So how much can you expect to earn on a typical summer internship? First of all, “typical” doesn’t really exist. There are a large number of employers (see the list below) who pay their interns more than the average annual wage for experienced workers. There are other internships (such as some offered in the medical field, education, etc.) where the internship pays nothing at all and is considered part of academic studies.
If you want to earn the big bucks in your internship, take a look at the following list which was just released by Glassdoor, based on reported intern salaries over the past year:
- Facebook internships: $8,000 per month
- Microsoft internships: $7,100 per month
- ExxonMobil internships: $6,507 per month
- Salesforce internships: $6,450 per month
- Amazon internships: $6,400 per month
- Apple internships: $6,400 per month
- Bloomberg L.P. internships: $6,400 per month
- Yelp internships: $6,400 per month
- Yahoo internships: $6,080 per month
- VMware internships: $6,080 per month
- Google internships: $6,000 per month
- NVIDIA internships: $5,770 per month
- Intuit internships: $5,440 per month
- Juniper Networks internships: $5,440 per month
- Workday internships: $5,440 per month
- BlackRock internships: $5,400 per month
- Adobe internships: $5,120 per month
- MathWorks internships: $5,120 per month
- Qualcomm internships: $5,040 per month
- Capital One internships: $5,000 per month
- Chevron internships: $5,000 per month
- Accenture internships: $4,960 per month
- Deutsche Bank internships: $4,640 per month
- AIG internships: $4,616 per month
- Bank of America internships: $4,570 per month
Those are pretty healthy salaries even at the entry level and beyond. So why are employers paying such a high rate for interns? Simple. Supply and demand. The demand for the best interns is high, so if you are one of the elite, you might find some big bucks being thrown your direction to get you to commit.
However, there are three important points to consider:
- These are average internship salaries. So the actuals may be higher for some disciplines and lower for other disciplines. It also explains why the majority of the employers listed are either tech or financial services, both of which tend to skew high.
- The internship isn’t about the money. Really, it’s not. Yes, the money is a nice bonus, but you should be looking for an internship which will provide you with the best experience. The dividends will be paid out in the future in the form of both greater job satisfaction and, yes, higher long-term earnings. So don’t despair if your internship isn’t paying at these rates.
- Salaries are higher in high cost of living areas. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep. Same thing applies for jobs after graduation. If you want to compare salaries in different cities against the local cost of living, check out our Salary Comparison Calculator at CollegeGrad.com.
And if you would like to know what the going rate is for both entry level and experienced jobs for dozens of different jobs in hundreds of different cities and metro areas, please check out our Salary Calculator. As with all of our job seeker tools, these are free for your personal use.
