In the previous articles in this series, we explored how outsourcing, low pay, and deteriorating working conditions have reshaped Public Service Interpreting (PSI) in the UK. Many interpreters described being paid per minute or per second, or being expected to accept last-minute assignments under increasingly uncertain conditions, which some described as exploitative.

This article focuses on another crucial dimension of precarious work: the ability to negotiate.

In theory, most public service interpreters are classified as self-employed professionals. In practice, many report having little or no control over their pay, working conditions, or contractual terms. This raises an important question: are interpreters truly independent professionals, or are they operating within a system that limits their ability to exercise meaningful choice?

Survey responses suggest that the issue is not simply individual confidence or negotiation skills. Rather, interpreters’ bargaining power appears shaped by structural factors, including outsourcing arrangements, digital allocation systems, demographic characteristics, caring responsibilities, and credentialism.

Understanding how negotiation power is constrained is essential for recognising the broader neoliberal transformation of PSI as a form of labour.

1. “Take it or leave it”: when rates are fixed before negotiation begins

A recurring theme in the survey was the perception that negotiation is no longer part of the process.

61% of respondents said they rarely or never feel able to negotiate better pay.

Many interpreters described receiving job offers with predetermined rates that cannot be discussed:

“Any money to be paid for a job is advertised in the job offer — you take it or leave it.”

“With the big companies, it’s a kind of nightmare to work — they have rules and never negotiate.”

These experiences suggest that, although interpreters are classified as freelancers, their pay is often determined unilaterally by agencies operating within outsourcing contracts.

In other words, the price of labour is set before the interpreter enters the conversation.

This type of arrangement resembles what labour economist Guy Standing describes as dependent contracting: a situation in which workers are formally self-employed but have limited control over key aspects of their work.

2. Agency dependence and unequal bargaining power

The survey also revealed important differences depending on how interpreters access work.

Interpreters who rely heavily on agencies for assignments were significantly more likely to report low bargaining power compared to those who sometimes receive bookings directly from public bodies such as courts or local authorities.

Some interpreters described being able to set their own rates when working directly with institutions:

“Whenever I am called by the courts to step in where contractors have failed, I impose my own rates.”

However, these opportunities often arise only when agencies cannot find an interpreter within contracted rates. Such bookings frequently occur at very short notice, sometimes less than 24 hours before the assignment.

While higher rates may be possible in these cases, they often come with:

• unpredictable scheduling
• last-minute preparation
• irregular workflow
• uncertainty of income

This means that even interpreters who negotiate higher fees may still experience instability.

Some interpreters also explained that refusing low-paying assignments can result in fewer working hours overall:

“I don’t take jobs that don’t meet my minimum criteria, and hence I do very little PSI nowadays.”

This illustrates a difficult dilemma: maintaining minimum standards may reduce income opportunities.

3. Moral precarity: when public bodies do not value communication equally

Another important finding from the survey is that interpreters’ ability to negotiate often depends on which public institution is requesting the service. In other words, interpreting is not valued equally across the public sector.

Many respondents reported that assignments in healthcare or local authority settings are often paid at lower rates than assignments connected to law enforcement or the justice system. This uneven remuneration raises important questions about how communication with individuals with limited English proficiency is prioritised across public services.

Some interpreters observed that urgent court assignments may offer higher pay than comparable work in other settings. This suggests that when communication is seen as essential for law enforcement, institutions may be more willing to recognise its value. In these contexts, the importance of interpreting becomes more visible, and the possibility of negotiating improved rates appears slightly stronger.

However, in other areas of public service provision — particularly where interpreting is required to ensure access to healthcare — interpreters frequently described their work as being treated primarily as an administrative cost. When communication is framed mainly as an expense to be minimised, rather than as a necessary condition for equitable access to public services, opportunities for negotiation become extremely limited.

In my research, this uneven valuation of interpreting contributes to what can be described as moral precarity. Moral precarity refers not only to low or unstable income, but also to the experience of working in a system where the social importance of one’s work is inconsistently recognised.

Interpreters support communication in situations that may affect health, safety, legal rights, and access to essential services. Yet the extent to which this contribution is valued appears to depend on institutional priorities rather than on the needs of service users.

