Peak Translations

Increasingly, the motivations underpinning the ‘In’ and ‘Out’ campaigns for Britain’s EU membership are becoming departmentalised into different sectors of the British economy. As a translator, interpreter or user of a professional translation service, it is likely the factors affecting your stance on this month’s referendum will differ.

For the language industry, the possibility of Brexit presents a common scenario felt by all UK businesses. For those who hire, work for, or are in any way part of the translation industry, there is a scarce amount of information available on the impact of Brexit and how it will directly affect their sector.

So how significant is the European Union to the total amount of trade available to the UK’s professional translations services, what are the concerns of the industry and how should they be considered?

Currently, the European Union trails only the United States as the largest single market for translation services. It is somewhat unsurprising then, that in a recent survey of 1,283 members of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, 84% of members said they wanted to remain ‘In’.

This is believed to be the case as, unlike the UK’s manufacturing sector, that benefits directly from the weakening of the pound, professional translation services, who often work with freelancers based in the EU, could suffer from increased costs in the event of Brexit.

When delving further into the motivations of the industry, it somewhat depends on the business model of a particular translation service as to how they’ll be affected by the outcome. For instance, if the majority of its trade is conducted in the public sector via contracts and a tendering process, the  policy concerns that underpin whether they will vote ‘In’ or ‘Out’ are going to be very different from those organisations that focus solely on corporate trade.

An important consideration for smaller businesses that rely on large corporations is whether these larger organisations decide to move their headquarters in the event of Brexit. Earlier in the year, for example, HSBC threatened to move 1,000 jobs from London to France if the UK leaves the EU. Should other large corporations follow suit, this could significantly impact the British economy and therefore the financial health of the clients of translation services.

Centralising policy decisions to the UK is one of the major selling points cited by the ‘Out’ campaign, giving more powers to UK government decision makers and taking it away from the European Parliament and MEPs. For translation services that rely on the public sector and therefore local government policy, theoretically, Brexit could be a benefit as they would have a heightened opportunity to influence policy decisions relating to their sector.

For those unfamiliar with the industry, it should be noted that professional translation services hire two very different professionals: translators and interpreters. Translation deals with written language; whereas interpreting, whether simultaneous or consecutive, deals with the spoken word.

The best scenario for those in the UK’s professional translation industry would be to allow continued accessibility to Europe’s single market and, in the event of Brexit, avoid the likelihood of increased ‘red tape’ that could add complex and time-consuming processes to those that already exist.

Helen Provart, Managing Director of Peak Translations, believes that the amount of trade available would be unlikely to change, instead, the main impact being increased costs and therefore a loss of margin for the UK’s professional translation services.

“In addition to requiring specialist knowledge of the area being translated, all translations have to be conducted by professionals from a foreign language to their native tongue. For this reason, it is unlikely that Brexit will have a significant impact on the amount of trade available to professional translation services based in the UK, even if larger corporations were to leave Britain.”

As Managing Director of Peak Translations, a professional translation service based in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire, she believes that although the need for the translation industry is not highly publicised, it is vital to UK business of all sizes: “Translation services rely on the financial health of their clients and similarly, these businesses rely on the health of the translation industry. For regular users of translation services, understanding how the eventuality of Brexit could affect the industry should be an instrumental factor in the final decision on Britain’s membership of the European Union.”

Professional translation services employ a vast panel of professional linguists, including translators and interpreters, specialising in a remit of languages needing to be processed by businesses or organisations. Translation services are vital to the UK economy, aiding organisations from the public and private sector, each contributing to the business of translation that globally generates revenues of $37 billion a year, according to Common Sense Advisory (CSA).