Abstract

This article proposes a theory of change for understanding and addressing persistent low pay and precarity in the translation and interpreting industry through the repoliticisation of translation labour. Building on my previous analyses of translators’ labour conditions, it argues that low pay is structurally produced through the organisation of the translation supply chain. Translation labour is increasingly mediated through layered outsourcing systems in which pricing power is concentrated upstream, while economic risk and downward cost pressure are transferred onto translators operating as independent contractors.

The article further argues that responsibility for these conditions is systematically displaced across multiple actors, including language service providers (LSPs), clients, professional institutions, academic actors, and policymakers, resulting in fragmented governance arrangements in which accountability is difficult to locate. Alongside economic and legal structures, institutional and academic narratives emphasising adaptability, entrepreneurialism, and continuous self-investment contribute to the depoliticisation of precarity by reframing structural problems as matters of individual responsibility. At the same time, ethical discourse within the profession often focuses heavily on translators’ conduct and professional behaviour, while comparatively limited scrutiny is directed towards the institutional, corporate, and procurement practices that shape labour conditions.

In response, this analytical article proposes a theory of change that is explicitly designed to reasserting the political character of translation labour by making visible the distribution of responsibility and leverage points across procurement systems, labour classification frameworks, institutional governance, technology deployment, and professional representation.

The article examines how institutional incentives, funding structures, and dual representation models may reproduce alignment with dominant corporate narratives shaping the industry. It critically interrogates the evidence base underpinning widely promoted interventions such as entrepreneurial training and internships, particularly in contexts where highly qualified and experienced translators continue to face persistent financial precarity.

Rather than treating translation precarity as an isolated professional concern, it situates it within broader debates on outsourcing, labour fragmentation, and the governance of precarious work. It argues that meaningful change depends on developing stronger structural literacy, improving accountability across supply chains, enhancing institutional transparency, and engaging more directly with labour rights and fair work frameworks.

Introduction

This article examines translation labour through a structural lens that moves beyond individualised or skills-based explanations of precarity. It focuses on the institutional and systemic conditions that shape how translation work is organised, valued, and governed across contemporary language service ecosystems, including procurement regimes, classification frameworks, technological infrastructures, and professional representation structures.

Rather than treating these conditions as neutral background factors, the analysis is guided by a deliberately repoliticising approach to translation labour. This means foregrounding how power, accountability, and responsibility are distributed across interconnected actors and systems, and how prevailing institutional arrangements contribute to the production and normalisation of precarity within the sector.

Building on this framing, the article proceeds with a structural analysis of key leverage points within translation governance and labour organisation, with a view to identifying where and how change might be meaningfully directed.

For ease of reading, the term “translators” is used throughout to refer to both translators and interpreters.

1. Structural Analysis of the Translation Industry

This article builds on my previous analysis of two central but under-examined questions: why are translators so often underpaid, and who is actually responsible? It critically examines dominant framings of the industry across professional spaces, institutional discourse, and industry events, where translators’ low pay is frequently attributed to familiar themes such as market pressure, technological disruption, and the need for individual adaptability. Translators are encouraged to respond through resilience, specialisation, and entrepreneurial self-investment, even though they often exercise limited control over the conditions shaping pricing and demand.

Such framing obscures the structural organisation of the industry. Translation increasingly operates not as a free market in which value is directly negotiated between client and worker, but as a managed supply chain structured through layered outsourcing systems, typically involving language service providers (LSPs) as intermediaries. Within this structure, pricing decisions are concentrated upstream, while cost pressure is transferred downward. By the time remuneration reaches translators, many of the key decisions shaping rates and working conditions have already been made elsewhere. Low pay is therefore not simply an accidental market outcome, but a structurally produced consequence of supply chain design.

A central feature of this system is the displacement of responsibility. Accountability is redistributed, and potentially obscured, across multiple actors:

• LSPs, which may adopt managerial practices that treat translators primarily as cost factors within broader cost-minimisation and profit-maximisation strategies
• Clients, including public bodies, which increasingly treat translation as a procurement category rather than a labour relationship
• Professional institutions, which often frame translators as independent contractors responsible for managing their own economic outcomes

This produces a system in which responsibility is widely distributed but difficult to locate. Translators, positioned at the end of the supply chain, absorb the material consequences of decisions made elsewhere, while these outcomes are frequently reframed as individual rather than systemic challenges.

