Internship rate of pay

KonFusion

What's the average pay for interns these days?

Edit: To expand on this:

I work for a small web company. We do client work.

We're looking for another intern (we already have X amount) since one of our interns just left (finishing a masters and needed more time off).

Previously we've targeted via jobbridge, and students (so they were summer intern-ships).

What I'd like now is a graduate. There'll be a guaranteed job at the end of it and they will learn a great deal. A sample of what they'll learn:

• PHP
• Sass
• HTML5
• Javascript
• Version control (Git)
• CSS3
• Wordpress
• Shopify
• Familiarity with other ecommerce platforms (OpenCart, Magento)
• Balsamiq (Wireframing)
• UX

and more.

They will initially work 3 days per week. (approx 18-20 hours)

What is a fair wage? (feel free to include +/- expenses)

Seridisand

Anywhere from €0 - €400pw

I've just been looking at positions today. If you're applying through Intreo/Jobbridge schemes, then you will get your social welfare payment + €50.

There are quite a few positions available on the FÁS website at present too.
It all depends on where and how you're applying. Most I've spoken with will throw a few quid cash-in-hand if you perform well as an extra thanks but this is completely at their discretion.

KonFusion

christs chin wrote: »

I've just been looking at positions today. If you're applying through Intreo/Jobbridge schemes, then you will get your social welfare payment + €50.

We've gone through jobbridge for a previous intern. This time we're just going without it, so I'm curious as what's considered a fair rate of pay for interns. Don't want to exploit/screw anyone over

XxMCRxBabyxX

I was on over 500pw pre-tax on a very well paid internship before but I know others who were on an unpaid year long internship and were being paid nothing although the eventually managed to up that to travel expenses and then 100pw.

KonFusion

I just updated the OP to give people a better idea of what I'm looking for advice on.

a fat guy

I suppose it depends on how much work they put in in the end.

I'm actually just after graduating myself, but I'd need something to pay for a roof over my head since I don't live anywhere near Dublin. Someone living in Dublin wouldn't need as much money though, so bear in mind where they're coming from too.

The rate for junior developers is between 25000 and 30000 PA too by the way, so take away the difference between a junior job and an internship if you actually want to pay them a good wage for the work they'll be doing.

amen

What I'd like now is a graduate. There'll be a guaranteed job at the end of it and they will learn a great deal.

so why hire an intern? Hire someone on a three month contract and pay them 1/4 of a grad developer salary (maybe a little less). If after 3 months you like them/they do good work you keep them on and make sure you give them the full grad salary level.

If not let them go.

stevenmu

Tbh if you're looking for a graduate then you're not hiring an intern. Maybe it's the same thing for some industries, but for software development I've always considered a graduate position to be something above an internship. A graduate is someone who is qualified, but not yet experienced. IMHO internships are for people not yet qualified.

IMHO if you want a graduate, then you should be positioning it as a graduate level role, and paying appropriately (pro-rated for the amount of hours worked of course).

awec

Plenty of people do internships after graduating. These tend to be the people who chose not to do one while they were still a student.

fergalr

amen wrote: »

so why hire an intern? Hire someone on a three month contract and pay them 1/4 of a grad developer salary (maybe a little less). If after 3 months you like them/they do good work you keep them on and make sure you give them the full grad salary level.

If not let them go.

If you hire someone on a three month contract, you should expect to pay them contract rates.

Why not just hire someone as an employee with a 3 month 'probation' period (standard enough for a grad, no?) and give them a decent grad salary?

If you want to hire a graduate, then set out to hire a graduate and pay accordingly; dont try market it as an internship. The difference in pay over the first 3 months, amortised over the lifetime of the employee, is hardly worth putting better people off the position for, is it?

Its generally a bad plan to hire someone for a job and underpay them at the start, but plan to pay them more later. You save very little money, and by underpaying at the start you make it harder to get quality.

KonFusion

Fine points all round.

Hence why I started the thread

Devi

KonFusion wrote: »

We've gone through jobbridge for a previous intern. This time we're just going without it, so I'm curious as what's considered a fair rate of pay for interns. Don't want to exploit/screw anyone over

Just out of curiosity op, why don't you want to use jobsbridge again? The reason I'm asking is I was thinking of doing one but if they are considered substandard I might give it a miss.

lemon_remon

The "big" companies in Dublin, like Google, MS, Oracle and Amazon pay around a 22,000 salary to their interns. Also, if you actually want an intern and not a graduate you could contact the careers services in the ITs and universities.

He Who Dares Wins

I am currently doing an 6 month internship for college and getting paid plus my BTE. Something to get me through 4th year

ChRoMe

He Who Dares Wins wrote: »

I am currently doing an 6 month internship for college and getting paid plus my BTE. Something to get me through 4th year

For the sake of the thread, it might be an idea to post what you are getting paid.

fergalr

ChRoMe wrote: »

For the sake of the thread, it might be an idea to post what you are getting paid.

Why, how much do you get paid, ChRoMe?

Its generally in employees' interests to have more information about salary rates.
But I think an intern should only post their remuneration on a public forum if they want to volunteer it - I wouldn't say to do it 'for the sake of the thread'.

