Tech giant offers 18-year-old Brits £60,000 internships to skip university
US tech giant Palantir is offering promising UK school leavers a five-month internship at a salary of £60,000 per year.
Sporting the tagline, “Skip the debt. Earn the Palantir degree.”, the company’s Meritocracy Fellowship is available to exceptional young talent in the UK who have not previously earned an undergraduate degree and are not enrolled in university.
School leavers who have received their A Levels certificate by the start of the internship in Fall 2026 are eligible to apply.
Those exceptional candidates accepted into the fellowship programme will be employed for five months on a salary of £60,000 per year at Palantir’s London offices.
Those who excel during the internship period may be offered the chance to interview for a full-time position at Palantir.
The Meritocracy Fellowship is aimed at cultivating promising young talent, and Palantir said it values a range of qualities in candidates, including a high degree of autonomy and maturity, the ability to confront open-ended problems, good communication, and the willingness to learn proactively.
On the technical front, Palantir said candidates applying to the fellowship programme should have experience with programming, scripting, or statistical packages such as Python, R, Matlab, or SQL.
During the programme, interns will work alongside engineers and software developers at the data analytics company, and they will receive weekly learning sessions and site visits.
The Meritocracy Fellowship programme is set to start in Autumn 2026 and is currently open to applicants.
Palantir and the UK state
Even in the company of US tech giants, Palantir has attracted controversy globally for its involvement in US military operations around the world and the use of its software by governments and militaries with alleged links to human rights abuses.
The company’s reach penetrates across industries and nations. In the United Kingdom, its technology underpins the Federated Data Platform, a centralised database and analytics hub for NHS England, which is attempting to collate all patient health data in England to improve efficiency.
The NHS contract has come under fire recently, with some MPs rumoured to be talking about ending the contract when it comes up for renewal in early 2027.
Health charity Medact recently issued a brief to NHS trusts in partnership with charities and human rights organisations, warning them not to adopt the Federated Data Platform and encouraging the government to use an alternative solution that is not built on Palantir’s technology.
Palantir has since extended its reach into sensitive data managed by the UK state through a partnership with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The FCA awarded a three-month contract to the US company which will see it gain access to highly sensitive UK financial records.
Amongst the data that will be granted to Palantir are case intelligence files; lender reports on suspected frauds; consumer complaint information; and recordings of phone calls, emails, and social media posts.
