langleaders

Market intelligence

The state of language industry hiring

The most complete picture of hiring and trends in the language industry, updated daily.

Updated October 9, 2026·Methodology

Language Industry Hiring Index

60165
145.9
Surge ↑

+3.8 vs last week

Week ending October 4, 2026

Volume · 35%
Companies · 20%
Geography · 15%
AI Signal · 15%
Industry Shift · 15%

This week

+1.1 pts

Data annotation demand rising

Largest signal move over the last 7 days.

124

New employers this month

Companies posting language industry roles for the first time.

42.0%

Remote share of open roles

1,851 roles are fully remote.

4,449 active roles · 940 employers · 97 countries

Pulse

Is it a good time to hire or job hunt?

What drives the Hiring Index

Five components. One weekly reading.

Component scores

This week, with each component’s weight

Volume35%
222.9
Geography15%
138.0
Companies20%
118.6
AI signal15%
94.7
Industry shift15%
61.6

Hiring Index, 9 weeks

145.9

What job descriptions are asking for

Signals

Data annotation

14.6%

+1.1 pts vs 7 days ago

GenAI / LLM

14.2%

-0.4 pts vs 7 days ago

Audiovisual

8.8%

-0.4 pts vs 7 days ago

Automation

6.0%

-0.0 pts vs 7 days ago

MTPE

2.4%

+0.5 pts vs 7 days ago

Where

Where is the work?

Hiring across 97 countries

Countries

Hiring by country

Top countries

  1. United States1,246
  2. United Kingdom312
  3. India138
  4. Japan132
  5. Spain120
  6. Canada113
  7. Germany96
  8. Mexico88

Americas, EMEA and APAC

Regions

Top countries · Americas

  1. United States1,246
  2. Canada113
  3. Mexico88
  4. Brazil65
  5. Argentina27

Top employers · Americas

  1. 1Welo Global (Welocalize)118
  2. 2Transperfect100
  3. 3Sierra97
  4. 4Alignerr90
  5. 5LanguageLine Solutions72

Career paths · Americas

1,524roles
  • Operations & Delivery14%
  • Technology & Product12%
  • Strategy & Corporate5%
  • Language & Creative56%
  • Commercial12%

Company types · Americas

1,570roles
  • Language Service Providers37%
  • Enterprise15%
  • Language AI14%
  • Media & Interpretation8%
  • Unclassified7%
  • Government & Institutions7%
  • Unclassified6%
  • Staffing & Recruiting5%
  • Localization Technology1%

Remote work

Remote

Remote roles

1,851

Of all open roles

42.0%

Highest remote share

EMEA

43%

Remote share by region

  1. 1Americas37%
  2. 2EMEA43%
  3. 3APAC40%

Workplace policy

2,974roles
  • Remote62%
  • Hybrid10%
  • On-site27%
Who

Who is hiring?

The most active employers

Employers

Top employers

  1. 1Welo Global (Welocalize)511
  2. 2Alignerr250
  3. 3Transperfect228
  4. 4WPP Media172
  5. 5LanguageLine Solutions150
  6. 6Sierra142
  7. 7ElevenLabs142
  8. 8Cactus Communications92

New this month 124

41.9%Top 10 share of roles

Hiring by company type

Company types

Language Service Providers1,913
Enterprise652
Language AI481
Unclassified365
Media & Interpretation352
Staffing & Recruiting255
Unclassified247
Government & Institutions122
Localization Technology62

LSPs vs Language AI companies

Shift

Share of hiring today

2,394roles
  • LSP80%
  • Language AI20%

Language AI share over time

20.0%
What

What work is in demand?

Five career paths

Careers

2,434

Language & Creative

Translation, interpreting, transcreation and linguistic QA.

803

Operations & Delivery

Project, vendor and quality management. The delivery engine.

490

Commercial

Sales, account management and business development.

459

Technology & Product

Localization engineering, i18n, AI and product development.

173

Strategy & Corporate

Leadership, strategy, finance and operations.

23 disciplines in total

Disciplines

Commercial

  1. 1Sales & Business Development193
  2. 2Account Management & Customer Success148
  3. 3Global Community, Trust & Safety5
  4. 4Marketing144

Operations & Delivery

  1. 1Project Management165
  2. 2Program Management29
  3. 3Vendor & Supply Chain13
  4. 4Quality & Testing187
  5. 5Content Operations53
  6. 6Language Operations356

Language & Creative

  1. 1Linguistic & Translation705
  2. 2Multimedia, Audiovisual & Interpretation1,037
  3. 3Creative & Transcreation74
  4. 4Compliance & Legal36
  5. 5Data Annotation582

Technology & Product

  1. 1Localization Engineering & I18n273
  2. 2Linguistic AI & Data Operations75
  3. 3Product Management46
  4. 4Solutions Architecture7

