In the previous parts of this series, I share insights from my PhD research at the University of Leeds on inequalities in the outsourced public service interpreting. In their responses to a national survey, interpreters described significant challenges affecting working conditions, pay, and professional stability in UK Public Service Interpreting (PSI). Survey findings highlighted widespread concerns about declining job quality, limited bargaining power, and increasing uncertainty about future prospects. Earlier articles discussed how outsourcing structures influence rates of pay and working conditions, including the growing use of minute-based payment models in remote interpreting. Many interpreters expressed concern about extremely low rates offered as per minute, but often paid per second of work, creating fragmented income patterns and making financial stability difficult to sustain. Together, these findings show how interpreters experience their work as increasingly insecure, with reduced influence over health and safety considerations, rates of pay and working conditions.

One factor repeatedly identified by respondents as contributing to these changes is technological development. Interpreters described technology not simply as a neutral tool that improves efficiency, but as something that is reshaping how work is organised, how assignments are distributed, and how professional value is defined. Three developments were mentioned most frequently: the rise of mandatory booking applications that automatically allocate assignments, remote phone or video interpreting, and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine interpreting technologies. While these innovations are often presented as progress, many interpreters experience them as intensifying existing forms of precarity.

1. Booking apps: faster access to work, but less control over conditions

A major change described by respondents is the shift from human coordinators to digital booking applications that automatically distribute assignments. These systems often present jobs with fixed rates that must be accepted immediately before the assignment is offered to another interpreter. As a result, interpreters may have little opportunity to clarify working conditions, negotiate fees, or request compensation for travel time.

One respondent described this system as a “fastest-finger-wins” environment, where speed becomes more important than experience, specialisation, or suitability for the assignment. Some interpreters expressed concern that declining work — even when the rate is very low — might affect their chances of receiving future assignments.

One interpreter explained:

“I used to be able to negotiate better rates and ask for additional [payments], but this doesn’t apply these days, unfortunately, with interpreters accepting all bookings from the app.”

Although booking apps are often described as platforms, there are different types of digital systems involved. Booking applications operate as closed portals controlled by individual interpreting agencies, while others function more like open marketplaces connecting multiple clients and interpreters. Despite these differences, both types of systems rely on algorithms to organise access to work.

Because the criteria used by these systems are not always transparent, interpreters may feel pressure to adapt their behaviour in order to remain competitive. For example, some respondents reported feeling compelled to accept less favourable conditions out of concern that declining assignments could reduce future opportunities.

As academic scholar Joss Moorkens (2024) explains, “algorithmic norms” are the hidden expectations baked into software systems that shape how people behave, even in the absence of clear rules.

Some interpreters expressed strong concerns about the motivations behind these technological changes:

“The rise of interpreting platforms is very alarming because the real motivation behind it is not utilising technology to make life easier. The prime motivation is to save money.”

Another interpreter raised concerns about the impact on professional standards:

“Interpreting becomes a part of gig economy, the job goes to one who does it cheap. Quality of service doesn’t matter anymore.”

These perspectives suggest that booking apps are not only changing how work is accessed, but also influencing how professional value is determined.

2. Remote Interpreting as a Technological Restructuring of Work

Alongside booking applications, remote interpreting emerges in the data as a significant technological development that is reshaping the structure of work in Public Service Interpreting (PSI). While remote modalities such as telephone and video interpreting are sometimes presented as tools that improve efficiency and accessibility, participants in this study frequently associated these formats with significant shifts in how interpreting labour is organised, measured, and remunerated. Rather than simply changing where interpreting takes place, remote delivery appears to be transforming the underlying logic through which interpreters’ time and expertise are valued.

A central issue identified by respondents relates to the increasing use of per-minute remuneration models, in some cases calculated down to per-second billing. Unlike traditional face-to-face assignments, which sometimes include minimum booking periods, remote interpreting is often structured around highly granular measurements of call length, excluding waiting time. This shift enables interpreting agencies to pay only for the precise duration of interpreted interaction, effectively redefining interpreting labour as a series of measurable micro-units. Participating interpreters frequently described the resulting conditions as economically unsustainable, particularly when remuneration is calculated exclusively on the basis of call time, rather than time logged on to the app and waiting for work.

From an analytical perspective, this development can be understood as a process of intensified labour extraction, in which technological infrastructures allow organisations to maximise the productive output obtained from interpreters while minimising compensable downtime. In this sense, remote interpreting does not simply alter the mode of delivery but contributes to a redefinition of what counts as billable professional labour.

These developments reflect broader processes associated with labour precarity, as conceptualised by Guy Standing (2021). Standing argues that technological restructuring often enables organisations to shift economic risk onto workers by increasing employment flexibility while reducing predictability and security. In the context of PSI, remote interpreting appears to contribute to similar dynamics, as interpreters absorb greater responsibility for managing fluctuating workloads, fragmented assignments, and uncertain income streams. Per-minute and per-second remuneration models illustrate how technological systems can redistribute financial risk from commissioning institutions to individual practitioners, requiring interpreters to remain continuously available for short assignments while receiving compensation only for narrowly defined periods of productive activity. Interpreters voiced concerns regarding how current implementation models prioritise cost efficiency over the sustainability of professional work and how technological use may contribute to the erosion of working conditions rather than their improvement.

