Internship cover letter samples for UK students and graduates

Example letter

Copy the letter

Example

Aisha Rahman

Birmingham

aisha.rahman@example.com

07700 900731

10 November 2026

Mr Tom Ellery

Early Careers Manager

Calder & Wye Consulting

Birmingham

Re: Summer Internship 2027, Sustainability Consulting, ref. CW-SI-27

Dear Mr Ellery,

I am applying for your ten-week Summer Internship 2027 in Sustainability Consulting (ref. CW-SI-27), which I found on my university's careers portal. I am in the second year of a BSc in Geography at the University of Birmingham, and your recent work helping housing associations plan for heat pumps is the kind of project I would like to start my career on.

For my second-year group project, I led a team of four measuring energy use in six student houses. I designed the survey, analysed the meter readings in Excel and presented our recommendations to the landlord, who has since fitted loft insulation in two of the houses. The project taught me to turn raw data into advice a client can act on.

Your advert asks for strong written communication and confidence with data. As editor of the Geography Society newsletter, I write and publish a monthly issue for 400 members, and I work 12 hours a week in a supermarket, where I have learned to manage my time around my studies and to stay polite under pressure.

I would bring curiosity, careful analysis and a real interest in housing, and I hope to learn how consultants scope a project and present it to a client. My CV is attached. Thank you for considering my application; I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Aisha Rahman

This internship cover letter sample answers a fictional advert. The opening names the programme, the reference, where it was found and the student's course and year, then links them to a real project of the employer. The middle paragraphs give two pieces of evidence with results, matched to the two skills in the advert. The close says what the student would bring and what they hope to learn, which Prospects recommends: explain what the opportunity would do for you, but also what you could do for the company.

Formal internship programmes are competitive. Prospects' internship cover letter guide gives four rules worth following:

• Match each requirement of the advert, even with experience from another context: teamwork, seeing a project through, innovation.
• Use the words of the advert, since letters may be pre-selected by automatic scanning at large companies, and readers skim for them anyway.
• Tailor every letter. Recruiters know students apply for many internships, so say something specific you admire about the company, without laying it on too thick.
• Sound enthusiastic and let your personality show: recruiters want to see what makes you tick.

Keep it to one side of A4, as Prospects advises for every cover letter, and name your university, course, year and expected graduation date in the first paragraph so the reader can place you at once.

Each example below gives the opening and the main evidence paragraph. Combine it with the template further down, your own greeting and the matching sign-off. All names and companies are fictional.

Writing to a small firm with no advert? Find a name first: our guide on how to address a cover letter explains where to look. For the first lines of any letter, see how to start a cover letter.

1. Read the advert twice and note the skills, the dates, the location and the closing date.
2. Research the employer: a recent project, a client, a value you share, something you heard at a careers fair or an insight event.
3. Open with the programme and yourself: its exact name and reference, where you found it, your course, year and graduation date.
4. Choose two pieces of evidence that match the advert: a module or dissertation, a society role, a part-time job, a project. Give each a result.
5. Say what you would bring and what you want to learn, in two sentences, not a paragraph.
6. Close politely and sign off correctly: ‘Yours sincerely’ after a name, ‘Yours faithfully’ after ‘Dear Sir or Madam’ or ‘Dear Hiring Manager’.

Before you apply, check what the advert offers. According to GOV.UK, ‘internship’, ‘work placement’ and ‘work experience’ have no legal status on their own: your rights depend on whether you are a worker, a volunteer or an employee.

• A worker is normally due the National Minimum Wage, and an employer cannot avoid it by calling you a volunteer in a written agreement.
• An intern promised a contract of future work counts as a worker.
• Students required to do an internship of less than one year as part of a UK further or higher education course are not entitled to the minimum wage.
• Work shadowing, where you only observe and do no work, does not have to be paid.

There is no need to raise pay in your internship cover letter. If the advert is unclear, ask the employer before you accept, and contact the Acas helpline if you think you are being underpaid.

• Talking only about what the internship will do for you, and nothing about what you bring.
• Opening with an apology for having no experience instead of with your strongest evidence.
• Sending one letter to every programme: Prospects suggests showing how you match each requirement of this advert.
• Forgetting your course, year and graduation date, which tell the recruiter whether you are eligible.
• Writing ‘Dear Sir or Madam’ then ‘Yours sincerely’: a general greeting ends with ‘Yours faithfully’.

Your CV goes with the letter: see our student CV examples and graduate CV examples.