Strategy & Corporate

  1. 1Leadership & Executive33
  2. 2Strategy & Innovation29
  3. 3Training & Enablement37
  4. 4Recruiting & Talent Acquisition46

What the roles are called

Job titles

Most common job titles

  1. 1Interpreter596
  2. 2Translator427
  3. 3AI data annotator / rater362
  4. 4Linguist302
  5. 5Medical interpreter121
  6. 6Transcriber103
  7. 7Software engineer91
  8. 8Localization project manager69

Rising titles

Last 30 days vs the prior 30 days

  1. 1Interpreter244
  2. 2Medical interpreter76
  3. 3Transcriber74
  4. 4Linguist54
  5. 5Sports Localization Specialist49
  6. 6Translator30
  7. 7Voice actor26
  8. 8Software engineer14

Titles by level

Language & Creative
Senior2%
Lead2%
Manager2%
Director1%
Operations & Delivery
Senior5%
Lead4%
Manager5%
Director0%
Commercial
Senior4%
Lead4%
Manager9%
Director11%
Technology & Product
Senior12%
Lead7%
Manager5%
Director3%
Strategy & Corporate
Senior5%
Lead1%
Manager10%
Director16%

Tools employers ask for

Tools

Localization platforms

  1. 1Trados Studio77 roles · 49 employers
  2. 2memoQ71 roles · 46 employers
  3. 3XTM Cloud70 roles · 18 employers
  4. 4Phrase TMS67 roles · 40 employers
  5. 5Smartling29 roles · 21 employers
  6. 6GlobalLink7 roles · 6 employers
  7. 7Wordfast Pro7 roles · 6 employers
  8. 8Crowdin6 roles · 6 employers

AI and machine translation

  1. 1OpenAI201 roles · 26 employers
  2. 2Claude61 roles · 25 employers
  3. 3Google Gemini39 roles · 12 employers
  4. 4Google Translate17 roles · 3 employers
  5. 5HuggingFace7 roles · 4 employers

Annotation & data platforms

  1. 1Labelbox15 roles · 3 employers
  2. 2SuperAnnotate10 roles · 3 employers
  3. 3Label Studio5 roles · 3 employers

Automation

  1. 1n8n3 roles · 3 employers

Content, DTP & design

  1. 1Adobe Photoshop35 roles · 17 employers
  2. 2Figma30 roles · 15 employers
  3. 3Canva22 roles · 6 employers
  4. 4Adobe Illustrator21 roles · 16 employers
  5. 5Adobe InDesign19 roles · 16 employers
  6. 6Articulate 3603 roles · 3 employers

Engineering & i18n

  1. 1Python239 roles · 91 employers
  2. 2Git/GitHub115 roles · 40 employers
  3. 3AWS74 roles · 26 employers
  4. 4JavaScript65 roles · 29 employers
  5. 5Microsoft Azure53 roles · 24 employers
  6. 6Google Cloud Platform49 roles · 23 employers
  7. 7Kubernetes34 roles · 20 employers
  8. 8Docker33 roles · 19 employers

Interpreting

  1. 1OPI93 roles · 18 employers
  2. 2VRI92 roles · 21 employers

Project & collaboration

  1. 1Jira111 roles · 42 employers
  2. 2Confluence27 roles · 19 employers
  3. 3Slack21 roles · 15 employers
  4. 4Asana14 roles · 9 employers
  5. 5Notion14 roles · 4 employers
  6. 6Trello8 roles · 5 employers
  7. 7Monday.com5 roles · 5 employers

Subtitling, audio & speech

  1. 1Pro Tools36 roles · 14 employers
  2. 2Adobe Audition15 roles · 4 employers
  3. 3Adobe Premiere Pro11 roles · 9 employers
  4. 4Final Cut Pro8 roles · 5 employers
  5. 5Subtitle Edit8 roles · 5 employers
  6. 6EZTitles6 roles · 4 employers
  7. 7Ooona5 roles · 4 employers
  8. 8OpenAI Whisper5 roles · 4 employers

Languages employers ask for

Languages

  1. 1Spanish417
  2. 2Chinese310
  3. 3Japanese254
  4. 4French226
  5. 5Korean216
  6. 6German197
  7. 7Portuguese130
  8. 8Arabic130

Seniority and contracts

Workforce

Roles with a stated level

  1. 1Associate / Mid81
  2. 2Executive12
  3. 3Senior164
  4. 4Lead / Principal127
  5. 5Entry95
  6. 6Director / Head135
  7. 7Manager169

Contract types

3,687roles
  • Internship2%
  • Contract30%
  • Part time8%
  • Full time60%
  • Temporary1%