I often come across the phrase “the value of translation” in professional discourse and academic writing, and I wonder what it really means—and whose value we are actually talking about. There is no doubt that translation enables communication and business exchange, but is it politically problematic to treat it as a single, undifferentiated entity?

I am not being pedantic here; I am a researcher focusing on translators’ rights. The economists and sociologists I read are very clear about value extraction, and I am trying to bring that discussion into translation studies and professional spaces.

Translators create value using their linguistic, cultural, and subject-matter expertise. Their labour is the essence of the translation industry, and even machine translation and AI systems are trained on the products of translators’ labour. Language service providers (LSPs), meanwhile, may generate revenue, attract investment, expand market share, and increase profit margins. However, none of these outcomes automatically tell us whether translators themselves are receiving a fair share of the value they help create.

For example, I was invited to speak about my research at an event on interpreting in maternity wards. What shocked me most was hearing that healthcare staff are being told to refrain from requesting in-person interpreters unless it is strictly critical, because they are considered too expensive for the NHS. It costs the NHS about £250 to get an LSP to send an in-person interpreter. Yet from my research and my interactions with interpreters, I know that the going rate for interpreters is often between £12–15 per hour, and in some cases only slightly higher.

This raises important questions about how we define and use concepts such as “value.” Does “the value of translation” refer to the final product sold by LSPs, or to the labour of translators themselves? We need to be more precise about this distinction, and we must also acknowledge how value is distributed unevenly across the system.

(Some might argue that interpreters are different from translators. I understand that distinction, but as I am focusing on labour structures that have much in common, I use “translation” here as an umbrella term for both written translation and interpreting. Also, in my native language, Arabic, we refer to them as written translation and spoken translation.)

There is also a common tendency in translation studies to attribute low pay to “invisibility,” particularly in relation to translators’ labour. While invisibility is certainly relevant, it may not fully account for disparities in remuneration. Other factors—market dynamics, scarcity of skills, bargaining power, and structural economic incentives—also play a significant role. Focusing primarily on invisibility risks a form of attribution bias, where outcomes are explained by a single factor despite multiple interacting causes. This is evident in other professions (e.g. film editors or software developers), where work may be relatively invisible yet still highly remunerated.

This raises a broader question for professional institutions and industry organisations. When reports describe the economic contribution of translation, are they measuring the value of translators’ labour itself, or the value of the commercial services built around that labour? Are they analysing how value is distributed across the supply chain, or simply measuring aggregate market activity?

Perhaps the more pressing issue is not demonstrating the value of translation, but how that value is being distributed, and who ultimately benefits from it. Without addressing those questions, discussions about the “value of translation” risk obscuring the intensifying financial insecurity faced by translators.

I have previously written that the government has acknowledged that the current legislative framework does not prevent worker exploitation and leaves vulnerable workers without core employment protections. I strongly believe that we need academic scholars and professional institutions to demand stronger protections and greater recognition of the value of translators’ labour. We should also begin repoliticising the narrative around translation labour by asking uncomfortable questions about power and value extraction.

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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