Every year, from around March to November, major companies in Lagos open internship A.K.A graduate trainee slots for fresh graduates. Some pays well and train you well enough. Some may not pay but the experience still look good on your CV. This post lists the top internships that come back every year, what you should expect from each, and where to apply.
Lagos State Graduate Internship Placement Program, known as GIPP
This one comes from the Lagos State Government, not a private company. It opens once a year, usually around March, and closes about a month later. The 2026 cycle closed applications on April 10.
GIPP is not really an internship in one company. Lagos State registers you on their portal, and private organisations and some government agencies pick candidates from that collection. So the actual work you’ll do depends on which employer picks you.
Who can apply:
- Have a B.Sc or HND in any course of study
- Have completed NYSC, or have your exemption letter
- Be registered with Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA)
- Have 0 to 5 years of work experience after graduating
What you get: A monthly stipend that has moved from ₦40,000 a few years back to ₦60,000 in the current cycle. You also get soft skills training before you’re placed, and mentorship while the internship is running.
Does it offer accommodation? No. This does not offer a resident, so you will handle your own housing and transport.
How easy is it to enter? Fairly easy compared to bank or Big Four internships. There’s no aptitude test as tough as what you’d meet at KPMG or Access Bank, mostly an online skills test and your LASRRA registration. The catch is that thousands of graduates register every year, and being picked by an actual employer after registration is not guaranteed.
Advantages: Open to any course of study, no work experience required, and it’s a real government-backed programme, so it’s legit. It also gives you an NYSC-adjacent work history if you never got a good Place of Primary Assignment.
Disadvantages: ₦60,000 a month is low for Lagos rent and transport. And because it’s demand-driven, some registered graduates wait months without being picked by any employer.
The Big Four internship and graduate trainee programmes: KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, EY
These four accounting and advisory firms run internship and graduate hire cycles every single year in Lagos, and this is the one category on this list where “prestige” actually matters for your CV later.
KPMG Nigeria: runs two tracks. The Undergraduate Internship is for students who have finished their second year but are not yet in final year, runs 6 to 12 weeks, usually starting June. The separate Graduate/Pre-NYSC Internship is for graduates waiting for NYSC posting, and typically runs June to September for a minimum of 6 weeks. Applications for the Graduate Trainee Programme (the full-time entry point after NYSC) usually open around August, with a deadline early the following year, like the March 6 deadline for the 2027 cycle.
PwC Nigeria: runs a Graduate Associate Programme with two lines, Advisory and Assurance, and applications typically open early in the year with an April deadline window.
Deloitte and EY: also run internship cycles that open mid-year, with Deloitte’s applications typically running July to September for October to December placements.
Eligibility across the four is fairly similar:
- Minimum of second class upper for most graduate tracks (KPMG accepts second class upper for graduate hire; some intern tracks are more flexible)
- Minimum of 5 credits in WAEC/NECO including Maths and English
- Completed or about to complete NYSC for the full graduate programmes
- Strong performance in an aptitude test and interview stages
What you get: A monthly stipend during internship (KPMG and PwC don’t publish exact figures, but past interns have reported amounts in the range of ₦100,000 to ₦150,000 a month for interns, and full graduate trainee pay running into hundreds of thousands monthly once you’re hired full time). You also get real client exposure, technical training, and in most cases, a shot at full-time employment if you perform well.
Do they offer accommodation? No. All four firms run these as day programmes in Lagos, so you’re expected to sort your own housing.
How easy is it to enter? This is the hardest category on this list. Thousands apply for a few hundred spots, and the process runs through online aptitude tests, situational judgement tests, and assessment centres or partner interviews. If your CGPA is below second class upper, most tracks will screen you out before you even get to the test.
Advantages: Big Four experience opens doors almost everywhere else in Nigerian finance, banking, and consulting. The training is genuinely structured, not just admin work.
Disadvantages: Very competitive, and if you don’t convert to full-time after the internship, you’re back to job hunting with just a few months on your CV. Some interns also describe the workload as heavy for the stipend paid.
Apply here: apps.ng.kpmg.com/careers and pwc.com/ng/en/careers
Bank entry level and internship programmes: Access Bank, GTBank, Zenith, First Bank, UBA
Nigerian banks run some of the biggest and most consistent graduate intakes every year, and Access Bank’s Entry Level Training Program (ELTP) is one of the best documented.
The ELTP has three tracks: ELTP Grad for high performers with a 2:1, ELTP Retail for customer-facing roles requiring at least a 2:2, and ELTP Tech for digital and IT roles. Training happens at the Access Bank School of Banking Excellence, and the programme itself runs about 4 months before trainees are deployed to a division.
Who can apply:
- A Nigerian university degree, minimum grade depends on the track
- 0 to 2 years of work experience
- Must have completed NYSC
- Not older than 26 at the time of application, for most tracks
- Comfortable with Microsoft Office and basic digital tools
What you get: A monthly stipend or salary during training (the bank doesn’t publish a fixed naira figure publicly, but it’s described as competitive for the sector). You also get structured classroom and on-the-job training, and access to the bank’s Access Recreational Centre once you’re an employee.
