Data Science & AI Internship 2026

About IK Partners

IK Partners (IK) is a European private equity firm focused on investments in the Benelux DACH France Nordics and the UK. Since 1989 IK has raised more than 20 billion of capital and invested in over 200 European companies. IK supports companies with strong underlying potential partnering with management teams and investors to create robust well-positioned businesses with excellent long-term prospects. For more information visit

IKs prime target markets include the Nordics Benelux France DACH and more recently the UK. Headquartered in London IK has additional offices in France Germany Denmark the Netherlands and Sweden for its dedicated regional investment teams consisting of over 90 investment professionals.

IK is an affiliate of Wendel. For more information visit

IK is looking for its new Data Science & AI Intern to support them during a full-time/part-time internship of 5 months from November 2026. The role will be office-based.

The Role

You will work directly with IKs Lead of Data Science & AI in the Operations team taking on the data and analytical work that sits behind the AI programmes running across IKs portfolio companies. The role is analysis-led. Most of the time will be spent working with data to answer a specific question with a smaller share on desk research to find and assess data sources. Finished work is delivered as a small set of slides: the analysis the finding and a view on what it means. Work is set out in written specs with a defined input and output and the intern is then given the time to deliver against them. The placement is internal and office-based and findings are presented back to the Lead of Data Science & AI rather than to portfolio companies or deal teams so there is no requirement to present externally.

Key Responsibilities

• Analysing operational data from portfolio companies to answer a specific question for example working out where cost or time actually sits in a process.

• Building ad-hoc bounded solutions like an AI-powered pipeline to digitise scans of text into digital text on a large scale.

• Finding and evaluating external data sources that can be brought in to strengthen an analysis and forming a view on how reliable and usable each one is.

• Turning each piece of work into a short set of slides with clear charts and a clear message and walking through it with the Lead of Data Science & AI.

Key Competencies

• Intelligent curious and pragmatic. Someone who wants to understand why a question is being asked and find a sensible route to a good answer rather than a perfect one.

• Produces analysis that is both clear and accurate.

• Comfortable with data analysis and basic statistics and able to run at a defined question independently.

• Comfortable writing Python for data work (vibe-coding fine as long as you understand and can explain how it works) and fluent with AI tools in particular Claude Cowork.

• Able to present findings in slide form clearly and simply to someone who will question them. You will not need to present to PortCo executives directly.

• Able to work to a written spec manage their own time against it and flag early when something is unclear or looks wrong.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a degree programme or a recent graduate with a minimum 2:1 degree classification (or equivalent).

Our Offering

• Dynamic and supportive working environment with on-the-job training provided

• Insight into the workings of a leading European private equity firm

• Opportunity to work with a broad range of colleagues in a diverse and inclusive workplace culture

How to apply

Alongside your CV please answer the short exercise below. It should take around 30 minutes. Applications submitted without an answer to the exercise will not be reviewed.Please do not exceed the limits given.

The exercise

A portfolio company holds roughly 50000 scanned paper documents in filing cabinets. Most are typed some are handwritten and the scan quality varies. They want the contents to be digitised andsearchable.

In no more than 10 bullet points and 300 words in total set out how you would approach this. Your answer must include how you would know whether the output is accurate enough for the company to rely on.

Then add three short lines at the end outside the word count:

1. Which AI tools you used to produce this answer and how much of your own knowledge you utilised to achieve the answer

2. The single most important thing you would need to ask us before starting

3. One way your approach could fail

There will be a box for you to submit your answer on the next page. Please submit your response as a Microsoft Word document. At the beginning of the document include an additional approximately 200-word summary outlining:

• Your business knowledge and commercial awareness.

• Your experience using AI and code to solve problems and deliver outcomes.

• Why you believe you would be effective in approaching this task.