If you are looking for a unique and exciting internship experience in a welcoming and supportive environment, where you can apply your knowledge and interest in policymaking in a business context, the APCO internship programme will give you the hands-on experience you desire. We are looking for a smart and ambitious political aficionado - in return, we offer an initial 6-month paid internship, with genuine scope for the role to become permanent after the internship period.
The role
Interns are immediately treated as members of the APCO family working with staff at all levels, participating in client work, pitches, and collaborating with colleagues. We offer interns a true taste of what it’s like to be a Public Affairs professional. You will have a well-rounded experience that includes social events, networking, team building, mentorship, and a learning and development programme.
We are looking for an intern to work with our Public Affairs team on a variety of campaigns and accounts. In London, we work across a range of international clients across sectors such as Tech, Sustainability, Healthcare, Financial Services, and, of course, geopolitics.
2025 promises to be a hugely exciting year in the political calendar. By joining our team, you will be working with colleagues across APCO’s international network of 32 offices who are open, collaborative, collegiate, supportive, and diverse.
Key responsibilities would include
- Provide general research and intelligence to clients (e.g. monitoring media, political developments, policy and legislative updates, stakeholder mapping)
- Drafting clients materials and presentation decks
- Preparing first drafts of agendas, contact reports, and activity reports
- Keeping up to date with current trends and news related to APCOs clients
The successful candidate will be/have
- Someone with a passion and enthusiasm for policymaking, advocacy, and campaigning
- Someone with a genuine interest in the communications space, who will thrive on the variety and diversity of agency life
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Enjoys working with a team with strong organisational skills
Benefits
We are recognised as one of the best agencies to work for in our industry, providing:
- The opportunity to work on a diverse range of clients and projects with some of the public affairs industry’s best and brightest
- A collegiate and collaborative working environment, where you will work closely with colleagues from around the world through the APCO international office network
- A hybrid work environment in which employees have the flexibility to work from our office and/or home
- A strong commitment to the values of diversity and inclusion
- Significant opportunities to develop professionally, with extensive training and personal development programmes
- A competitive compensation and benefits package, including health & wellness benefits
How do I apply
Applications for our Public Affairs Internship are now open.
As part of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we conduct a blind recruiting process for all entry-level roles, meaning that all applications are anonymous at the initial screening stage. While you will be asked to upload your CV/Resume to the job posting, we will be keeping these separate from our initial recruiting process and ask you to answer the below STAR-method style interview questions in writing to apply for the scheme. We will be reviewing, and shortlisting candidates based on these answers, and not on CVs. CVs will be viewed only at the first stage interview.
We advise you to write your answers in Word initially and to cut and paste them into our application form (which you can find by clicking apply to this posting).
- What is your approach to working on several projects in parallel? How do you address competing priorities or deadlines? (250 words maximum)
- Describe a time you were given a project and the assignment was completely new to you and something that you had never done before. How did you tackle it? (250 words maximum)
- What has your biggest achievement been to date? What results that you produced are you most proud of? (achievements can cover projects you undertook during your education, your personal time or your career). (250 words maximum)
- What are the greatest challenges the current UK Government will face in achieving their Net Zero ambitions? (500 words maximum)
About us
APCO London has over 135 staff working across more than 100 clients and sits at the centre of the agency’s global operations. Thanks to a diverse and multilingual team, APCO London leads on many of the agency’s most dynamic global assignments. With a growing client base in the most pressing issues facing the world today such as the transition to Net Zero and access to healthcare, APCO has been a fixture of the UK communication’s market since 1996 and continues to be at the forefront of the seismic changes facing economies and societies today.
We are a truly integrated agency, with deep expertise and experience across the full range of communication offerings including corporate communications, public affairs, capital markets, digital strategy and paid media.