An additional dimension emerging from the data concerns interpreters’ use of remote modalities as a strategy to mitigate health and safety risks in contexts where responsibility for working conditions appears diffuse or inadequately enforced by interpreting agencies and commissioning public bodies. Several respondents indicated that they resorted to remote interpreting despite the low and fragmented pay structure in order to protect themselves, given the lack of adequate health and safety considerations, as discussed in the first article of this series. These accounts suggest that interpreters’ choices are shaped by the current outsourcing arrangement in ways that may give interpreting agencies further extractive power over interpreters navigating environments in which institutional accountability for safe working conditions is fragmented or non-existent. Therefore, interpreters’ decisions to accept remote assignments in such circumstances appear to reflect broader structural ambiguities regarding responsibility for occupational health and safety within outsourced PSI provision.

A further dimension emerging from the data relates to the intersection between remote interpreting, care responsibilities, and the gendered organisation of labour. Interpreting has frequently been described in the literature as a highly specialised yet racialised and feminised profession, whose members may face structural barriers to stable work. Within this context, remote interpreting may be experienced as offering increased accessibility, enabling interpreters to remain professionally active while accommodating domestic or caregiving obligations.

It is important to differentiate between flexibility that allows workers to balance work and life commitments and flexibility that exploits workers’ circumstances to limit their rights and entitlements. Flexibility afforded by remote modalities raises important analytical questions regarding the structural conditions under which such flexibility is offered. When work is organised through per-minute or per-second remuneration models, interpreters who require adaptable schedules may experience increased pressure to accept assignments at lower rates to maintain access to income opportunities compatible with caring responsibilities. In this sense, the apparent expansion of opportunity may also function as a mechanism through which workers’ need for flexibility is leveraged within value-extractive, and potentially exploitative, labour arrangements.

From the perspective of labour precarity, this dynamic illustrates how technological restructuring may differentially affect workers depending on their social positioning. Standing (2021) argues that precarious labour markets frequently rely upon workers’ need for flexibility, particularly in sectors characterised by feminised labour and fragmented employment structures.

The “flexibility paradox” refers to the structural tension in which work arrangements presented as increasing autonomy and choice simultaneously contribute to greater economic insecurity and reduced bargaining power. Research on platform labour and precarious employment has shown that flexibility is often unevenly distributed, disproportionately shaping the working conditions of women, migrants, and workers with caring responsibilities (Huws, 2014; Prassl, 2018; Standing, 2021). While flexible work may enable continued labour market participation under constrained circumstances, it may also facilitate the transfer of economic risk from institutions to workers and enable interpreting agencies to extract more profit from interpreters’ labour.

In this sense, flexibility operates both as a resource and as a structural mechanism through which existing inequalities may be reproduced within technologically mediated labour markets.

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3. AI and machine interpreting: uncertainty about the future of human interpreting

Alongside booking apps, many interpreters expressed concern about the rapid development of AI and machine interpreting technologies. In the survey, 81% of respondents reported anxiety about the possibility that AI could eventually replace human interpreters.

While AI is often presented as an efficient and cost-effective solution, many respondents emphasised that interpreting involves much more than translating words. Public service interpreting frequently takes place in sensitive contexts such as healthcare, legal proceedings, and social services, where communication affects important decisions and outcomes.

Interpreters highlighted concerns about accuracy, ethics, and accountability. When human interpreters make mistakes, professional standards and ethical frameworks provide mechanisms for responsibility and correction. With AI systems, responsibility can become less clear, particularly if errors occur in high-stakes situations affecting vulnerable service users.

Some respondents expressed concern that enthusiasm for AI may overlook these risks, particularly if decisions about technology adoption are driven primarily by cost considerations.

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Conclusion: Technology as part of a wider transformation of work

Taken together, the findings suggest that technology is not experienced simply as innovation, but as part of a broader transformation in the organisation of interpreting work. Booking applications influence how interpreters access assignments and negotiate conditions, while AI introduces uncertainty about the long-term future of human expertise in PSI. Respondents frequently emphasised that current technological changes appear to prioritise efficiency and cost reduction rather than improvements in working conditions or service quality.

These developments contribute to a wider sense of precarity within the profession, characterised by unstable income, reduced professional autonomy, and growing uncertainty about future opportunities.

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Next in Part 5: how outsourcing and digital systems affect interpreters’ ability to negotiate pay, terms, and working conditions.

About the author
Fardous Bahbouh is a Researcher and Consultant specializing in Labour Rights, Public Policy, and the Political Economy of the Translation Industry. Her research is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) / The White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH).

The bibliography is provided in the first article to avoid repetition