This structure is reinforced by legal classification. Translators are typically treated as independent contractors, even when their work is tightly structured through LSP-controlled systems involving rates of pay, deadlines, workflows, and platform-based management. This classification excludes them from many basic labour protections, including minimum wage guarantees, paid leave, and income stability. What is often described as flexibility may therefore function, in practice, as a transfer of economic risk from institutions to individuals.

Even ethics within the translation industry may function asymmetrically, heavily regulating translators while comparatively under-scrutinising the institutions and corporate actors that shape material labour conditions.

Technological change further shapes this environment, but not in a deterministic way. AI and machine translation are often cited as primary drivers of declining rates and increasing precarity. However, technology itself does not determine labour outcomes. The critical issue is how these systems are deployed within existing pricing and labour structures. When automation is introduced primarily as a cost-reduction mechanism in competitive outsourcing markets, productivity gains are rarely redistributed to workers. Responsibility therefore lies not with technology itself, but with the organisational decisions governing its implementation.

While many of the dynamics described may be present across different national contexts, this analysis focuses on the UK translation and interpreting industry, which is the primary focus of my research.

2. Critical Analysis of Dominant Narratives

Alongside these structural mechanisms, there is also a narrative dimension that shapes how precarity is understood within the profession. Across professional and institutional discourse, translators are frequently encouraged to invest in continuous development, remain adaptable, and take responsibility for navigating market uncertainty. Such narratives contribute to shifting attention away from structural questions of pricing power, procurement design, labour governance, and accountability. Over time, precarious conditions become depoliticised and normalised as individual challenges rather than collective or systemic outcomes.

These dynamics become particularly significant where professional organisations increasingly collaborate with industry groups representing commercial intermediaries, such as the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), which represents LSPs. While such collaboration may be presented as fostering dialogue and sector coordination, it repeatedly contributes to institutional narratives that align more closely with the commercial priorities of intermediaries than with translators’ material labour concerns. This is especially important in contexts where organisations such as ITI include both individual translators and language service providers within the same membership structure

As I have argued in my public correspondence and analyses relating to organisations such as ITI and CIOL, these arrangements raise broader questions about representation, institutional accountability, and whose interests are ultimately prioritised within professional discourse. In particular, they raise concerns about whether structural issues such as declining rates, bargaining power, and labour precarity can be fully centred when institutional governance and industry collaboration involve actors whose economic interests may not always align.

Additionally, translation studies departments and academic institutions may also contribute, often unintentionally, to this depoliticisation of translation labour. In many higher education systems, universities increasingly operate within neoliberal institutional models that emphasise employability, market relevance, industry engagement, and external partnerships. Within this context, translation programmes may face growing pressure to demonstrate alignment with industry needs and professional outcomes.

These pressures can shape the kinds of narratives and priorities that become dominant within academic spaces. Questions relating to labour conditions, pricing power, precarity, and accountability may receive comparatively less sustained attention than themes such as innovation, employability, adaptability, and technological integration. This does not require deliberate coordination or bad faith. Rather, it reflects how broader institutional incentives can influence which forms of knowledge production are encouraged, funded, and institutionally rewarded.

3. Where could Transformation happen?

If low pay is structurally produced, then meaningful change cannot rely solely on individual adaptation. It must target the points within the system where value is created, distributed, and governed.

From this perspective, several key leverage points emerge:

• LSPs, where pricing models, subcontracting arrangements, and margin structures are established
• Professional bodies and institutions, which shape standards, norms, and dominant narratives about responsibility and “good practice”
• Procurement systems, where value is initially defined and cost expectations are embedded in contracts and tendering structures
• Legal frameworks, which determine employment classification and define the boundaries of labour protection
• Technology governance, which determines how automation and AI are deployed within pricing and workflow systems, and how their benefits and risks are distributed

Each of these sites represents a distinct form of influence over labour conditions. No single actor controls the system in its entirety, but each contributes to shaping how value and responsibility flow through it.

