Internships have grown to become a crucial part of the graduate job market. Offering graduates an invaluable opportunity to gain hands-on experience, develop key skills, and build their networks, they can be formative experiences for those trying to kickstart their career. But our previous research has highlighted a persistent and pervasive…

The COVID-19 pandemic has already had a considerable impact on Britain's job market. Young people entering the job market this year are likely to be particularly badly hit, with youth unemployment following the 2008 recession twice that of the overall unemployment rate. Some academics predict the youth unemployment rate could even go above 25% due…

Internships are the new rung on the professional ladder. For the most sought after professions especially, they are increasingly seen as a requirement before a young person is offered their first job. However, too often internships are unpaid and not openly advertised. For young people who cannot afford to work for free, and for those who do not…

Earlier this year, the Sutton Trust released "Internships -- unpaid, unadvertised, unfair"; which examined current available evidence on internships in the UK. Following increased attention to the topic in the period since the Sutton Trust first looked at this issue in 2014, there appears to have been some progress on the lack of pay for…

This brief analyzes the latest higher education data and government wage statistics to examine the number of unpaid graduate interns in the United Kingdom and the cost to an individual of doing an unpaid internship. It also includes newly published Ipsos Mori polling on attitudes to unpaid internships. Key findings in this brief include: (1) 31%…