Unpaid Interns: The ugly truth behind the UK’s fashion industry

If you happen to be a follower of fashion, spare a thought for the workers behind the glitz and glamour of London Fashion Week - because some of them are probably not even being paid.

The celebrity-laced event has gained a bad reputation over the years for the use of unpaid interns in the fashion PR industry, but it has been by no means alone in exploiting the desperation of young people for a career start.

According to a new survey by the Sutton Trust, a charity that champions social mobility, more than three fifths (61%) of internships undertaken by recent graduates were ‘unpaid or underpaid’, down only slightly since 2018. Just below a quarter (23%) were paid less than the minimum wage, while 17% came with expenses only and 21% had no compensation at all.

The current legal position is that interns are entitled to the national minimum wage if they are classified as a ‘worker’, defined as somebody who has a contract and is carrying out work as opposed to just observing.

Sutton Trust says: “Confusion over the law and a lack of enforcement means some employers are escaping sanction for offering unpaid or underpaid internships for work that should be covered by minimum wage law.

“Most current unpaid or underpaid internships are likely illegal under existing regulations, but the current system relies on interns themselves reporting non-paying employers.”

Of course, a lone intern is very unlikely to risk reporting their boss to a government agency. The law as it stands is therefore almost entirely reliant on the integrity of employers and most appear to fail the test.

Unfortunately, the Employment Rights Bill currently before Parliament fails to ban the practice. Instead, the government says it will use existing powers to tackle the issue after making a ‘call for evidence’ later in the year.

But it’s hard to see what more evidence is needed. The scandal of unpaid PR interns working their socks off during London Fashion Week first hit the headlines in 2011.

After that, the industry body for PR set up a register of agencies committed to paying their interns, but it was voluntary and many of the largest employers would not sign it.

Meanwhile repeated attempts in Parliament to get unpaid internships banned have floundered, with some MPs brazenly using the practice themselves to staff their offices with free labour.

Employer views on the issue have, however, gradually changed. In 2013, a government task force of senior business figures – including executives from Marks & Spencer, Diageo and Kingfisher – opposed an EU plan to take legally-binding action to stop abuses of work experience.

They said it would be a ‘barrier to growth’ and wanted UK employers to have ‘complete flexibility’ to run the ‘full range of schemes’ including no limits on unpaid work experience.

Fast forward 12 years, and the Sutton Trust survey found that only 20% of employers thought the status quo on unpaid internships should continue, while 38% wanted to see unpaid internships banned, and 30% favoured better enforcement of minimum wage legislation.

An argument often made against an outright ban is that it would deny young people access to work experience, but this is a red herring because those favouring action always stipulate that legislation should include a threshold of two or four weeks to allow for genuine work experience schemes.

Freshwater has over the years offered both. What we now call the Freshwater Futures programme has hosted seven work experience candidates in the last year, who have gained an insight into different marketing specialisms, been given advice on their CVs and job hunting, and had one-to-one mentoring.

Meanwhile, we are planning to re-launch our internship programme this summer – after a hiatus caused by COVID – through which two graduates will be employed on the Living Wage Foundation salary with a training budget to help them gain a relevant professional qualification.

While our policy is partly driven by ethics, the truth is that properly-paid internships have worked as well for the business as those employed. Not only have they been productive members of our team, many have also stayed with us long after their internship.

It is definitely about time unpaid internships were banned. The idea that growth requires people to work for nothing should have gone out of fashion long ago.

This article was written by our HR and operations director, Sarah Whittle and featured in the Western Mail on 24 February 2025.