4. What This Means for Translators

For translators, this reframing shifts attention from individual responsibility towards structural literacy: an understanding of how the system itself produces the conditions within which translators operate, and how those conditions are legitimised and maintained over time.

The central issue is therefore not only how translators compete within existing constraints, but how those constraints are formed, maintained, and normalised. This leads to four practical questions:

• Where does pricing power actually sit within the supply chain?
• How are professional expectations shaped by institutional and industry narratives?
• What forms of collective, organisational, or institutional action are realistically capable of shifting these dynamics?
• Why are ethical discussions often focused primarily on translators’ individual conduct, while giving comparatively less attention to the responsibilities and decision-making power of other actors shaping labour conditions?

This final question is particularly important because ethical discourse in the translation industry is often centred on translator behaviour, professionalism, confidentiality, and quality assurance, while comparatively limited attention is given to the responsibilities of actors that shape pricing structures, procurement systems, labour conditions, and research agendas. These include LSPs, professional bodies, clients, public institutions, and academic actors involved in industry collaboration and curriculum design.

This raises broader questions about institutional alignment and representational balance within the sector. For example, when organisations representing commercial intermediaries are incorporated into academic and professional networks, there is a risk that commercial priorities may exert increasing influence over research agendas, professional discourse, and educational structures. This does not imply improper intent or coordination, but it does raise legitimate questions about how institutional relationships shape what is considered professionally desirable, economically realistic, or ethically discussable.

The ethical asymmetry becomes particularly visible in discussions of “standards.” ISO standards focus on service quality assurance and production processes, while remaining comparatively silent on translators’ rights, bargaining power, income sustainability, and labour conditions. This raises an important question: whose interests are these standards ultimately designed to protect?

Similarly, ethical responsibility within procurement systems is often framed narrowly around service quality and contractual compliance, rather than labour conditions within outsourced supply chains. Yet clients — including public institutions — also shape labour outcomes through pricing expectations, tendering structures, contractor selection, and oversight. A more comprehensive ethical framework would therefore require greater scrutiny not only of translators’ conduct, but also of the responsibilities of all actors involved in the production and governance of translation labour.

Without engagement with these questions, prevailing narratives can begin to resemble a model in which translators are primarily encouraged to ask what they can do for the industry, rather than what forms of responsibility the industry itself bears toward translators.

In sum, this may involve translators demanding stronger representation, transparency, and accountability from professional bodies and industry institutions, as well as greater accountability from public bodies funding translation and interpreting services through intermediary providers. Alternatively, it may involve reassessing individual career strategies in light of structural conditions that are not easily resolved through personal effort alone.

5. Alliances and Evidence-Based Training

In addition to the leverage points identified above, a more developed theory of change would also consider cross-sector alliances and the evidence base underpinning dominant professional interventions.

One direction involves building stronger connections between translation stakeholders and broader labour rights, human rights, and fair work organisations. Many of the structural issues affecting translators — including precarious contracting, outsourcing chains, and income instability — are not unique to this sector, but are shared across gig and freelance labour markets, particularly in highly racialised and feminised workforces. This creates scope for more systematic alignment with organisations working on labour protection, workplace rights, and economic justice, reframing translation as part of a wider labour ecosystem shaped by similar power dynamics.

Alongside this, there is a need to critically examine the assumptions underpinning dominant forms of professional training and advice.

For example, entrepreneurial training is often promoted as a key route to improved outcomes, based on the assumption that individual business skills translate into higher income and greater stability. However, within structurally constrained markets—where pricing power is concentrated upstream and downward pressure is systemic—it is necessary to ask what the actual return on investment of such training is. If structural conditions limit bargaining power, then the effectiveness of such interventions may be significantly lower than assumed.

A similar question applies to internships and work placements. While often framed as mechanisms for gaining experience and improving employability, their ethical governance and long-term outcomes require closer scrutiny. It is necessary to ask whether they reliably lead to improved pay and stability, or whether they risk reproducing access hierarchies in which individuals invest substantial labour without corresponding gains in long-term security. This concern is heightened by the fact that many academic studies have documented that translators—despite long experience and including those with advanced academic qualifications and specialist training—continue to face persistent financial instability.

