This article sets out a series of concrete, practice-oriented changes that the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) could implement in order to engage more directly with the structural labour conditions affecting translators and interpreters. It builds on my earlier article, Theory of Change for the UK Translation and Interpreting Industry, and should be understood as its practical and institutional implementation layer. It calls for institutional reflexivity and intellectual honesty at a time of intensifying financial insecurity within the sector.

While the Theory of Change article sets out the analytical and systemic diagnosis of the sector, this article translates that framework into specific institutional interventions. It outlines practical changes relating to conference design, research priorities, governance transparency, labour market analysis, and engagement with technological change. It also identifies a potential risk of unintended legitimisation effects arising from institutional communications and strategic positioning, whereby structural precarity becomes normalised while responsibility is increasingly displaced away from LSPs and onto individual practitioners.

The article foregrounds the argument that precarity in the sector is not primarily the result of individual shortcomings, but is structurally produced through pricing practices that treat translators primarily as a cost variable, alongside procurement systems, outsourcing models, intermediary power, and inadequate legal labour protections within freelance labour markets. It further argues that institutional emphasis on adaptation, resilience, entrepreneurship, and community can inadvertently marginalise structural questions relating to pricing power, labour distribution, and accountability. Over time, this may contribute to a narrowing of what is considered legitimate or constructive discourse within the sector.

This article is therefore also concerned with the need to re-politicise translation labour, by reintroducing questions of power, distribution, and economic structure into institutional discourse where they have increasingly been displaced by individualised and adaptive framings.

The intention is not to reject the role of professional institutions, but to ask how they might more effectively and ethically align their activities with the material realities of the sector, and whether current institutional framings adequately reflect those conditions.

The changes outlined in this article are structured as a governance-oriented pathway rather than a set of isolated recommendations. They are based on the assumption that institutional effectiveness depends not only on identifying sector challenges, but on ensuring that institutional framing, knowledge production, and strategic priorities remain aligned with the material conditions of the labour market over time. In this sense, the proposals should be understood as mutually reinforcing interventions across discourse, evidence generation, governance design, and external engagement, rather than standalone policy adjustments. The objective is to strengthen institutional coherence between stated values—such as ethics, sustainability, and professional integrity—and the evolving structural realities of translation and interpreting labour.

1. Institutional Reflexivity: Looking Back as Well as Forward

Any institution addressing future challenges must also critically evaluate its past framing, partnerships, and outputs. ITI cannot meaningfully move forward without looking backwards. This includes assessing whether prior outputs may have unintentionally narrowed the space for structural critique or reinforced partial explanations of precarity.

For example:

• In collaborative work such as Working Together (with the ATC and others), structural issues were framed largely in terms of external pressures and procurement complexity. However, the document entirely omitted discussion of how outsourcing structures and intermediary business models directly shape interpreter pay, risk distribution, and working conditions. This framing risks shifting attention away from the economic architecture that produces precarity and toward more neutral descriptions of “system complexity.”
• Previous institutional publications have also made strong claims regarding the value of ITI membership and the broader economic contribution of the translation industry without always sufficiently engaging with worsening labour-market conditions within the profession. If ITI wishes to maintain authority in areas such as ethics training and professional guidance, it is important that the same standards of evidential scrutiny and critical reflection are consistently applied to institutional publications and public-facing claims.
• Some institutional narratives regarding the economic value of multilingualism and the translation sector may also require re-evaluation in light of technological and labour-market transformations. While there is merit to the argument that multilingual communication supports international commerce, previous analyses have sometimes relied on assumptions that deserve closer scrutiny — including assumptions about the continued centrality of human translation labour within commercial workflows, and assumptions regarding who materially benefits from sector growth. In practice, much translation labour in the UK is performed by workers from migrant backgrounds who learned English rather than by UK-born language graduates, while technological change may increasingly reshape where and how translation value is generated.
• Institutional recognition practices, including awards and endorsements, also require ongoing scrutiny where recipients’ business models may externalise risk onto practitioners. These are not solely historical decisions, as their effects continue through present-day signalling and institutional association. For example, an interpreting agency previously recognised by ITI, continues to display this award in its public-facing materials and uses it as part of its institutional credibility. At the same time, that agency is still operating model includes payment structures based on per-minute interpreting rates and contractual arrangements that transfer legal and operational risk onto individual interpreters. These practices raise important questions about alignment between institutional recognition and evolving understandings of ethical labour standards.

