McKinsey Intern Salary: Full Pay Breakdown by Program

Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: October 28, 2026

 

McKinsey intern salary is roughly $21,250 for a 10 week undergraduate Summer Business Analyst internship and roughly $36,900 for a 10 week Summer Associate internship at the MBA level. This guide breaks down what each McKinsey internship program pays, what sits on top of base salary, and how the numbers stack up against BCG and Bain.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

McKinsey pays interns a prorated version of the full time salary for the role they would enter after graduation, which puts a 10 week undergraduate summer at roughly $21,250 and a 10 week MBA summer at roughly $36,900.

 

  • Summer Business Analyst interns earn about $9,000 per month, or roughly $21,250 across a 10 week summer

 

  • Summer Associate interns at the MBA level earn about $16,000 per month, or roughly $36,900 for 10 weeks

 

  • Intern pay is not negotiable, and every intern in the same program and office is paid identically

 

  • Relocation support, travel reimbursement, and a 50% MBA tuition contribution add real value on top of base pay

 

  • Bain pays slightly more than McKinsey at both levels, but the undergraduate gap is only about $1,250 a summer

 

  • The bigger prize is the return offer, which 80% to 90% of McKinsey interns receive

 

How Much Do McKinsey Interns Get Paid?

 

McKinsey interns get paid roughly $21,250 for a 10 week undergraduate Summer Business Analyst internship and roughly $36,900 for a 10 week Summer Associate internship at the MBA level. That works out to about $9,000 per month for undergraduates and about $16,000 per month for MBA students, before any relocation or travel support.

 

Here is what each McKinsey internship program pays in the United States, based on 2026 Glassdoor and Levels.fyi reporting alongside the firm's published full time base salaries.

 

Program

Who it is for

Monthly pay

10 week total

Summer Business Analyst

Undergraduate juniors and non-MBA master's students

~$9,000

~$21,250

Summer Associate

First year MBA, PhD, JD, and MD students

~$16,000

~$36,900

Sophomore Summer Business Analyst

Second year undergraduates

~$6,000 to $9,000

~$19,000 to $23,000

QuantumBlack and digital tracks

Technical graduate students

~$10,000

~$23,000

 

One number does the work of all four. McKinsey takes the annual base salary of the role you would enter after graduation, divides it by 52, and multiplies by the number of weeks you work.

 

What Is the McKinsey Summer Business Analyst Intern Salary?

 

The McKinsey Summer Business Analyst intern salary is approximately $21,250 for a 10 week program, or about $9,000 per month. That figure comes from prorating the full time Business Analyst base salary of roughly $112,000 across a 10 week summer.

 

According to Glassdoor data as of August 2026, McKinsey Business Analyst interns report a median base of $9,000 per month, with a reported band of $8,000 to $10,000. Reported additional pay adds a median of roughly $943 per month on top of that. Levels.fyi puts the hourly rate for McKinsey Business Analyst interns at approximately $52.

 

That $52 hourly figure deserves a caveat most salary pages skip. It assumes a 40 hour week.

 

Consulting summers do not run on 40 hour weeks. If you work 55 hours in a typical week, the same $9,000 month translates to closer to $38 per hour. In my experience coaching candidates through summer programs, the average McKinsey intern week lands somewhere between 50 and 65 hours, with the last two weeks of the summer running hottest as final deliverables come together.

 

None of that makes the internship a bad deal. It just means you should compare consulting internships on total summer earnings rather than headline hourly rates, since the hourly numbers you see quoted are almost always calculated off a 40 hour assumption that nobody actually works.

 

What Is the McKinsey Summer Associate Intern Salary?

 

The McKinsey Summer Associate intern salary is roughly $36,900 for a 10 week internship, or about $16,000 per month. This is prorated from the full time Associate base salary of approximately $192,000, which is the level MBA, PhD, JD, and MD graduates enter after finishing their degree.

 

Program length matters more here than at the undergraduate level. The Summer Associate program runs 8 to 10 weeks depending on the office and your school calendar, and pay is prorated weekly. An 8 week program at the same rate comes out closer to $29,500.

