Chemistry Internships

What is a chemistry internship?

A chemistry internship is a short-term, structured work experience that allows students or recent graduates to apply their academic knowledge in a real-world laboratory or research setting. These internships typically take place during the summer.

Interns work under the supervision of experienced scientists, gaining hands-on experience with techniques such as chromatography, spectroscopy, titrations, and chemical synthesis.

Internships can be found in a wide range of sectors, including pharmaceuticals, environmental science, food and drink, cosmetics, energy, and academic research.

During an internship, you might assist with experiments, analyse data, prepare reports, or help maintain lab equipment. Some placements even involve contributing to ongoing research or product development.

Why should you do a chemistry internship?

Internships help you build practical lab skills, gain industry insight, and make valuable professional connections, all of which can give you a significant edge when applying for graduate jobs or postgraduate study.

They also offer a chance to explore different areas of chemistry (like analytical, organic, environmental, or medicinal chemistry) and decide what kind of career path suits you best.

Plus, most internships are paid, and in some cases, they can lead to offers of full-time employment after graduation.

What types of chemistry internships exist?

There are loads of niches you can choose from in chemistry. Let’s look at a few:

• Analytical Chemistry. Use instruments like HPLC, GC-MS, UV-Vis, or NMR to analyse substances and determine their composition. Your internship would be spent testing drug purity, analysing water samples, or ensuring product quality in manufacturing.

• Pharmaceutical & Medicinal Chemistry. Assist in drug discovery or formulation. You might synthesise new compounds or test drug stability. This could include contributing to early-stage drug synthesis, helping with bioassays, or working on regulatory documentation.

• Environmental Chemistry. Monitor pollutants, test soil and water samples, and help assess environmental risks. Your tasks would include things like field sampling, lab testing for heavy metals or pesticides, data analysis for pollution studies.

• Food and Beverage Chemistry. Test ingredients and final products for quality, shelf life, and nutritional content. Ensuring food safety standards, testing preservatives, flavour stability, or texture analysis.

• Cosmetics & Personal Care Chemistry. Work on formulation and safety testing of skincare, haircare, or fragrance products. Mixing sample batches, stability testing, analysing product pH and sensory properties.

• Organic/Inorganic Chemistry. Perform lab-based synthesis, purification, and characterisation of compounds. Making polymers, catalysts, dyes, or nanomaterials.

Here’s what an intern said about their time with AstraZeneca:

Here’s what an intern said about their time with GSK:

How much do chemistry interns get paid?

This will of course depend on where you are located and who you intern for. If you are based in London or another major city, you can expect to get a little bit more money to help you cover your living expenses. 

On average, chemistry interns get paid £19,000 annually, as found from reviews here at Higherin. 

By having a chemistry internship on your CV, you can open yourself up to so many avenues in your future career, and that includes high pay.

How to apply

1. Talk to your university tutor and lecturers. If you’re struggling to find a chemistry internship that you want to apply for, it’s worth talking to your university chemistry department. They may have contacts you can reach out to or even offer you some work themselves!

2. Think outside the box. There are other ways you can get experience besides applying to well-known corporations. For instance, The Royal Society of Chemistry runs an eight-week science writer internship, giving aspiring writers an opportunity to work for two publications: Chemistry World and Education in Chemistry.

3. Be proactive. Not all organisations advertise their opportunities online, simply because they don’t need to. If there is a company or academic researcher you’re interested in working for, there’s nothing stopping you from approaching them directly and making a speculative application.