Where organisations remain publicly associated with institutional recognition, it would therefore be appropriate for the criteria and review mechanisms underpinning such awards to be made explicit, periodically reassessed, and, where necessary, updated to reflect evolving labour-governance expectations.

This is not retrospective blame, but institutional learning. However, meaningful learning requires acknowledging where prior assumptions, narratives, or publications may have been incomplete, misleading, or insufficiently aligned with labour realities.

Without this reflexive capacity, institutional reform risks remaining rhetorical while underlying evaluative frameworks remain substantially unchanged.

2. Address Structural Contradictions Within ITI

ITI includes both individual practitioners and LSPs within the same institutional system. However, these actors may have structurally divergent economic interests, particularly where intermediary models contribute to downward pressure on rates and the transfer of risk onto practitioners. This creates an unresolved institutional tension that creates a governance design question rather than a membership categorisation issue.

If ITI maintains this mixed system, it requires clear safeguards, including:

• clear public declaration of ITI’s mixed institutional structure when engaging with policymakers and public debate, as professional bodies are often assumed to speak primarily on behalf of practitioners rather than simultaneously representing both practitioners and intermediaries
• transparent criteria for corporate participation
• scrutiny of LSP contracting and payment practices
• ethical standards regarding rates and payment terms
• commitment to decent work principles
• independent oversight mechanisms in cases of potential conflict of interest

Without such mechanisms, “community” risks functioning as a neutralising narrative that obscures structural inequality and exploitation within the sector.

3. Increase Transparency Around Sponsorship and Institutional Influence

Institutional priorities are shaped—often indirectly—by funding structures, sponsorships, and partnerships. Even without explicit intent, these relationships can influence what is considered “realistic” or “constructive” critique.

ITI should strengthen transparency regarding:

• sponsorship arrangements
• conference funding sources
• editorial independence
• strategic partnerships
• policy and industry influence

Once implemented, this ensures that institutional framing does not unintentionally align too closely with dominant corporate narratives.

4. Reframe Translation and Interpreting as Labour as Well as Profession

ITI should explicitly move beyond framing translation and interpreting solely through professional identity, entrepreneurship, and client-facing skills. These remain relevant, but they do not adequately reflect the structural nature of the labour market.

Current discourse around “adaptation,” “resilience,” and “skills development” risks individualising systemic problems such as pricing pressure, outsourcing structures, and platformisation.

ITI should instead explicitly frame translation and interpreting as labour shaped by:

• power asymmetries in procurement systems
• intermediary business models and price setting practices
• demographic inequalities in a feminised and racialised workforce

This would re-centre labour rights, sustainability, and economic conditions as core professional concerns.

5. Place Labour Conditions at the Centre of Conferences and Strategy

Within its role as a framing and agenda-setting institution, ITI should place labour conditions at the centre of its conferences and move beyond primarily entrepreneurial or motivational framings. While professional development is important, current emphasis on resilience and innovation often displaces discussion of structural conditions.

Conferences should include:

• labour economists and sociologists of work
• researchers on precarious freelance labour
• platform economy and outsourcing specialists
• analysis of pricing power and supply chains
• contractor classification and labour law issues
• AI-driven displacement and risk redistribution

This does not replace existing content but rebalances institutional priorities toward material working conditions.

6. Create Space for Open Structural Critique

ITI should function not only as a space for networking and professional optimism, but also as a space where structural critique is legitimate and protected.

Practical measures could include:

• independent roundtables on precarity
• presentation of academic research on rates and labour conditions
• discussions of intermediary power and outsourcing
• anonymised member testimony on economic insecurity

At present, many practitioners feel pressured to present success and adaptability even under precarity. This produces silence and isolation. A professional institution must be able to tolerate structural critique without framing it as disloyalty.

7. Encourage and commission Independent Research on Labour Conditions

ITI should prioritise independent, evidence-based research into actual working conditions, including:

• pay distribution and rate decline
• unpaid labour and administrative burden
• workload intensity
• subcontracting and intermediary chains
• payment delays
• AI-related displacement
• sustainability of freelance careers

This research should focus on labour realities rather than institutional reputation. Without robust evidence, there is a risk of reinforcing optimistic narratives that are disconnected from material conditions, thereby unintentionally legitimising structural deterioration and exploitative labour dynamics. Therefore, encouraging and commissioning independent research would strengthen the evidential basis of institutional strategy and reduce the risk of policy misalignment between sector realities and professional narratives.