 

There is one benefit at this level that dwarfs the summer paycheck. McKinsey covers 50% of remaining MBA tuition for summer interns who accept a full time offer, which at a top program is worth more than the entire internship salary. Add the $30,000 signing bonus attached to the full time McKinsey Associate salary and a strong summer is worth well into six figures before your first full time paycheck clears.

 

What Do the Sophomore and Technical Internships Pay?

 

McKinsey pays sophomore and technical interns on the same prorated basis as everyone else, which puts the sophomore program at roughly $19,000 to $23,000 for a 10 week summer. Glassdoor submissions for the program cluster between $6,000 and $9,000 per month.

 

The Sophomore Summer Business Analyst program is the main early entry point, aimed at second year undergraduates from underrepresented backgrounds in North America. It runs 10 weeks, the same as the junior summer program, and pay is prorated from the same $112,000 Business Analyst base. McKinsey does not publish a rate for it, so treat any single number you see quoted as an estimate rather than a fact.

 

The technical tracks pay noticeably better on a monthly basis. According to Levels.fyi internship data, a McKinsey software engineering intern in San Francisco reported $57.69 per hour and $10,000 per month for a Summer 2023 program, with relocation covered. QuantumBlack data scientist, digital analytics, and digital engineering internships sit in that same range.

 

Program availability shifts from year to year. The sophomore program was cancelled for the 2027 graduating class and reinstated the following cycle, so confirm your track is running before you build a plan around it.

 

Why Do Reported McKinsey Intern Salary Figures Vary So Much?

 

Reported McKinsey intern salaries range from $10 per hour to $155,000 per year across major salary sites, and almost none of that spread is real. Three specific data problems explain nearly all of it, and once you know them you can throw out most of the numbers you find.

 

Aggregators mix unrelated intern roles together

 

Salary sites group every job titled "Intern" into one bucket. Indeed reports an average McKinsey intern rate of $33.89 per hour, drawn from just 7 job postings that blend consulting interns with administrative, research, and support interns. That average tells you nothing about the Summer Business Analyst program.

 

Some sites annualize a 10 week salary

 

Glassdoor lists the McKinsey Summer Business Analyst median base at roughly $123,000 per year as of January 2026. That is the annualized rate, not what lands in your bank account over a summer. Multiply the monthly figure instead: it is the only version that reflects what you actually earn.

 

Sample sizes are tiny and self reported

 

The Glassdoor Business Analyst intern figure rests on 12 submissions as of August 2026. A single mistyped entry moves the average by hundreds of dollars, which is how a $10 per hour report ends up sitting next to a $46 per hour report for the same role in the same city.

 

The fix is simple. Start from the full time base salary for the role you would enter, divide by 52, and multiply by your program length. That single calculation gets you within a few hundred dollars of the truth for any MBB internship and beats every aggregator average on the internet.

 

What Bonuses and Benefits Do McKinsey Interns Receive?

 

McKinsey interns receive relocation and travel support, structured training, and formal mentorship rather than the signing bonuses attached to full time offers. The most valuable extra is the tuition contribution for MBA interns who convert.

 

  • Relocation and housing support: varies by office and program, with full time hires receiving assistance worth up to $10,000

 

  • Travel reimbursement: flights, hotels, and meals are covered for interns staffed on engagements that require travel

 

  • Structured training: a formal onboarding week covering problem structuring, analysis, and client communication before you touch live work

 

  • Dedicated mentorship: each intern is assigned a consultant mentor and a partner sponsor from their host office

 

  • Formal reviews: a mid summer review and an end of summer review, with the second one determining your return offer

 

  • MBA tuition contribution: 50% of remaining tuition for summer interns who accept a full time offer

 

Signing bonuses sit on the full time side of the equation. Undergraduate hires receive about $5,000 and MBA hires about $30,000 when they accept a full time role, so a strong summer is what puts that money within reach rather than paying it out over the summer.