In this context, prevailing narratives around training and employability risk shifting responsibility for workforce development onto individual practitioners, while simultaneously obscuring or downplaying the role of LSPs and other institutional actors in ensuring adequate training, support, and sustainable working conditions. If highly qualified practitioners are unable to achieve stable incomes under current conditions, then the assumed benefits of additional unpaid (or low-paid) internships or entrepreneurial training—particularly when financed at the individual expense of translators themselves, and especially in contexts of intensifying financial insecurity—require empirical justification rather than default acceptance. They must also be assessed alongside the extent to which organisations themselves are fulfilling their responsibilities toward workforce development.

A more robust theory of change therefore evaluates whether commonly promoted “solutions” are evidence-based, ethically sound, and proportionate to the structural realities of the labour market.

6. The Crucial Questions of Representation, Incentives, and Institutional Alignment

A complete theory of change must also account for the institutional structures that shape what can be said, funded, and represented within the profession.

A central issue is the structure of representation itself. For example, when ITI operates in dual roles, representing both translators and LSPs, this raises ethical questions about whether labour concerns can be fully centred when institutional membership includes actors with differing economic interests. This creates an inherent tension in how issues such as pricing, working conditions, and accountability are framed and prioritised.

Alongside representation, institutional incentives and funding structures play a significant role in shaping discourse. Professional organisations, conferences, and training initiatives are often dependent on membership fees, sponsorship, and broader neoliberal pressures within higher education that encourage translation departments and academic scholars to demonstrate industry relevance and employability outcomes. This can contribute to the embedding of market-oriented priorities within academic and professional spaces. These funding and institutional relationships may influence which issues are foregrounded, which remain marginal, and which forms of critique are considered institutionally viable.

Over time, this can contribute to alignment between institutional narratives and broader corporate framings of the industry. This may help explain why structural issues are often reframed in terms of adaptability, innovation, and skills development, rather than pricing power, labour distribution, or accountability. While not necessarily inaccurate, these framings can become partial, foregrounding individual resilience while rendering structural asymmetries less visible.

This alignment does not require explicit coordination. It emerges through shared assumptions about what is realistic, fundable, or constructive within existing industry structures. As a result, the boundaries of legitimate discussion can narrow without formal restriction, reinforcing the tendency to treat structural precarity as an individual rather than systemic issue.

This is important because, when considered alongside procurement structures, legal classification, and narrative framing, these institutional dynamics help explain why structural problems persist even when they are widely acknowledged.

The issue is therefore not only the existence of precarity, but the system that maintains it: a combination of representation structures, funding dependencies, and narrative alignment that together shape what kinds of solutions are visible, credible, or actionable.

Closing Reflection

The persistence of low pay in translation is not simply an economic outcome. It is also the result of how responsibility is distributed across a system — and how easily that distribution becomes invisible.

Change begins with making those structures visible again.

Because what cannot be clearly located cannot be meaningfully challenged.

Without such evaluation, professional institutions risk reinforcing the very structures they aim to address, by shifting responsibility further onto translators while leaving underlying conditions unchanged.

In addition, while the analysis presented here focuses on current structural arrangements within the industry, it recognises that ongoing developments in AI may further reshape labour demand and intensify existing forms of displacement within the translation and interpreting sector. This reinforces the central argument of this article: that labour conditions must be understood within a continuously evolving political economy of technology, outsourcing, and platform-mediated work, rather than as static professional challenges. A repoliticisation of translation labour therefore also requires attention to how emerging technologies redistribute risk, value, and control across the supply chain over time.

From this perspective, short-term reforms must be situated within a longer-term policy horizon that addresses structural labour market transformation, including mechanisms for worker support, retraining, and just transition. Such an approach aligns with social-democratic traditions of labour market governance, insofar as it foregrounds collective responsibility for managing technological change and mitigating its uneven impacts on precarious occupational groups.

About the author
Fardous Bahbouh is a researcher and broadcast interpreter specialising in labour rights and the political economy of the translation and interpreting industry. Alongside her academic research, she continues to work with agencies and production companies that value interpreters and translators and provide fair working conditions. She also runs a small translation company and does not generalise critiques of unfair intermediaries to all translation companies or agencies.

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