In July 2026, I sent two surveys to my mailing list (~5,000 subscribers) with various questions about the state of freelance translation. To see the full results, visit this blog post: https://www.trainingfortranslators.com/2026/10/19/survey-results-the-state-of-freelance-translation-in-2026/
The survey was limited to people who earn the majority of their income as a freelance word person (translator, interpreter, editor, subtitler, etc.), not those who have a full-time job and do this work as a side hustle. For the first survey (general questions about the state of freelancing), 337 people responded, and for the second survey (questions specifically about translation work), 229 people responded.
This episode summarizes the results from survey #1, including the data and some comments from me. There were also many (many) individual and "Other" responses that I don't have space to include here but that I've incorporated into my comments. Thank you to everyone who responded! I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability in helping to create this snapshot of where our professions are headed in these turbulent times!