Executive Summary: People aiming to build a career as a freelance translator and thinking that they can do it by working for agencies need to rethink that plan. Freelance translating for agencies is quickly ending. The best advice at this point is simply don’t bother. There are more hopeful paths and other things you should think about doing with your language ability.
Every time I read through posts made by freelance translators on platforms such as LinkedIn, many of which complain about their plight and the behavior of translation-brokering agencies, it becomes more obvious that freelance translating for agencies is ending. It started ending a few years ago with AI use by agencies and, arguably, much earlier than that, when agencies started using other, non-AI technologies to reduce their price for purchasing translation services from freelancers. Now, the major players that sell most of the translation that users purchase are eliminating their need for freelance translators entirely.
If you are in a university learning languages, continuing with the goal of becoming a freelance translator is unwise. In fact, it’s reckless. If you have what it takes to acquire clients not in the translation business themselves, you might want to try for that. But most freelancers will find that impossible.
One path for averting career failure is to acquire a non-language specialization that can stand on its own as a basis for a career, leaving the option of combining language knowledge with that non-language specialization.
At this point in the evolution of the translation busines, thinking that expertise in languages or translation alone, without another specialization, is going to turn into a career is recklessly optimistic. You need to have a career Plan B not reliant on freelance translating for agencies, and you should treat that as your Plan A