Offering internships used to be a way for full-time workers to get an undergraduate to fetch their coffee or send a fax—when those still existed— in return for minimal pay or none at all. Now, the tables have turned, at least in the high-growth sectors of tech, consulting, and finance.
The highest-paid interns make $9,667 a month at gaming company Roblox, according to a recent Glassdoor survey. That’s about twice the amount the average U.S. worker earns during that time. But Glassdoor found that most interns are still dissatisfied with their programs. Their unhappiness mostly correlates to the rise in remote work, which is unpopular among new workers who are looking to break into the workforce.
Highest-paying internships
Glassdoor compiled its list of the 25 top-paying U.S. internships by calculating the median salary at individual companies based on the self-reported data from interns in 2021 and 2022.
Tech companies, known for their six-figure salaries, are the most represented industry on this list. In fact, tech companies make up more than half of the top-paying internships, at 68%. Finance and consulting followed.
Most of tech firm internships were software engineering or development-related (at 60%). The most popular internships in finance were financial analyst roles.
Here are the top 5 of the 25 on Glassdoor’s list.
1. Roblox
Median monthly pay: $9,667
Industry: Tech
2. Uber
Median monthly pay: $8,333
Industry: Tech
3. Capital One
Median monthly pay: $8,333
Industry: Finance
4. Salesforce
Median monthly pay: $8,167
Industry: Tech
5. Amazon
Median monthly pay: $8,000
Industry: Tech
The rise of remote internships and dissatisfaction
But pay isn’t always enough to make interns satisfied. Turns out, unlike most full-time employees, interns aren’t fans of remote work, largely because they had hoped to network, find a mentor, or simply go into an office.
Glassdoor’s survey, based on reviews from 130,000 interns, found that their mentions of remote work increased drastically when the pandemic hit. During 2020, intern reviews that mentioned remote work rose a whopping 385% and decreased marginally in 2021 as companies returned to the office.
Glassdoor’s data shows a spike in negative reviews of remote internships starting in the summer of 2020. Since then, interns have continued to reference remote work negatively, and in the summer of 2021, about 70% of interns reviewed virtual work poorly. According to Glassdoor, some of the commonly shared complaints were the difficulty in communication and the extra hurdles of making connections on the job.
Internships can be used as an avenue of getting one’s foot in the door and trying to establish a name at a company. But increasingly dissatisfied interns are finding it difficult to do so when they can’t get into the office doors in the first place.
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