Top Intern Programs 2025 – Methodology

The aim of the Top Intern Programs lists is to recognise those organisations which provide the most positive experience for their interns as determined by the interns themselves. The Top Intern Programs lists were determined based on responses captured in the 2025 AAGE Intern Survey conducted from July 2024 through to the end of February 2025.

​The survey received over 2,500 responses from students who were engaged in an internship program across the survey capture period.

The survey is completed anonymously and interns are asked to rate their employer on 15 different categories including:

• Induction and training
• Content of work
• Ability to work on different projects or in different areas of the organisation
• Quality of supervision provided by manager
• Amount of responsibility
• Access to senior management
• Feedback on performance
• Networking and engagement with peers
• Organisation's culture and values

All the individual responses from interns at a particular employer are combined and used to determine an overall average rating for that organisation. This same process is followed for each separate employer to produce an overall average rating for each organisation based on the responses of its own interns. This year, employers have been ranked in one of three lists of 20 based on their intake size, enabling improved comparability and usability. The three lists are:

• ​Top 20 Intern Programs (Small: intake of 20 or less)
• Top 20 Intern Programs (Medium: intake of 21-50)
• Top 20 Intern Programs (Large: intake of 51 or more)

​​A total of 60 employers are featured across these three lists and offer the Top Intern Programs for 2025.

This analysis of responses from interns in relation to 15 different categories provides a comprehensive measurement of each employer's performance across a broad range of criteria.  The use of overall average ratings (subject to a minimum number of responses) and lists categorised by intake size, results in a fair and objective list and enables improved comparability and useability.

The Top Intern Program lists does not include every employer that offers an intern program in the Australian market. Some employers did not participate in the intern survey and therefore we have no data to determine a rating. Other employers did participate in this survey but didn't have a sufficiently high response rate to be included in the analysis.

The survey is conducted by the Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE), the peak industry body for the graduate recruitment and development market.

​Definition

An 'intern' is broadly defined as someone pursuing a course of study who has been engaged by an employer in a formal work experience program, practically applying and developing skills learned through their study.

Such programs go by a variety of names including vacation work, clerkship, internship, practicum, industry placement and work integrated learning. We use 'internship' to describe all of these types of programs and 'intern' to describe all participants.​