap. It’s time for organisations to be serious about social mobility.
Featured image: Epigram / Elizabeth Rayner
Where do you sit on the internship-accessibility scale?
