Internships are quite common at this time of year follow the annual graduation cycle in late summer.
The term ‘intern’ doesn’t have a formal legal definition in the UK, but is of course a colloquial and commonly used term.
In fact though, such employees are best usually engaged as a ‘temporary employee’, that is to say, their employment contract has a definitive start and end date.
Importantly, interns must be paid the minimum wage for their age level, and during their employment they carry the full employment rights from vacation days to grievance procedures in the same way any permanently engaged employee does.
Do not employ an ‘intern’ without a formal employment contract as the default in the event of a dispute arising would be that of your company’s standard employment agreement of your permanent employees.
Michael Clarke
CFO