When communication is treated as essential in some settings but optional or cost-sensitive in others, it creates a fragmented landscape in which the same expertise is valued differently depending on context. This inconsistency can weaken interpreters’ ability to negotiate fair rates, while also signalling that equitable access to public services is not always treated as a shared responsibility across institutions.

Understanding moral precarity therefore helps explain why negotiation power varies across settings: where communication is recognised as fundamental for the exercise of state power, interpreters’ work becomes more visible and more defensible; where it is treated as a discretionary service, both recognition and bargaining power tend to diminish.

4. The demographic profile of PSI interpreters

Understanding negotiation power also requires examining who interpreters are, because precarity does not affect all workers equally.

Only 8% of respondents answered “yes” to the question “Was English the only language you spoke during your early childhood?”, while 92% answered “no.” This indicates that the overwhelming majority of interpreters grew up in multilingual environments often shaped by migration.

The survey did not directly ask whether respondents identify as migrants, as the term is highly politicised in the UK and interpreted differently by individuals. Instead, early language experience was used as a less politicised indicator of multilingual background.

Gender patterns are also significant. 77% of respondents are women, reflecting wider patterns of feminised labour. Similar trends appear in professional registers and workforce studies: NRPSI data indicate that 64% of registered interpreters are women, while a global survey by CSA Research found that 66% of translators are women.

At the same time, 69% of respondents identify as white. This highlights an important point: racialisation in the UK often operates through nationality, migration history, language, and accent, not only through visible phenotype. This understanding aligns with the Equality Act (2010), which defines race broadly to include colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origins.

Most respondents are long-term residents of the UK. Over half (51%) have lived in the UK for more than 20 years, and 15% were born in the UK. Around one third (32%) reported living in the UK between 7 and 20 years. Only 4% had lived in the UK for between 3 and 6 years, and none were recent arrivals.

These findings challenge the assumption that poor working conditions in PSI are driven by newly arrived migrants unfamiliar with UK institutions. Instead, the data point to structural features of outsourced public service provision affecting interpreters who are already socially and professionally embedded in UK society.

5. Caring responsibilities and constrained choices

Another important factor affecting interpreters’ ability to negotiate is caring responsibility.

47% of respondents reported caring for children, grandchildren, or other dependents.

Some interpreters explained that pre-booked face-to-face assignments can be financially unviable due to childcare costs:

“Having pre-booked jobs is very stressful because I cannot pay a babysitter five times more than I would earn.”

Survey findings suggest that interpreters with caring responsibilities are significantly more likely to report financial insecurity.

Among respondents with childcare responsibilities:

• 80% said their earnings rarely or never meet financial needs
• 76% reported low confidence in their long-term financial future

Remote interpreting is often presented as a solution because it allows interpreters to work from home. However, many remote assignments offer lower pay and are remunerated per minute or per second.

This raises an important question:

does remote interpreting create opportunity, or does it rely on interpreters’ need for flexibility to justify lower pay?

Flexibility can be valuable. But when flexibility is systematically associated with lower pay and limited bargaining power, it can become a mechanism through which inequality is reproduced.

6. Credentialism and mandatory diplomas as an exclusionary factor

Survey responses reveal significant differences in how interpreters perceive the role of qualifications in shaping working conditions. Some respondents expressed frustration at being offered lower rates despite holding university degrees in languages and many years of experience, while others attributed declining pay to the presence of practitioners who do not hold specific PSI diplomas.

These contrasting perspectives highlight a clear division within the profession. At the same time, major language-sector organisations in the UK have actively campaigned for compulsory PSI diplomas, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest, particularly in the absence of clear evidence that PSI diplomas represent the only or most effective pathway for acquiring interpreting competence.

Several interpreters questioned why university degrees in languages or linguistics — which often require longer periods of study — may be given less weight than shorter diplomas when pay rates are determined.

Survey findings show that 54% of respondents who already hold the DPSI qualification report that their combined income from PSI and other work is insufficient to cover basic living needs. This suggests that even interpreters who invest in recognised credentials may still experience financial insecurity.

Calls for mandatory diplomas are often promoted by organisations such as NRPSI and CIOL. CIOL is also one of the main providers of DPSI examinations and preparation courses. When organisations that deliver qualifications advocate for making those qualifications compulsory, questions arise about how competence standards are defined and whose interests are represented.

