Market Research

Welcome to the ATC UK Language Industry Survey 2019! The data collected for the survey forms a snapshot of the UK’s language services industry, providing us with a glimpse into the UK market as it stands today in a rapidly changing and evolving global industry and an uncertain political arena.

The UK market is the second largest localization and interpreting market in the world. It is defined by several large language service companies, a handful of mid-sized players and over a thousand smaller or specialist companies competing to meet client needs. Nimdzi and the Association of Translation Companies (ATC) have combined their efforts to provide a comprehensive overview of the language industry in the United Kingdom. 

58 percent of respondents in North Africa, and nearly 40 percent of respondents in Sub-Saharan Africa reported that the internet’s lack of culturally and linguistically-relevant content was one of the most significant reasons why these mobile users chose not to access the Internet. In Egypt alone, 70 percent of those surveyed identified this to be a problem.

We estimate the market for interpreting services in 2019 at USD 7.6 billion. This includes core services such as onsite interpreting, over-the-phone interpreting (OPI), video remote interpreting (VRI), video relay services (VRS), sign language interpreting, conference interpreting, equipment rental for interpreting, and related services.

In 2017, a research report commissioned by Voices.com put the global market for audio recording at USD 4.4 billion.

The World Federation of the Deaf estimates that there are around 70 million deaf people in the world. When we think of equal access for deaf people, we probably think of more extreme scenarios, such as medical and legal settings. But what about everyday needs and real inclusion? For example in education and tourism.

There are 351 languages other than English (LOTE) spoken in US homes and over 25 million LOTE speakers. In the US, the nationwide certifications that apply to medical interpreters are the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters (NBCMI) and the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI).

Tourism in the US is worth about USD 220 billion. Retail is worth USD 106 billion of the total travel spending in the US (domestic & international).

This is the first Nimdzi Interpreting Index. There has not been a ranking of the top players in interpreting in years and it is a great time to take a closer look at this sector of the language industry because interpreting is becoming more significant and scalable.

The Nimdzi online consumption index (OCI) ranks countries and languages by percentage of online spending. It tells us how much is being spent online and by whom.