 

How Does McKinsey Intern Salary Compare to BCG and Bain?

 

Bain pays the highest intern salary among MBB firms at both the undergraduate and MBA level, with McKinsey second and BCG a close third. The total spread across all three firms is about $1,500 for an undergraduate summer and about $3,500 at the MBA level.

 

Component

McKinsey

BCG

Bain

Undergraduate intern (10 weeks)

~$21,250

~$21,000

~$22,500

MBA intern (10 weeks)

~$36,900

~$36,500

~$40,000

Full time undergraduate base

~$112,000

$110,000 to $115,000

~$112,000

Internship length

10 weeks

10 to 12 weeks

10 weeks

Additional intern pay

Relocation varies

Up to $10,000 for Growing Future Leaders

$1,000 relocation

 

BCG's variable internship length is the quiet detail in that table. All three firms pay roughly $2,100 per week to undergraduates, so a BCG office running a 12 week program hands you two extra weeks of pay that the summer total column hides. Comparing weekly rates gives you a cleaner read on the BCG intern salary than comparing headline totals.

 

Bain's edge shows up again at the full time level, where MBA total compensation runs slightly ahead of both competitors. If you are weighing offers, the Bain intern salary advantage of roughly $1,250 over a summer works out to about three extra days of pay. That is not a reason to pick a firm.

 

MBB intern pay has now been flat for three consecutive years. Starting salaries at both the undergraduate and MBA levels have not moved since 2023 at any of the three firms, which is unusual for a market that raised pay almost annually through the prior decade.

 

How Much Do McKinsey Interns Earn Outside the United States?

 

McKinsey's US offices pay the highest intern salaries globally, and the gap is wide. A London Business Analyst intern earns roughly £9,400 to £10,600 for a 10 week summer, which converts to well under the $21,250 a US intern earns for identical work.

 

Pay is set by local market, not by headquarters. Apply the same proration formula to each office's full time base salary and you get the following picture for a 10 week undergraduate summer.

 

Location

Full time Business Analyst base

Prorated 10 week intern pay

United States

~$112,000

~$21,250

United Kingdom

£49,000 to £55,000

~£9,400 to £10,600

Germany

€63,000 to €80,000

~€12,100 to €15,400

Singapore

SGD 100,000 to 120,000

~SGD 19,200 to 23,100

 

Do not read those numbers as a verdict on which office to target. A McKinsey London intern salary looks thin against New York until you account for lower healthcare costs and a very different tax treatment of student income.

 

The office you intern in also tends to be the office you join full time. Picking a market purely on intern pay optimizes for 10 weeks and ignores the next 10 years.

 

How Does Your Intern Salary Connect to Your Full Time Offer?

 

Your McKinsey internship salary is a preview of your full time compensation, because both are calculated from the same base. Between 80% and 90% of McKinsey summer interns receive a return offer, which makes the summer the highest paid job interview you will ever take.

 

Here is what converting actually gets you in year one.

 

Component

Business Analyst

Associate

Notes

Base salary

~$112,000

~$192,000

Flat since 2023

Performance bonus

Up to $18,000

Up to $40,000

Rating dependent

Signing bonus

~$5,000

~$30,000

Repayable if you leave early

Total first year

~$135,000

~$262,000 to $267,000

Excludes retirement contributions

 

Run the arithmetic on that and the internship stops looking like a summer job. Ten weeks of work at roughly $21,250 is the gateway to a role paying about $135,000 in year one, and the full McKinsey salary progression pushes past $260,000 within a few years of returning post MBA.

 

McKinsey also contributes a minimum of 7.5% of base and bonus to full time employees' retirement accounts without requiring any contribution from you. For a Business Analyst, that is roughly $8,400 a year that never shows up in a salary comparison table.

 

Can You Negotiate Your McKinsey Intern Salary?

 

No. McKinsey sets intern pay by cohort, so every intern joining the same program in the same office earns the same amount. In over a decade of coaching candidates into MBB offers, I have never seen a firm move on entry level or intern base pay, and asking tends to cost you goodwill with a recruiter you will work with for years.

