Arts employers could be breaking the law by relying on unpaid interns to perform roles that should be left to paid workers, preventing young people from working-class backgrounds from gaining a foothold, experts have said.
A 2023 study into job quality in the sector cited research showing that nearly nine out of 10 workers said they worked for free in some way, and just under half of those under 30 said they had completed an unpaid internship.
“The creative sector has been using unpaid internships for so long without penalty that it has become an embedded way of doing things,” said the British Film Institute’s director of skills and workforce development, Sara Whybrew.
“Common tactics include misclassifying interns as volunteers, offering expenses-only roles while assigning real work responsibilities, or using unpaid internships or training as trial periods for future employment,” she said.
Martin Bright, the founder of Creative Society, a youth employment charity, said employers persisted with unpaid internships “because they can get away with it” given an oversupply of graduates.
