Pay As You Go? a Sutton Trust report analyses graduate internship pay, access and quality, offering recommendations on how we can ensure the best internships are open to all young people, regardless of their background.
It finds that 39% of graduates in their twenties have done an internship, including almost half (46%) of young graduates under 24. The average intern completes almost 2 internships each (1.8). Almost half (46%) of employers report offering internships, with large employers twice as likely to offer them as small businesses.
The report recommends that the law should be changed to make explicit that all internships longer than four weeks should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage. There remains significant confusion among employers and interns as to the law as it stands on unpaid internships. To increase clarity, the current law should be tightened to ban unpaid internships over four weeks in length.
However, such a move, unless very tightly defined, could risk including volunteering for charities inadvertently. This would have a major impact on the heritage sector.