 

Two things are genuinely within your control. The first is which program you apply to, since Summer Associate pay is roughly 74% higher than Summer Business Analyst pay for the same 10 weeks.

 

The second is which office you join. Base salary is consistent across US offices, which means a summer in a lower cost city leaves you with meaningfully more money at the end of it than the same pay in New York or San Francisco.

 

What Does It Take to Earn a McKinsey Intern Salary?

 

Landing the offer is the hard part, and the pay is standardized precisely because the selection is not. McKinsey accepts less than 1% of applicants, and internship rounds are held to the same bar as full time hiring.

 

The process runs in three stages after your application clears the resume screen.

 

  1. McKinsey Solve: a gamified digital assessment that measures how you handle ambiguous data under time pressure

  2. First round interviews: two interviews, each combining a case with personal experience questions

  3. Final round interviews: two or three partner led interviews with harder cases and deeper follow up on your stories

 

Cases decide most outcomes at this stage. My case interview course walks you through proven strategies in as little as 7 days, saving you 100+ hours of trial and error.

 

The other half is your personal stories. The McKinsey PEI probes three traits across every interview: personal impact, entrepreneurial drive, and inclusive leadership. Candidates who prepare cases and neglect these stories are the ones I see get cut in final rounds.

 

The McKinsey intern salary is worth chasing, but the number is fixed the moment you sign and there is nothing you can do to move it. Put your energy into the one variable that changes your outcome: start structured case practice at least eight weeks before applications open, because the offer is what determines whether you earn $21,250 this summer or nothing at all.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

How Much Does a McKinsey Intern Make Per Month?

 

A McKinsey Summer Business Analyst intern earns about $9,000 per month in the United States, which matches the Glassdoor median base pay of $9,000 per month reported as of August 2026. MBA level Summer Associate interns earn roughly $16,000 per month. Monthly pay is set by prorating the full time base salary for the role, so it does not change with your office.

 

How Much Do McKinsey MBA Interns Get Paid?

 

McKinsey Summer Associate interns earn roughly $36,900 for a 10 week internship, or about $16,000 per month. That figure is prorated from the full time Associate base salary of approximately $192,000. Programs that run 8 weeks instead of 10 pay proportionally less, closer to $29,500.

 

Do McKinsey Interns Get a Signing Bonus?

 

Signing bonuses at McKinsey are attached to full time offers rather than internships. Undergraduate hires receive about $5,000 and MBA hires receive about $30,000 when they accept a full time role. Interns typically receive relocation and travel support instead, and MBA interns who accept a full time offer get 50% of their remaining tuition covered.

 

How Long Is a McKinsey Internship?

 

The Summer Business Analyst internship runs 10 weeks, typically from late May or early June through August. The Summer Associate program for MBA students runs 8 to 10 weeks depending on the office and the academic calendar. Because pay is prorated weekly, a shorter program means a smaller total paycheck at the same rate.

 

Does McKinsey Pay Interns More Than BCG or Bain?

 

No. Bain pays the highest intern salary among the three firms at roughly $22,500 for a 10 week undergraduate summer and roughly $40,000 at the MBA level. McKinsey sits in the middle at roughly $21,250 and $36,900, and BCG is close behind at roughly $21,000 and $36,500. The spread is small enough that it should not decide where you go.

 

Do McKinsey Interns Get Housing?

 

McKinsey does not provide company housing for interns. The firm offers relocation and housing support that varies by office and program, and it covers travel costs for interns staffed on engagements that require travel. Full time hires receive relocation assistance worth up to $10,000, and some offices extend a smaller version of that to interns. Check your specific offer letter.

 

Can You Negotiate a McKinsey Intern Salary?

 

No. McKinsey sets intern pay by cohort, so every intern joining the same program at the same level is paid identically. There is no room to negotiate base pay at the intern or entry level. The only variables you control are which program you apply to and which office you join.

 

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