Translation and interpreting jobs are split between a small number of staff posts filled through demanding exams and a much larger freelance market paid by the word, page or hour. Staff employers include the UN, the EU institutions, courts, governments and health services, while language service companies, game studios and manufacturers hire for localization, technical translation and project management. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics counts about 73,900 interpreter and translator jobs in 2025, projects only 2 percent growth to 2035, and estimates that about 28 percent of workers are self-employed, according to its occupational outlook for interpreters.
Three things set the field apart. Machine translation now shapes most written work: in the 2025 European Language Industry Survey, 69 percent of freelance translators used it on their own initiative, up from 58 percent a year earlier, and post-editing machine output is a standard task. The language combination decides the market more than the job title, from Mandarin-Spanish in Bogotá to Afrikaans terminology in Pretoria. And credentials act as gatekeepers: the UN and EU hire through competitive exams, while court, health and government work in many countries requires a national certification.
This guide covers how international organizations recruit linguists, the boards that carry translation and interpreting ads, national certification, where translators compare notes, and what published pay data shows. Subtitling and audiovisual work are touched on only where boards list them. Sites were checked on 7 November 2026. Current vacancies are on our separate translation and interpreting open positions page, checked monthly.
The UN and EU: exams, rosters and open calls
International organizations are the largest single employers of staff translators and interpreters, and they recruit on their own timetables. Missing an exam can mean waiting years for the next one, so the announcement pages matter more than any job board.
United Nations language competitive examinations
The UN Secretariat recruits most language staff through competitive examinations held about once every two or three years for each language and specialty, and successful candidates join a roster used to fill posts in New York, Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna and the regional commissions in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut and Santiago. The 2026 exam for German translators closed on 15 February, and applications for the Global Language Register exam for Spanish interpreters closed on 5 August. Separate exams for contractual and temporary work are advertised only in Inspira, the UN’s recruitment system. Exam calendars and preparation tips are on the UN language careers page.
EU institutions: EPSO competitions and temporary posts
Permanent EU translator posts are filled from EPSO competitions, which create reserve lists for the Commission, Parliament, Council and other bodies. EPSO’s planning page, last updated in September 2026, lists no translator or interpreter competition for 2026 and a translators competition for Bulgarian, German, Finnish, Irish, Croatian, Portuguese, Slovenian and Swedish planned for June 2027. Between competitions, institutions recruit temporary and contract staff through their own notices, such as the Court of Justice’s standing call for English-language legal translators with a law degree. Check the EPSO competitions page for dates, which it marks as provisional.
Impactpool and UN agency job sites
Impactpool collects vacancies from UN agencies, EU bodies, courts and NGOs, and a search for “translator” on 7 November 2026 returned 53 matches, from Arabic and Kiswahili interpreters at the International Rescue Committee to lawyer-linguists at the EU Court of Justice. Much of this work is consultancy: UNICEF and UNFPA country offices regularly set up long-term agreements with freelance interpreters and translators for a local language pair. Impactpool warns that its closing dates can be wrong, so confirm on the employer’s page. Search translator roles on Impactpool.
Boards that carry translation and interpreting ads
General boards bury translation roles among unrelated results, because “translator” also matches software and data jobs. A recurring pattern: many in-house ads come from staffing agencies, especially in Japan, and many combine translation with coordination, customer support or HR duties.
Daijob (Japan)
Daijob, a bilingual board for Japan, returned 27 listings for “translator” on 7 November 2026, mostly game localization, technical translation and interpreter roles placed by staffing agencies in Tokyo. Each ad states the Japanese level required, usually JLPT N1 or N2, and an annual salary range. Several are temporary dispatch contracts that may convert to direct hire. Search translator roles on Daijob.
