All LSPs unite: a Brexit letter to your MP

What could be more important right now than protecting the rights and the futures of the highly skilled people working in and looking to enter our industry in the UK?

The ATC advocates the inclusion of the roles “translator”, “interpreter” and “multilingual project manager” to be added to an approved immigration skills shortage list, and for no cap to be established on the qualifying salary levels.

If you haven’t already, now’s the time to rise to the barricades, or at least write to your MP. We’ve made it easy for you. Send us a copy of any responses you get!

 

[Date]

Dear [check your MP at https://www.theyworkforyou.com/],

I’m writing to you as the owner/manager of a thriving translation company called [name], based in [location] and employing [number of] staff, some of whom are EU nationals, to outline the importance of safeguarding the rights and the futures of the highly skilled people working in and looking to enter our industry.

In a post-Brexit Britain, language services – translation and interpreting – are set to play an increasingly significant role in enabling and facilitating UK businesses’ import and export strategies. No product can be sold to the EU without user instructions translated into the local language and doing business further afield won’t take a company very far without language support.

I am sure you will be well aware of what challenges and opportunities a changing global landscape brings to British social infrastructure and Britain’s international trade. But are you also aware of the need to protect the rights of those of us working in language services, an industry so crucial for Britain’s importing and exporting capabilities?

Language services lubricate the wheels of international commerce. Without oil in the system, progress quickly grinds to a halt. There is a critical need to safeguard the staff in UK’s language service companies and the translators and interpreters who work for these companies, whose sole purpose is to support global communications. Not just for the people who are already in this country, but the people who will be needed in years to come to keep these wheels turning.

An annual survey on the UK language services industry puts the number of language service companies at 1,200 nationally, employing 12,000 staff, with an estimated revenue worth of £1.15bn per annum^[1]. As an industry, ours is no heavyweight, but the impact it has on the prospects of UK’s international trade cannot be understated, the significance of which will become increasingly important in a post-Brexit Britain.

Language service companies depend on being able to employ multilingual project managers, translators and interpreters. Whilst native British linguists supply some of the required language skills, our industry needs mother tongue speakers to produce the highest quality translation and interpreting services, most of whom cannot be recruited from within the UK. Thus, safeguarding the rights of existing EU and other staff already living in the UK is critical, not to mention future staff from outside of the UK, for continued support of the UK’s international trade.

It is still very difficult for to see what the Government’s likely process for managing recruitment from the EU and elsewhere for these types of roles, post-Brexit, may be. However, within an industry such as the translation and interpreting sector, which relies on recruiting native speakers of foreign languages, a functional, unrestricted recruitment process is crucial. The roles of translator, interpreter and multilingual project manager require highly-skilled, competent and professional candidates, often qualified to MA level, who nevertheless would not qualify for the currently touted £30,000-50,000 immigration salary brackets.

To safeguard UK companies’ continued access to high-quality language services, the UK’s Association of Translation Companies therefore strongly advocates the inclusion of the roles of “translator”, “interpreter” and “multilingual project manager” to be permanently added to an approved immigration skills shortage list, and for no cap to be established on the qualifying salary levels.

I and many of my colleagues are concerned for the future of not just our own families, friends and careers, but also the future of our industry, which so heavily relies on the language capabilities not readily available in Britain. But more importantly, British businesses, from SMEs to multinationals, need the continued support of UK language service companies together with all the individual translators and interpreters working in it, to keep the nation competitive.

I urge you to act to ensure that a post-Brexit Britain will still be able to attract, accept and retain the multilingual people our businesses need.

Best regards,

[Your signature]

 

Supporting research on language capabilities in the UK

Existing research on the significance of language capabilities has demonstrated a decline in language studies within the UK as I am sure you will be aware. Set against the increasing future need for language capabilities in the context of international trade, it is an alarming trend that further highlights the continued need for external language services, especially for UK SMEs.

The British Council’s Languages for the Future report (2013 & 2017) considers the outlook for the supply and demand for language competence in the years ahead and looks at the linguistic dimension of a variety of economic, geopolitical, cultural and educational factors. The report argues that, in a new era of cooperation with Europe and with the rest of the world, investment in upgrading the UK’s ability to understand and engage with people internationally is critical.

An earlier SME survey by the British Academy’s Born Global project revealed that, in 2014, 83% of SMEs do not use languages other than English, but 52% of all SMEs agreed that additional foreign languages would be helpful to extend business opportunities in the future.

Further research initiated by the Association of Translation Companies is underway in the form of a PhD project on the role of languages in the internationalisation of UK SMEs, which aims to establish the impact of languages in facilitating SME growth through exports and the role of languages in business-to-business marketing and customer-company relationships. The project is co-funded by the UK Association of Translation Companies and Aston Business School, and due for completion in 2020.

^[1] UK Language Services Market 2017, Association of Translation Companies