Working for the Directorate-General for Translation

As one of the biggest employers of translators anywhere in the world, we have plenty of opportunities — for individuals and companies. If you would like to work with us, there are several options:

staff translator — permanent in-house staff are all recruited through open competitions, but you could also join our temporary staff or contract staff instead.

contractor — contracts are awarded through periodic public tenders, open to individual freelance translators and agencies. For practical reasons, we recruit all contractors through the tendering procedure. We cannot consider speculative applications.

trainee — twice each year, we take on a small number of graduate interns who wish to gain some professional translation experience.

Translator or interpreter?

The European Commission has two separate language services, DG Translation and DG Interpretation. They recruit staff independently of each other and on different criteria. Linguists at the Commission work exclusively for one or the other.

Translators work with written text, interpreters with the spoken word. So these are two different careers.