Job Bank (Canada)
Canada’s federal Job Bank lists interpreter and translator postings with stated pay, including community interpreters and sign language interpreters for Quebec Sign Language (LSQ). Ad pages show the local median wage for the occupation beside the offer, which helps judge a rate. Most postings require existing Canadian work authorization. Search interpreter jobs on Job Bank.
jobs.ch, Jobs.cz and Make it in Germany (Europe)
Swiss cantons advertise staff translator posts on jobs.ch; the State Chancellery of Fribourg was hiring French-to-German and German-to-French translators at 50 to 60 percent in early November 2026. Jobs.cz returned 22 results for “překladatel,” though only a few were translation roles, and Make it in Germany’s 68 results for “translator” included only a handful of genuine translation jobs. Most European in-house ads require near-native command of the target language. Search translator vacancies on jobs.ch.
elempleo and PNet (Colombia and South Africa)
In Bogotá, elempleo carries Mandarin-Spanish translator and interpreter ads, including one that prefers experience with Chinese companies in construction, infrastructure or engineering, and most state monthly pay. In South Africa, PNet carries freelance work in the official African languages and public-sector terminology posts, which require a SAQA-recognized qualification in language practice, linguistics or translation. Browse translator ads on elempleo for Colombia.
Certification and who requires it
Certification rules are national, and they matter most for interpreting in courts, hospitals and government services and for legally valid document translation. In Australia, NAATI is the national certifying authority, with more than 10,500 practitioners and credentials in 178 languages, and it is also the skills assessing authority for translator and interpreter occupations on the country’s skilled migration lists. That makes a NAATI credential the entry point for anyone planning to work or migrate there in the field. See NAATI’s certification pages for the credential types.
Other countries use their own titles, registers and professional bodies, and requirements can differ between court, health and document work in the same country. Staff posts at international organizations rely on their own exams instead; the EU Court of Justice, for example, tests translation of a French legal text into English without a dictionary. Check the register or professional body of the country where the work will be done before investing in a credential.
Where translators compare notes
The largest open forum is r/TranslationStudies on Reddit, with about 54,000 members in the last snapshot published by the analytics site GummySearch. Its most active thread at the time asked whether translation is a dying field, and pay and agency rate cuts are frequent topics. Posters come from many countries, so rate discussions mix very different markets.
The European Language Industry Survey, run by industry associations together with the European Commission’s language industry expert group, is the best regular pulse of freelance conditions. Its 2025 edition, with 654 independent professionals, found that only 57 percent earned enough from freelance work, that 23 percent were considering ending their freelance activity, and that the share seeing freelancing as a viable long-term option had dropped below half. The full findings are in the ELIS 2025 report; a 2026 edition was presented in March.
What the work pays
Few countries publish official earnings for this occupation, and freelance rates are rarely visible. The table gives figures in the currency published, labeled by who produced them, with none converted. Ad figures are for specific roles and cities, not national averages.
| Country | Role | Pay | Source and type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada (Estrie, Quebec) | LSQ sign language interpreter | C$25 to 38 an hour offered; C$33.95 an hour local median | Job ad on Job Bank, November 2026; median from Job Bank wage data, official |
| Czech Republic | Czech-Polish translator, Letohrad | CZK 280 an hour, up to CZK 27,000 a month part-time | Ascari job ad on Jobs.cz, October 2026 |
| Colombia | Mandarin-Spanish translator, Bogotá | COP 4.5 million to 5.5 million a month | Cafam job ad on elempleo, October 2026 |
| Japan | Game localization and translation roles, Tokyo | ¥3 million to 4.5 million a year in most ads | Derived from Daijob listings, October and November 2026 |
| Japan | Interpreter/translator, temporary, Chiba | ¥320,000 a month | GLOBALPOWER job ad on Daijob, October 2026 |
| United States | Interpreters and translators | $60,170 a year median ($37,070 lowest tenth, $103,660 highest tenth) | Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025; official, excludes self-employed |
The US figure excludes the self-employed, who are more than a quarter of the occupation, so it describes staff jobs rather than freelance earnings. Japanese agency roles pay modestly, while technical interpreting for IT projects can reach ¥10 million a year in rare cases. Freelance per-word and per-hour rates vary too widely by language pair and specialty to summarize from public sources.
The next openings to watch
For staff careers, timing matters more than search effort. The UN runs exams language by language every two or three years, and EPSO has signaled a translators competition for eight languages in June 2027, with dates still provisional.
Freelancers face the opposite rhythm: steady work through agencies and marketplaces, at rates that ELIS respondents expect to keep falling as machine translation spreads.