The year 2020 has been rather unfortunate and somewhat unpredictable for majority of UK based businesses, across practically all corporate sectors. From the uncertainty of Brexit to a world-wide pandemic, there have been a number of particularly challenging obstacles business owners had to face and overcome in the last 12 months or so.
Nonetheless, looking at the statistics, it appears that the UK economy has in fact started to slowly recover in the last quarter of the year. This can be also quite clearly observed in the number of translations completed by some of the leading UK translation agencies.
Of course, the amount of translated corporate documents doesn’t always reflect the current state of the economy, nonetheless, it is a very good indicator of the overall business atmosphere. Generally speaking, a higher the number of translations conducted indicates a more optimistic attitude of corporations and organisations towards international trade as well as importing and exporting goods and services.
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A Translations Agency’s Perspective
In order to gather more in-depth information and to gain a better understanding of how UK business approach their language translation requirements, we have spoken to representative of TS24, one of the leading agencies offering translation services in London. We have discussed whether the attitude of business owners to translating their content have changed over the course of this year and whether the challenges they had to face in 2020 reflect in the demand for professional translations services.
“This year has so far been a truly great challenge to businesses in fundamentally every corporate sector.” He said, and added, “In the early months of 2020 we were certainly able to see a slight fall in the demand for translations in the UK. The uncertainty of Brexit and a rapidly growing pandemic have undeniably put a lot of doubt in the hearts of business owners. Nonetheless, in the second half of the year, we saw a rapid growth in demand for professional translations and naturally, giving the circumstances, remote interpreting, among the corporate sectors. We believe that UK based businesses and organisations look into the future with a relative optimism, which is definitely reflected in the general demand for expert language services.”
What’s In Demand
Giving that the demand for translation services have not particularly declined, we began to wonder, which languages were most translated this year. We have asked TS24 whether they’d be able perhaps share their language data with us. Indeed, the agency has provided this information to us and so we were able to prepare an accurate list of the languages, which were in most demand this year, and those are:
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Mandarin
- Arabic
As you can see, the top 3 languages on the list are European. Generally, UK based businesses tend to approach the European markets and trade with partners based around Europe at a very high rate. Naturally, popularity of French, German and Spanish reflects this. Translating into these languages, which are native to some of the largest markets on the continent, give UK business owners great prospects and opportunities, allowing them to approach large and relatively wealthy markets.
The presence of Mandarin and Arabic on the list of most translated languages in 2020 also shouldn’t come as a surprise. China is still one of the fastest growing sectors in the world. Approaching this market has tremendously grown in popularity amongst UK businesses in the recent years. According to the UK parliament, in 2019, trading with China accounted for 4.4% of exports and 6.8% of all UK imports. You can see these statistics here. Arabic, on the other hand, is mostly relevant due the large Arabic-speaking population the United Kingdom.
2021 Predictions
The last quarter of 2020 has strongly indicated that UK based businesses began to look into their future with a relative optimism again. Despite the second lock-down in November and early December, business owners have translated content and materials at a much higher rate than they have during the first half of the year.
As a result, the outlook for 2021 appears somewhat more positive as a whole. It is predicted that the languages which were popular this year, will again be on the list at the end of 2021. French, German and Spanish have certainly been the most popular translated languages for several years now. Nonetheless, one of the key factors, which may affect the number of documents translated into these European languages, could be Brexit. UK organisations may possibly wish to wait until the final legislations have been outlined, and so they have more clarity and confidence in planning international expansion for the long-term. Arabic & Mandarin are also expected to make the list next year, especially giving the rate of growth of their home markets as well as a continuous, yearly growth in popularity in the last decade or so, which you can see on the graph below:
What Was Translated?
In 2020, similarly to a number of previous years, legal documents were translated most frequently across virtually all languages. From simple certificates to complicated legal contracts and court orders, translation agencies work with this type of content practically on the daily basis.
Interestingly however, translating marketing content – such as websites or brochures have significantly gained in popularity in the last 12 months, especially if we take into consideration European languages.
Furthermore, as the pandemic has truly affected the way in which we work, at least temporarily, the demand for video and telephone interpreting services has seen an astonishing surge in 2020. Before, a meeting would take place face to face. Today however, majority of employees work from their homes, and so the need for this type of language services is absolutely natural.
Should I Wait Or Translate Now?
Despite a challenging year, a vast majority of the business owners asked, claimed not to have completely cancelled their plans for approaching international markets and translating their content in the process. Although most of them admitted to putting those on hold until end of the year, it is clear to see that beginning of 2021 will be a busy year of UK based translation agencies, especially if governments will be able to put the pandemic situation under control.
There are, however, organisations, which believe that the end of 2020 is just the perfect time for translating their content and materials, as this will allow them to be fully prepared to approach foreign markets as early as possible, giving them a competitive advantage over business rivals.
Additionally, as due to a number of business owners putting their translations on hold until the beginning of next year, translation agencies are still somewhat less busy than they are usually, it may be slightly easier for your company to negotiate a more competitive price and a faster turnaround time.
