We are corporate members of the Transcription Society, a UK based non-profit organisation for the accreditation of transcribers. Most of our transcribers are individual members as well, accredited to Standard, Advanced or Expert level.

We are members of the American Translators Association.

Yes – click here to view our Data Protection, Personal Data and GDPR Policy online. A copy can be provided as a pdf or word document, on request.

Yes we do. We provide an encrypted email solution to all our clients using Egress Protect. When you send us your recordings using our ISO 27001 accredited, military security graded SSL secure file upload service we process the work and you can be guaranteed that your recordings will be kept within strong cyber security measures. Once the transcripts of the audio recordings have been completed these will be sent back to you via Egress Protect encrypted email, which means that the email is sent via the Egress servers and encrypted at the point it is sent, and decrypted at the point you receive it. Egress is used by the NHS, government institutions, universities and NATO to provide secure email services.

For a full article on our encrypted email solution and more information about Egress Protect, please read this article: https://www.tptranscription.co.uk/how-do-we-communicate-securely-by-email-with-you/

For our UK clients all of our English to English transcribers are based in the UK and are native English speakers. We have offices in North Wales, London and Glasgow. Our office in Dublin has Irish transcribers located on the island of Ireland, providing English to English transcription for our EU clients.

This does mean of course that, unlike a lot of our competitors, your data never leaves the UK or the EU.

Our translators are based around the world in varying locations, although we do have a number of translators who are UK based and work regularly with us on more mainstream assignments (eg German to English or Danish to French).

Yes. Our file upload service is based in the UK (London), our company server is located in Denbighshire, North Wales, and our transcribers are based solely in the UK. Our secure email service is also UK based, so all communication is sent in the UK and does not leave the country at any time.

All English to English standard transcription remains in the UK at all times and is not transferred overseas or stored offshore at any time in the process.

If you are an EU client, we have the same service available at our Dublin office – all data will remain within the EU, although at present the GDPR rules in both the UK and the EU are aligned and data can travel between the two jurisdictions. If the systems diverge in future we are still able to provide the same level of service to our EU clients. Our EU office and website can be viewed here: www.tptranscription.ie

We ask all our clients to notify us if the content of their recordings contains anything that they think is potentially triggering or contains potentially upsetting material.

Our transcribers make us aware of any topics they want to personally avoid exposure to, and we make sure wherever possible that they are not sent any recordings that relate to these.

We have a policy of reallocating files immediately if transcribers decide that subject matter is not suitable for them. This does not impact on our clients, usually because we are already aware of the issues individual transcribers do not want to be exposed to. Our full policy and guidance on trigger warnings is here: https://www.universitytranscriptions.co.uk/trigger-warnings-content-notifications/

This is perhaps one of the most common calls our company receives. Our answer is always yes, always, because we have a very large extended team of UK-based, qualified and approved transcribers who work with us as associate transcriptionists as and when we have the work. We handle orders of hundreds of hours of academic & business interviews and recordings on a weekly basis, and our capacity is endless. So, our answer is always yes, send us your work and we will get it back to you within the allotted time. Our company goes out of its way to meet deadlines, and one particular example springs to mind of a Christmas week when the board of directors and the transcribers all worked to fulfil a contract for a business in desperate circumstances where recordings were needed to be transcribed for a court hearing starting on January 2nd. Not only did we complete the project, but we also completed extra work that had not been expected from the client within time as well.

The reason this question is asked so often is because there are a lot of one- and two-person transcription companies out there who take orders on a capacity basis – i.e., they take the order if they have availability, and they decline the order if they do not. It may surprise some people to know that this also applies to some of the bigger companies, who will take file uploads and then return them again if they do not have the capacity to complete the work. We do not under any circumstances return work – our clients trust us to complete.

You can quite easily tell which companies and transcription services are likely not to have sufficient capacity to complete work on a regular basis simply by looking at their website and their price page. If a company does not have a pricing page, it is highly likely either their prices are very expensive, or they are doing the work as and when it comes in, so if they have availability they will price at a lower level, and if they don’t have a lot of availability they will increase the cost.

Our company is always available, our prices are clearly displayed on our website, and applied to all our clients regardless of size or location.