Does it offer accommodation? Not for the standard ELTP inside Nigeria. Some of Access Bank’s pan-African relocation programmes for other countries do cover flights, accommodation and meals, but the Lagos-based ELTP does not include housing.
How easy is it to enter? Moderate to hard. There’s an online application, aptitude test, and interview stages, and the bank receives a very large number of applications each cycle since banking jobs are still seen as stable in Nigeria.
Advantages: Structured training, a real shot at long-term banking employment, and banks like GTBank, Zenith and UBA run near-identical yearly cycles, so you have multiple shots across the sector in the same season.
Disadvantages: Bank jobs come with strict targets once you’re deployed, especially on the retail and marketing side, and the hours can be long.
Apply here: careers.accessbankplc.com/careers/internships
Tech company internships: Andela, Interswitch, Paystack, Flutterwave
Lagos tech companies don’t always follow a fixed yearly calendar the way banks do, but the bigger names run recurring internship cycles that show up around the same months most years.
Andela’s internship runs about 3 months, Interswitch’s varies by team and role, Paystack’s runs about 6 months, and Flutterwave’s runs 3 to 6 months. All four are based in Lagos and all four pay a stipend, though none of them publish the exact naira figure on their public job pages.
Who can apply: Requirements vary by role, but common ones across these companies include:
- A relevant background in software engineering, product, data, or design
- A portfolio, GitHub profile, or personal project you can show
- Comfortable working with a small, fast-moving team
- Some, like Andela, prefer candidates already through NYSC or close to it
What you get: Hands-on product work, not admin tasks, which is the biggest selling point of this category. You’ll often be added to a real engineering or product team from day one, not shadowing.
Does it offer accommodation? No, none of these run as residential programmes in Lagos.
How easy is it to enter? Depends heavily on your skill level. If you can code, design, or handle data analysis at a decent standard, tech internships in Lagos are actually less about your CGPA and more about what you can show in a technical test or portfolio review. That makes it more accessible for self-taught graduates than the Big Four or banks, where the paper qualification screens you first.
Advantages: Real, practical skills that transfer to freelance and remote work later, and Lagos tech companies hire more casually and continuously through the year compared to the fixed-season banks and consulting firms.
Disadvantages: Fewer slots than banks or GIPP, so competition per opening is high. Pay can also be inconsistent between companies, some pay well, some barely cover transport.
FMCG and manufacturing graduate schemes: Nigerian Breweries and similar
Nigerian Breweries runs a Graduate Management Development Scheme every year, usually with separate tracks for Supply Chain, Digital & Technology, and Finance. It’s a 12-month, fully residential training programme, and this is one of the very few on this list that actually houses you during training.
Who can apply:
- Minimum of second class upper degree, in a Science or Engineering discipline for the Supply Chain track
- Five credits in WASC/GCE/SSCE including Maths and English
- Must be Nigerian and willing to relocate to any brewery location in the country after training, not just Lagos
What you get: Free daily lunch, an in-house bar for staff, medical cover, and a fully residential training programme. Graduates who finish are typically appointed as Shift Managers in Brewing, Packaging, Logistics, or as Automation Engineers, so this scheme leads directly into a management-track role, not just an internship certificate.
Does it offer accommodation? Yes, and this is the standout point. The 12-month scheme is described as fully residential, which is rare on this list.
How easy is it to enter? Hard, and narrower than the Big Four in one way: it’s mostly for Science and Engineering graduates, so if your degree is outside those fields, you likely won’t qualify for the core tracks.
Advantages: Real accommodation and feeding during training, a clear management-level role at the end, and Nigerian Breweries has been running this scheme for years, so it’s proven.
Disadvantages: You could end up posted anywhere in the country after training, not Lagos specifically. Similar FMCG and oil and gas companies like Unilever, Nestlé, Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil run comparable graduate and internship schemes, and it’s worth checking each one’s careers page separately since they don’t all open at the same time.
Apply here: nbplc.com/careers
What actual work experience from these programmes does for your career
A lot of graduates think an internship certificate alone gets you hired. It doesn’t. What actually helps is being able to describe, in an interview, one specific thing you did: a transaction you helped process, a dashboard you built, a client report you contributed to. Employers hiring for full-time roles will ask “what did you actually do,” not just “where did you intern.”
That’s also why the Big Four and bank programmes tend to carry more weight later, they involve structured tasks you can point to. GIPP and some tech internships can go either way; it depends heavily on which employer or team you’re placed with.
How to apply, in general
Almost every programme on this list follows the same rough steps, even though the platforms differ.
- Create an account on the company’s own careers portal. Don’t use a third-party site to submit your application, always go through the company’s own page.
- Fill in your bio-data, academic details, and upload your CV and transcript where asked.
- Take the online aptitude or skills test if one is required. For banks and the Big Four, this stage alone eliminates a large number of applicants.
- Attend the interview or assessment centre stage if you scale the test.
- Wait for an offer letter, and confirm your resumption date once it comes.
A hard warning: don’t pay anyone for a form, test, or “guaranteed slot” for any of these programmes. None of the companies on this list charge applicants money at any stage. Ok