8. Treat AI as a Labour Governance Issue, Not Only a Technology Issue

AI must be treated as a structural labour issue, not solely a matter of professional adaptation or productivity.

Key concerns include:

• redistribution of risk and value
• shifting bargaining power in supply chains
• downward pressure on rates
• platform-mediated control of workflows

ITI could advocate for fair contractual standards and support practitioners navigating displacement. ITI should also avoid framing financial stability solely in terms of “staying in the profession.” AI must be understood as reshaping labour governance, not just professional practice.

9. Build Alliances Beyond the Translation Sector

Translation precarity is part of broader trends in freelance, platform-mediated, and precarious labour. ITI could strengthen engagement with trade unions, labour rights organisations, anti-poverty groups, Living Wage campaigns, digital labour researchers, and organisations studying automation and displacement

This situates translation within wider labour-market transformations rather than treating it as an isolated professional issue.

10. Support Career Transition and “Just Transition” Frameworks

Given the growing structural unsustainability in many parts of the sector, institutional responsibility should extend beyond entry and retention. At present, significant emphasis is placed on encouraging translators and interpreters to invest time, money, and professional energy into building long-term careers in the sector. However, where structural conditions do not reliably support stable returns on such investment, this can unintentionally contribute to sunk-cost dynamics, in which practitioners continue to invest in a profession despite declining economic viability.

This dynamic also has systemic effects: it increases competition among practitioners for a shrinking pool of better-paid work, while a larger proportion of available work remains low-paid, unstable, and intermediary-driven. In this context, sustained encouragement to “invest in the profession” requires careful ethical reflection.

ITI could therefore support:
• discussion on retraining and reskilling pathways
• partnerships with universities and public-sector employers
• structured career transition support
• skills transfer into adjacent fields
• transparent guidance on alternative career routes

Exit from the profession should be treated as a legitimate and dignified outcome, not a failure narrative. It should also be acknowledged as a structurally rational response in contexts where returns on professional investment are uncertain or declining.

Furthermore, it is important to highlight a potential positive impact for translators who remains in the profession. By supporting translators who are willing and able to transition into more secure or better-remunerated forms of work outside the sector may improve their individual financial stability. It may also have a secondary systemic effect by reducing competitive pressure within the profession, particularly in relation to a limited pool of better-paid assignments.

At the same time, this must be understood within broader labour-market dynamics. Any such transition framework exists alongside continued inflows into the profession, including new entrants, as well as ongoing pressures from global supply expansion and platform-mediated competition. These dynamics mean that exit support cannot be treated as a standalone solution, but rather as one component within a wider set of structural responses.

This reinforces the need for a “just transition” framing that accounts simultaneously for worker mobility, sector entry flows, and global labour supply dynamics.

A Final Warning: The Risk of Institutional Legitimisation

The central issue is not whether ITI intentionally supports exploitation. I do not consider that to be a plausible or productive framing. The concern is structural. As Ulrich Beck observes, there is no better breeding ground for risks than ignoring them. In this context, the continued marginalisation of labour conditions within institutional framing does not reduce instability in the sector, but may instead amplify it over time.

Professional institutions may, without explicit intent, function as legitimising mechanisms for prevailing market arrangements when institutional communications consistently foreground adaptation, positivity, professionalism, and “community,” while material labour conditions continue to deteriorate beneath these narratives. Such alignment does not require coordination or deliberate design; it can emerge incrementally through shared institutional assumptions about what constitutes constructive discourse, combined with structural reluctance to engage with questions of power, pricing, and labour distribution.

Over time, this can contribute to the normalisation of precarity as responsibility for systemic conditions is increasingly displaced onto individual practitioners, while the underlying organisation of the market remains insufficiently interrogated. This is precisely why labour conditions should be treated as a core institutional concern rather than a peripheral theme within professional discourse. It also requires explicit attention to the ways in which institutional framing may itself contribute to stabilising existing structures.

If ITI wishes to maintain credibility in its public commitments to ethics, sustainability, and the future of the profession, it should commission an independent ethical and strategic review of its positioning, partnerships, and prior outputs, and implement a structured process of institutional reflection on the issues identified in this analysis.

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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