So, yes we have availability at all times for all types of transcription, whether English to English or other language, as well as translation work. Get in touch today for a quote.

Yes we do. We are also a Living Wage Employer accredited by the Living Wage Foundation , Disability Confident committed and we have signed the Scottish Government Business Pledge.

A copy of our Equal Opportunities Policy is available here.

Yes – we are always happy to sign confidentiality undertakings and NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). We have an online system in place to complete one instantly via our e-signature software. Click here to see our standard confidentiality undertaking template.

We have an ISO9001:2015 compliant Quality Management System, an approved compliant ISO27001:2017 Information Security Management System and we operate a compliant ISO14001:2015 Environmental Management System.

We invoice you once the work is complete. We do not ask for payment in advance. Payment methods include Visa Debit and Credit, MasterCard Debit and Credit, American Express, Paypal, Stripe, bank transfer and cheque.

Click here for a list of our current prices and an instant quote. Personalised quotations available on request. Contact us for quotes for 50 hours of work or more.

No. We do not charge extra for background noise or poor quality recordings. We have specialist software that boosts particular frequencies and assists us to detect and extract the speech from a recording.

If the voices on the recording are completely inaudible we will let you know before commencing work and discuss options for accessing the audio and transcribing it.

We offer an instant quote service online. Click here to get a price for your work.

No. We have transcribers with many years experience and expertise in transcribing strong regional accents and second language English speakers. Unlike a lot of our competitors we do not charge extra for transcribing strong accents. The same applies for our transcription services in other languages.

Yes we do. If you need to raise a PO get in touch and we can provide a formal quote with the full cost of your transcriptions which makes completing a POR (purchase order request) form easier. For customers who are uploading files regularly we can send a quote at the end of each month for the total amount of files uploaded that month.

We are listed as a supplier on the purchasing systems of a number of government institutions, large companies and most universities.

Yes – we offer discounts on bulk orders of more than 50 hours. Contact us for details.

Unfortunately when it comes to transcription our prices are not set at a level where we are able to offer a discount to students and maintain a sufficient level of profit to resource the company. We offer some of the lowest prices in the UK for English to English transcription using native English speakers. Discounts are offered for bulk orders of 50 hours or more.

You do not need to open an account in order to send us transcription. We have no minimum order sizes (or maximum) and are as happy to accept an order for a 1 minute audio file as we are to work on a 10,000 hour 5 year project. We operate on a pay as you go basis. Place your order, upload your file and we will transcribe and return. We invoice once the work is complete. You are not tied in to our services at any time.

Can I place an order for work to be completed in the future: Yes, absolutely. This option is very popular with our university clients who often need to get clearance for projects from their finance departments prior to budget deadlines. Simply estimate the size of your order and we can provide an invoice for payment in advance of recordings being made available for transcription.  As you send us recordings to transcribe, we simply deduct it from the prepayment. Any difference is refunded or charged for, accordingly.

Yes we do. We provide an encrypted email solution to all our clients using Egress Protect. When you send us your recordings using our ISO 27001 accredited, military security graded SSL secure file upload service we process the work and you can be guaranteed that your recordings will be kept within strong cyber security measures. Once the transcripts of the audio recordings have been completed these will be sent back to you via Egress Protect encrypted email, which means that the email is sent via the Egress servers and encrypted at the point it is sent, and decrypted at the point you receive it. Egress is used by the NHS, government institutions, universities and NATO to provide secure email services.

For a full article on our encrypted email solution and more information about Egress Protect, please read this article: https://www.tptranscription.co.uk/how-do-we-communicate-securely-by-email-with-you/

Yes we do. We have provided ‘real time’ manual transcription services for many years – it is highly specialist work. For example we have live transcribed the BAFTA award night for an instant transcription to be available to media companies and we regularly provide instant transcription services to a number of academic clients who need transcripts available immediately.

For details of our live transcription service please visit https://www.universitytranscriptions.co.uk/live-transcription/

We also offer an instant transcription service, which is available at a premium price to our existing clients. Upload files and simply request an immediate return.

