If there’s one thing India’s graduating class is certain about in 2025, it’s this: they want internships, and lots of them. According to the India Skills Report 2025 by Wheebox, a staggering 93.22% of students surveyed expressed strong interest in internships before taking up full-time roles.

That’s nearly every student in the country seeing internships as a vital first step into the workforce.

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Students were definitely not this aware about building the right skills or getting industry experience even two decades before. And with the majority expecting a starting salary in the range of Rs 26-33 lakhs a year, they expect to be paid well for their skills too.

This signals a major shift in how young Indians perceive work readiness.

TAMIL NADU, UTTAR PRADESH AND KERALA LEAD INTERNSHIP INTEREST

When the data is broken down by geography, some clear hotspots emerge. Tamil Nadu tops the internship preference list with 97.46% of its respondents showing interest, closely followed by Uttar Pradesh (97.39%), Kerala (96.05%), and Karnataka (94.64%).

These states also happen to have large student populations and thriving engineering and management institutions — sectors that rely heavily on practical exposure.

For recruiters, this means the next generation of jobseekers is actively seeking learning-linked work, not just entry-level jobs. The data supports the growing trend of “internship-to-hire” models, where employers identify talent early and convert promi