Evidence presented to the House of Lords Public Services Committee inquiry further illustrates this tension. During oral testimony, the head of NRPSI acknowledged that some experienced DPSI-qualified interpreters have left PSI to work in jobs such as cafés or bakeries, where earnings may be higher and working conditions more predictable. Despite this acknowledgement, mandatory credential requirements continue to be promoted.

The same session also highlighted limited direct representation of practising interpreters in policy discussions. Organisational representatives emphasised qualification requirements, while interpreters themselves were not given equivalent opportunity to shape the conversation.

Taken together, these developments suggest that credential requirements may function not only as quality control mechanisms but also as labour market gatekeeping devices, potentially creating additional barriers for interpreters from migrant or lower-income backgrounds.

7. Negotiation power is shaped by structure, not personality

Across the survey responses, a consistent message emerges:

interpreters’ ability to negotiate is not simply a matter of individual confidence.

It is shaped by:

• outsourcing structures
• dependence on agencies
• digital allocation systems
• caring responsibilities
• migration background
• professional divisions
• institutional attitudes towards interpreting

Even interpreters who negotiate higher rates often experience unstable workflows and unpredictable income.

Negotiation power therefore needs to be understood as part of a wider system influencing how interpreting work is organised and valued.

Why this matters

Negotiation is often presented as a hallmark of freelance work.

But when rates are fixed, contracts are opaque, and refusal leads to fewer opportunities, the space for genuine negotiation becomes limited.

Understanding these structural constraints is an important step toward more informed conversations about fairness, sustainability, and recognition in Public Service Interpreting.

Concluding note

This series has presented the main findings from the survey component of my PhD study, examining inequalities in outsourced PSI in the UK. Across the five articles, interpreters described persistent concerns about lack of health and safety considerations, declining pay, reduced influence over working conditions, increasing digitalisation, and growing uncertainty about the future of the profession. Taken together, the findings suggest that these developments are not isolated problems, but interconnected features of a broader transformation in how publicly funded interpreting services are organised and delivered.

The organisation of PSI through outsourcing to private language service providers shapes interpreters’ working conditions in significant ways. Using established frameworks on job quality and precarity, this research has examined how outsourcing arrangements, intermediary agencies, and reduced labour protections influence interpreters’ earnings, working conditions, professional autonomy, and long-term career sustainability. Across the series, the findings show that interpreters’ ability to negotiate is not determined solely by individual skill or confidence, but is structured by institutional arrangements that shape how work is allocated, valued, and remunerated.

The analysis highlights how market-oriented forms of public service delivery can generate insecurity even within publicly funded systems. Despite interpreters’ strong sense of public purpose and commitment to facilitating communication in contexts affecting health, legal rights, and access to essential services, their work is often characterised by unstable income, limited organisational support, and restricted professional voice. The findings illustrate how outsourcing frameworks interact with demographic patterns, caring responsibilities, digital allocation systems, and credential requirements to shape the conditions under which interpreters are able to work.

Across the five articles, the series has explored how commercial logics intersect with the provision of essential public services, raising broader questions about accountability, sustainability, and fairness in outsourced public sector work. These findings suggest that the challenges experienced by interpreters are not only professional concerns, but also public interest issues affecting equitable access to services for individuals with limited English proficiency.

Moving forward in my research, I will compare the survey findings with public policy analysis in order to investigate how neoliberal logics are internalised within public policy frameworks. This next stage juxtaposes the lived realities of interpreters with the rhetoric of public bodies, private corporations holding public service interpreting contracts, and organisations offering training and professional memberships. The analysis examines how these narratives may contribute to normalising systemic precarity, reinforcing institutional misrecognition, and shifting responsibility for fair working conditions onto individual practitioners.

By integrating empirical evidence with normative theory, the study contributes to wider discussions about justice in labour relations. It positions Public Service Interpreting not simply as a technical service, but as a contested moral and political site in which questions of value, fairness, and recognition are continually negotiated.

I hope that sharing these findings contributes to greater transparency about working conditions in PSI and supports informed dialogue among interpreters, policymakers, researchers, and service users about how interpreting can be organised in ways that are both fair and sustainable.

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