Ministers have changed the entry requirements for the civil service’s Summer Internship Programme for undergraduates so that places will only be available to applicants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
The programme offers up to two months of paid work in government departments for students in the final two years of their degrees who have begun the application process for the Fast Stream.
In a just-announced tweak to the rules for the 2026 Summer Internship Programme, applicants for the anticipated 200 places will need to be “from a lower socioeconomic background” in addition to meeting other requirements that are unchanged.
The basis for determining whether the socioeconomic test is met is understood to be the jobs an internship candidate’s parents had when the applicant was 14.
Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said applicants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to get a place on the Fast Stream than more privileged graduates and that the new internship scheme rules represent a “first step” to changing things.
“We need to get more working class young people into the civil service so it harnesses the broadest range of talent and truly reflects the country,” he said.
“Government makes better decisions when it represents and understands the people we serve."
He added: “I want to open up opportunities for students from all backgrounds, and in every corner of the UK, so they can take a leading role at the heart of government as we re-wire the state and deliver the Plan for Change.”
Successful applicants for the 2026 internships will get paid £452 a week for work experience that could see them planning events, writing briefings for ministers, shadowing senior civil servants and carrying out research for policy development.
Participants will get a package of tailored support that includes being allocated a current fast streamer who will act as their “buddy”. Interns who perform well will be fast-tracked to the final stages of the Fast Stream selection process if they decide to apply for a job after graduation.
Competition for Fast Stream places is famously fierce. Figures for last year’s intake – recruitment for which began in 2023 – showed that fewer than 1,000 applicants were recommended for appointment out of more than 44,000 candidates.
In October last year Civil Service World reported that just 12% of successful applicants stated that their parents worked in “routine or manual jobs”, which would be one indicator of lower socioeconomic status. The proportion was down from 16% in the 2023 intake.
Dave Penman, general secretary of civil service leaders’ union the FDA, said rebalancing the internship programme to help people from less privileged backgrounds was a positive step.
“Improving access to the civil service for those from working class backgrounds is a valuable and necessary aim for any government – the Social Mobility Commission found that only 18% of senior civil servants are from working-class backgrounds,” he said, referring to research published in 2021.
“However, the civil service must also address broader issues around social mobility. For people from disadvantaged backgrounds, even if you do manage to get into the civil service, you will not always get on. More work needs to be done to support job progression to increase the number of people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in more senior roles.”
Fran Heathcote, general secretary of PCS – the civil service’s biggest union, also supported the internships announcement.
"We welcome the government's plan to get more working-class people working in the civil service,” she said. “But the civil service is struggling to recruit and retain staff because of endemic low pay. Attracting working-class talent must go hand-in-hand with pay restoration.”
Steve Thomas, deputy general secretary of the Prospect union, said it would be important to ensure that measures to rebalance the makeup of the civil service to better reflect the nation as a whole are implemented in “a fair and transparent manner”.
He added: “We also need to attract and develop more people with STEM and other specialist skills into the civil service and facilitate better progression and through their careers, so we have a better balance of backgrounds at higher levels.”
Applications for the next Fast Stream intake and the 2026 Summer Internship Programme open in October.
How has the summer internship scheme changed over the years?
Tevye Markson, Civil Service World's senior reporter
For a long time there was the Civil Service Summer Diversity Internship Programme, which was initially for undergraduates from ethnic minority and lower socioeconomic backgrounds only – and which later went on to include disabled students.
This version of the scheme had be going for around two decades before Rishi Sunak's administration replaced it in 2023 with a more general internship programme which removed all diversity criteria and meant the main requirement was to be in the last two years of your undergaduate course with an expected or achieved grade of 2:2 or higher. Sunak's government also paused the Early Diversity Internship Programme in 2023, and it has not been revived since.
Keir Starmer’s government has now changed the summer internship programme, stating that it will only be for students from a lower socioeconomic background.
The government has also increased the length of the internship slightly from 6-8 weeks to two months, and increased the salary from £430 per week to £452 per week.
Why is it important that the civil service has more representation from lower socioeconomic backgrounds?
Laura Blair, who is co-chair of the Government Socio-Economic Diversity Network, told CSW last year that the need to overcome adversity can lead to the development of more skills, and keep people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds motivated to work hard and pay it forward to help others in the future. She said they can also use that experience and knowledge to help shape policy and delivery of services that affect people from similar backgrounds.
What about other diversity indicators?
The statistics from the 2024 fast stream cohort show that those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds accounted for 21% of applications but just 12% of selected candidates.
They also show that ethnic minorities represented just 22% of those recommended for appointment, but made up 36% of total applicants.
And those from a "Black or Black British – African" background made up 10% of applicants, but just 1.5% of those chosen for recruitment.
Meanwile those from a white background made up 78% of successful applicants this year, up from 70% in 2023.
This suggests there is work to do across several indicators to bring in more young, talented people from different backgrounds into the civil service.