Meet the eternal intern

It’s 9pm and 23-year-old Sarah-Rose Harrison has just finished her working day at a fashion magazine in London. She is exhausted – yet remarkably cheerful for someone in the middle of her 13th internship in a series of placements that has spanned five years. ‘I start every internship with hope, but they’re pretty much all the same,’ she says.

‘I spend the first week completing tasks the previous intern didn’t finish, or fixing problems they left behind. As the placement continues, my responsibilities increase. l work from 10am to 6pm – often later – calling in products from fashion PRs, returning clothes to the stores that lent them and packing suitcases for shoots. Then, when the internship is ending, I train the next intern to take over my role. The following week – with any luck – I’ll start my next internship.’

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Education and social mobility charity The Sutton Trust estimates that almost a third of graduate internships are completely unpaid. Some are awarded ‘expenses’ for the duration of their internship (enough for a sandwich and a local train ticket). Others receive nothing.

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Recent research from The Sutton Trust found that interns in London spend £926 per month on rent, food and other outgoings (£788 per month in Manchester) – and that’s not including transport. Being paid merely lunch and travel allowances doesn’t come close to covering that.

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The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 people intern unpaid every year – The Sutton Trust reckons 22,000. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank says it could be as many as 100,000.

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