For details of our premium instant transcription service (90 minute return time) please visit https://www.tptranscription.co.uk/instant-accurate-transcription/

Yes. We offer various options for GDPR and HIPAA compliant anonymisation and de-identification, as well as pseudonymisation. Please click here for details.

We have as much capacity as you will ever need to get your work done. Whether you send us one minute or 500,000 minutes of recording, we will be able to handle your work. Our team of transcribers expands according to the work we have available.

Large enough to handle bulk work, small enough to care

Recently, we were involved in a tender for an organisation in Scotland who were looking for a transcription provider to undertake interview transcription work in relation to a research project. We completed the tender, indicated our price, but were later informed that we had been unsuccessful in getting the work. However – six months later we were contacted out of the blue to ask if we could take over the contract. The transcription provider who won the contract had not been able to handle the quantities of work. We were delighted to assist!

Bespoke service

A few years ago we completed a project for a large insurance company who had been let down by another provider just before Christmas, who needed 100 hours of recordings transcribed by the new year. We took the work, set up our transcription teams and as a business we completed the project on time and within budget by the new year, working over the Christmas break to get it done.

Our team

We have a team of 110 professional transcribers who work with us regularly on projects, and indicate their capacity each week. We are able to complete well over 1000 hours of work per week if needs be.

Bulk capacity

Our company does not just have 110 transcribers able to complete 1000 hours of recordings per week. If you were to send us half a million hours of recording, we would take the work on, because not only do we have our regular 110 transcribers, our management team and our team of proof readers, but we also have a secondary bank of professional transcribers who we tap in and out of as and when needed in order to complete projects.

We are able to expand and contract our services according to the workload we have on at any time. You may have read in other articles that all our transcribers prefer to work on a flexible basis, because they undertake the work to fit into their own lifestyles. This is one of the reasons why we are able to provide our clients with this flexibility, so that if a large project comes in, we can take on more transcriber hours in order to get the work done.

No outsourcing

We never sub-contract to third party companies, and we do not send the work out overseas at any time. Because we do a lot of work for the NHS and academic institutions in the UK and around the world, with specific and highly confidential data sets, we have servers based in the UK and our upload facilities and dashboard services are all operated behind stringent security and firewalls.

Unlimited capacity

Our capacity is unlimited. We may not be able to get back half a million hours of recording to you within 48 hours of you sending it to us, but we would be able to handle the work on your behalf.

No order is too small

At the same time, we are more than happy to have a conversation with somebody with a page of copy typing or a three-minute recording, which is as important to us as the half a million hours of work a large company send us.

Call us for a chat

To discuss your project, large or small, please contact us using the contact page above, or get in touch with our Managing Director, Anna Gresty, who is always happy to have a conversation with you.

We can work with most Digital Audio Formats including:

AAC
ACT
AIFC (Compressed AIFF)
AIFF
AMR
APE
AU
CAF (Apple Core Audio Format)
DCT (Express Dictate, MSRS, etc.)
DS2 (DSS Pro)
DSS (Grundig, Olympus, Philips recorder)
DSP TrueSpeech
DVF (Sony recorder)
DVS (Royal recorder)
FLAC
OGG
M4A
MP2
MP3
MPC
MSV (Sony recorder)
QCP
RA / RM (RealAudio)
SHN
SPX
VOC
VOX
WAV (Including ADPCM, aLaw, GSM 6.10,
PCM, and uLaw codecs)
WMA

We can work with most Digital Video Formats including:

3G2
3GP
ASF
AVI
DivX
DV
FLV
M4V
MKV
MOV
MP4
MPEG
VOB
WMV

If you have another format please get in touch to ask if we can assist. We do have software to convert older and rare file formats into something accessible.

Yes – we can transcribe extracts from audio files. When you upload your file, just specify the start point and end point in the recording that you need transcribing. So for example if your file is 45 minutes long and you only want part of the recording transcribed, you would add the following instruction: “transcribe from 5 minutes 35 seconds to 24 minutes 20 seconds.”

We are happy to handle any orders of any size, from a small 30 second file through to bulk orders of 50,000 hours or more of recordings. Whilst you may not get your 50,000 hours of recordings back within 14 days, we can still assist. Our company has worked on many large research projects for a number of years at a time, providing our transcription services continually as required. We have the capacity to upscale our service at any time to cover your work regardless of its size. If you have a large ongoing project of hundreds or thousands of hours of recording, please feel free to get in touch with our Managing Director directly to discuss how we can help and make everything run as smoothly as possible.

