Careers with languages are possible in a vast variety of industries, companies, departments and functional areas. Language skills mean all other languages than English such as modern foreign languages, community and heritage language, and sign language.

Many companies report of business loss as a result of communication barriers. About 60% of the graduates of modern languages are in UK or overseas employment, another 23% are undertaking further study or training.

For those using languages at work, there is a salary uplift of anything from 8% to 20%. Some organisations will pay a language allowance for each language spoken fluently after English.

In languages, there is a mismatch between business demand and education supply. The five business languages in most demand are French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch, and there is increasing demand for Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin/Cantonese, Portuguese and Russian. Within the public service sector the demand of languages is more aimed at community and heritage languages.

Regional networks were established to raise awareness of the importance of language skills for companies with international links. Currently, regional language strategies are built up with two for North East and South West already available on the net.

Two occupational career paths can be distinguished: Specialist language occupations such as interpreter, translator or language teacher; and occupations with languages, where language skills are combined with other qualifications. CILT states, that languages are particularly useful when combined with knowledge in other fields.

Job opportunities exist for people from ethnic minorities as they are often expected to act as interpreters. However, the UK as a multilingual society does not seem to manage to exploit this resources.

There are several ways in which the relevant combination of industrial experience and language skills can be achieved, such as work experience during vacations, combining languages with a non-language discipline, part-time work while studying, or teaching English as a foreign language.