KonFusion

fergalr wrote: »

But I think an intern should only post their remuneration on a public forum if they want to volunteer it - I wouldn't say to do it 'for the sake of the thread'.

I get what you're saying, but I asked what the average pay was. It's the point of the thread. Simply stating that one gets paid is fairly useless to me.

ChRoMe

KonFusion wrote: »

I get what you're saying, but I asked what the average pay was. It's the point of the thread. Simply stating that one gets paid is fairly useless to me.

Indeed.

fergalr

KonFusion wrote: »

I get what you're saying, but I asked what the average pay was. It's the point of the thread. Simply stating that one gets paid is fairly useless to me.

I think its fine to ask people, in general, what their impression of intern salaries are. (FWIW, the numbers lemon_remon gave sounded low, to me, for good companies like MS. But its been a long time since I had an internship.)

Its a different story to ask posting interns directly to reveal their own salary on the thread. Especially if you would be unwilling to post your own salary.

Anyway, I'm not even sure its useful to ask people to post their salary.

There aren't a lot of posters, and you'd need a few to get a good estimate.

Plus, you'll introduce all sorts of bias if you ask posters to put their salaries in the thread.
People will be tempted to over-inflate their salaries.
Even if they don't, if the first guy posts '28k', the next reader who is on 15k might be less willing to contribute to the thread.


Maybe some sort of anonymous poll might help. Options for 'I am/was an intern recently, and I got paid X' or 'Interns in my company get paid Y'.

You'd still need the volume of responses, but it'd be better than asking people in the thread.

ChRoMe

fergalr wrote: »

Why, how much do you get paid, ChRoMe?

I'll answer this in a roundabout way I'm in the top 10% of all of the UK.

fergalr

ChRoMe wrote: »

I'll answer this in a roundabout way I'm in the top 10% of all of the UK.

Haha! Im in the top 10% of the ENTIRE WORLD!

ChRoMe

fergalr wrote: »

Haha! Im in the top 10% of the ENTIRE WORLD!

Fair play

Tar.Aldarion

That's less that the top 10% of the uk lols. Also it's depressingly easy to get into the top percentages world wide.

fergalr

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

That's less that the top 10% of the uk lols. Also it's depressingly easy to get into the top percentages world wide.

Yes, agreed.

I'm currently working as a cofounder of a very young startup, so I'm quite sure I wouldn't make it into the 90th percentile in the UK. The humour was me pretending I thought that 'the entire world' was better than the UK...


But I was also intending to provide some social commentary against the idea of quantifying our salaries in percentiles, which I don't really like.
Most of us in western europe easily make the top 10% of the world; but that isn't something we should be particularly happy with.


The metrics we use to quantify things carry subtle baggage.
If I listen to people talk about how high their salary is, I actually prefer to hear people talk about in absolute terms [0], because at least that is some proxy to the wealth they are creating.

If we quantify our salaries in percentile terms, the mindset can become more about capturing more of the pie, rather than making the pie bigger.


Conversely, I have a long standing dislike of how many institutions quantify poverty as 'relative poverty' which is really a measure of income inequality. Inequality may cause other problems, but if everyone gets much more pie, even if the rich get a bigger percentage, I think thats often net good.


I guess thats part of being a technologist, right? Our work is very abstract, and we spend a lot of time on problems that are inherently 'first world' in nature, but hopefully we are hoping to make the pie bigger.


[0] (Someone might object and say 'well, the value of the currency unit in which salary is denominated is not fixed or objective and hence not absolute; what with quantitative easing, inflation, etc' but thats a red herring, its easy to talk about the amount of food, or light or heat etc we can acquire per time worked)

Ricky91t

I did an internship/work placement last year, the majority were on a wage roughly comparable to minimum, some a bit more, some a bit less. Some were asked to work for free and others were getting paid 22,000.

To be honest, I was very happy with minimum wage and think it's enough to keep a student type person interested and living comfortably. Any less and people will be making compromises, living at home, living in a crappy place and not being enthusiastic about the work due to this.

More than that, won't make any difference, I'm sure there's be studies done on it, heavily incentivised tasks/job positions usually result in the person doing less work.

fergalr

Ricky91t wrote: »

More than that, won't make any difference, I'm sure there's be studies done on it, heavily incentivised tasks/job positions usually result in the person doing less work.

There's cognitive dissonance where sometimes people who are underpaid report a higher job satisfaction because they are subconsciously trying to reconcile their doing an unsatisfying job with their poor pay.

But I'm not sure that generalises to 'if you pay your interns more, they will work less'.

I would say that if your talented interns feel they are being taken advantage of it could damage their morale - taking someone who could be a great employee, and demotivating them.

Cognitive dissonance can cut both ways - you could have someone really enthusiastic about their job to start with, who then realises they are getting exploited, and things 'well, f*** these guys', and maybe they'll stick the job out til the end of the internship, but their mind has already left the building. I wouldn't risk this with interns for the sake of a couple of grand pro rata.

Also, anyone that ever works with your company is a marketing asset for your company, positive or negative, in future. Its a small world out there.

ChRoMe

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

That's less that the top 10% of the uk lols.

I was going to let it slide