WA internships pay highest compared to other states, report says. Tech jobs could be why

For early-career workers and college students, internships are an excellent way to build experience, network with industry veterans and help launch young workers into full-time positions. But bring up the topic of internships in a conversation and you may hear someone exclaim “unpaid or minimum-wage internships should be illegal.” In that regard, Washingtonians shouldn’t fear.

A January report from the financial company CashNetUSA found that Washington state offers the highest compensation to interns compared to any other state in the U.S. – at $20.92 per hour on average. Washington beat out notable states like California, paying $20.78 per hour, and Connecticut with $20.39.

To compile the list, CashNetUSA looked at internship job data across more than 100 industries from employment website Chegg Internships. They also used the career website Zippia to analyze the average pay for states and industries. On its Best Companies in Washington list, Zippia ranked tech and software companies Microsoft at first, Amazon at seventh and Tableau Software at ninth.

In addition, the Evergreen State has a low rate of unpaid internships at just under 12%. In comparison, a little over a quarter of internships in both California and Oregon are unpaid. Delaware has the highest rate of unapid positions, at one third of all internships.

WA opportunities in tech, STEM

Opportunities at Microsoft and Amazon, both headquartered in the Seattle area, helped bump Washington’s rank to the top, according to the study. Authors note that Microsoft offers interns around $7,100 on average, while Amazon regularly pays $6,400.

Amazon currently has over 20 internship openings in Seattle for students enrolled in undergraduate, master’s degree, MBA and PhD programs. Examples of open positions include security engineer, user experience designer, software development engineer, product design engineer and more. Microsoft also has internship programs in Redmond for students in areas such as UX Design, data and applied science, hardware engineering and IT operations.

It’s a good area to stay and get full-time employment, too. A recent WalletHub analysis ranked Seattle the top U.S. metro area for STEM professionals.

CashNetUSA also notes that the tech industry overall pays interns the most on average, at $19.77 dollars an hour. Additionally, unpaid tech internships are considerably rare, accounting for only 2% of all available positions.