Are you looking to gain work experience? Apply to intern abroad. Placements overseas are the perfect opportunity for students or anyone seeking work experience to learn new skills, boost your resumé/CV and see new parts of the world. You can find paid internships abroad, whilst some companies offer help in arranging placements, travel, transfers and accommodation.
Featured Internship Opportunities
Top Rated Internship Providers
Global Work & Travel
Get hands-on experience whilst exploring a different part of the world on an internship with Global Work & Travel. Apply to join placements in the UK, Italy, France, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Costa Rica, Thailand, Mexico and Fiji.
Gap Year World
Do you want to take a gap year? Keen to boost your CV? Gap Year World is the number one gap year website to use where you can find internships, work experience placements, paid jobs, working holidays and volunteer programs in 100+ destinations around the world.
InterExchange
Do you want to immerse yourself in another culture while also making great strides in your career path? InterExchange Career Training programs in the USA are for you! Add international experience to your resume, build your global network, improve your language skills, and take time to travel the country and make friends.
GVI
GVI offers some of the most highly rated intern abroad programs in the international sustainable development sector. Every year, hundreds of students complete and past alumni have gone on to work at top global organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Unilever and Deloitte. Students can join for 4 – 24 weeks and placements are available for summer and all year round.
Top Reasons to Intern Abroad
Here are some of the main benefits of interning:
• If you are lacking experience in a certain industry this is a great way to boost your knowledge
• Improve your skills by working with experienced staff
• Have the opportunity to learn and develop new skills
• Build confidence
• See whether a certain job or industry is right for you
• Make new contacts both professionally and personally
• Boost your career prospects
Types of Placements
You can apply direct to companies around the world independently or apply through an international sending agency. You can find internships in every industry, these are some of the most popular areas:
• Architecture & Design
• Arts
• Business / International Business
• Culinary
• Education
• Engineering
• Environmental, Ecology, Horticulture
• Event Planning
• Fashion
• Graphic Design
• Information Technology
• Journalism & Media
• Law
• LGBTQ
• Marketing & PR
• Medical & Healthcare
• Non-Profits
• Pharmacy
• Psychology & Social Work
• Social Media
• Sports
• TEFL Teaching English
• Theatre
• Tourism & Hospitality
• Translation
• Veterinary / Equine Veterinary
• Volunteer
Best Places to Intern
You can find placements all around the world, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Oceania and the Middle East. Some of the most popular destinations include the UK, Spain, USA, China, Thailand, Argentina, Mexico, Singapore and Australia. Locations like London, Paris, New York, Madrid, Sydney, Dublin, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Los Angeles are popular cities to apply.
Work Experience Placements
Although there are many types of work experience – from part-time work to work shadowing – structured placements and internships are a particularly popular way to gain career skills. They happen in a specific time frame, are usually project-based and almost always involve some structured training.
As they are usually focused on one career area, they can improve your employability more than other forms of work experience. You can explain what you achieved on a specific project to other employers and get training in some sector-specific skills.
These aren’t the only benefits, however. Once you have done an internship, you have a great chance of being offered a job by the employer with whom you did the placement, and larger companies often sponsor successful interns through their final year.
Many students returning from work placements also report that the experience has sharpened their study skills. An internship enables you to put what you have learnt into an industrial or business context in a way that you couldn’t before, and you can develop skills like time management and the ability to focus.
Internships and placements: what’s involved?
Most internships are offered to students in the summer before their final year, and year-long placements almost always make up the penultimate year of a sandwich degree course. However, once you have been accepted on to a programme, employers are usually flexible if you need to defer, particularly if this is for reasons out of your control. Gap year internships are also available which are very popular.
Organisations of all sizes offer placements and internships.
There is a tendency for small- to medium-size businesses to want people who already have some work experience, as the smaller the organisation, the less time there is to train people in basic work skills such as writing professional e-mails. On the other hand, students in small and medium-size businesses can quickly find themselves being given quite large amounts of responsibility.
Larger organisations tend to be less concerned with previous work experience, as they have the resources to train anyone in almost anything.
Work placements are offered across the country, although the formal summer internships offered to penultimate-year students by large graduate employers are often based in cities like London.
Paid internships
In the UK, some companies pay as much as £23,000 for a year in industry, the average is about £14,000. There are very few work-experience placements / internships that pay less than £10,000 a year. In terms of weekly pay, you can expect between £150 and £250.
Pay for holiday placements varies, but large companies usually offer competitive packages, sometimes more than £300 per week.
The benefits of placements
It is true that some companies view placement schemes as a cheap way of getting in touch with the latest academic thinking. However, placements are so valuable to students starting out in their careers that there are advantages for everyone involved.
It is common for companies to use placements to road-test people for permanent appointments. In general, between 20% and 30% of interns are offered graduate jobs by the companies they work for. So internships can be the first step on the ladder to career success. What are you waiting for?
FAQ
How to be a good intern
These qualities make an internship successful: strong interpersonal skills, ability to multi-task, taking constructive criticism well, strong communication and writing skills.