Absolutely not. Whilst this may sound like we are a bunch of Luddites, the automated transcription technology is simply not good enough to process high quality transcription work using intelligent verbatim. For simple dictation Dragon Dictation and many other pieces of software have been around for over 25 years and function perfectly well. Unfortunately for interviews, focus groups and other types of transcription the AI option is not yet available. Most of our transcription work is one to one discussions, interviews and other types of recording and can involve background noise, hard to hear voices and strong accents. Automated transcription does not even get near to dealing with these.

Intelligent Verbatim Transcription is a level of transcription that leaves the process of transcribing an audio recording to a certain amount of discretion by the transcriber. Our expert transcribers will use their experience to omit certain elements if they add no meaning to the script. This is mainly ums, errs and repetitions and false starts. This is the level used for most transcription work – it is recommended for research interviews, group discussions and focus groups. For an audio recording and transcript example of intelligent verbatim transcription please click here.

We offer five levels of transcription, but the overwhelming majority of transcription work is completed to Level 3, “Intelligent Verbatim”. A description of each level is below. Intelligent verbatim is suitable for all dictation, interviews, focus groups, legal proceedings, meetings, conferences, telephone calls, Zoom meetings and podcasts. Level 4 “Strict Verbatim” is only really suitable for conversational analysis work (ie you are studying the speech patterns of the speakers) and Level 5 “Discourse Analysis” is a more in depth version of this requiring transcribers with training and experience.

A quick explanation of each level is below. Please note that all transcription is returned as Intelligent Verbatim (Level 3) unless requested otherwise.

Level 1 – Fully Edited Transcript – the transcriber will transcribe the main parts of each sentence, and make informed decisions on what to leave in and what to take out in order to retain the structure of the sentence but shorten wherever possible and adjusted if necessary, adding words in to complete sentences etc..

Level 2 – Lightly Edited Transcript – edited by the transcriber for readability and clarity. Here the transcriber will transcribe the exact words but leave out any pauses, hesitations or sounds.

Level 3 – Intelligent Verbatim Transcript – certain elements are omitted if they add no meaning to the script. This is mainly ums, errs and repetitions and false starts. This is the level used for most transcription work – it is recommended for research interviews, group discussions and focus groups.

Level 4 – True (or Strict) Verbatim Transcript – a complete record of every sound or utterance on the recording, which will include coughs, stutters, false starts, any “erms” and “ahhs”. Useful where a researcher is analysing conversation or language.

Level 5 – Discourse Analysis (or Jefferson transcription) – Level 5 “Discourse Analysis” is a more in-depth version of Level 4, requiring transcribers with training and experience. For details and an explanation of symbols used in this type of transcription, please click here.

We provide transcription services for any world language. If we are transcribing the spoken word in an audio recording into the same language as it sounds, then the work is transcription. If we are transcribing into a different language the work is translation.

A list of languages is available here: https://www.tptranscription.co.uk/translation-and-non-english-transcription/.

To get an instant quotation for non-English transcription or translation please click here.

Yes. Our file upload service is based in the UK (London), our company server is located in Denbighshire, North Wales, and our transcribers are based solely in the UK. Our secure email service is also UK based, so all communication is sent in the UK and does not leave the country at any time.

All English to English standard transcription remains in the UK at all times and is not transferred overseas or stored offshore at any time in the process.

If you are an EU client, we have the same service available at our Dublin office – all data will remain within the EU, although at present the GDPR rules in both the UK and the EU are aligned and data can travel between the two jurisdictions. If the systems diverge in future we are still able to provide the same level of service to our EU clients. Our EU office and website can be viewed here: www.tptranscription.ie

Yes we do. We provide an encrypted email solution to all our clients using Egress Protect. When you send us your recordings using our ISO 27001 accredited, military security graded SSL secure file upload service we process the work and you can be guaranteed that your recordings will be kept within strong cyber security measures. Once the transcripts of the audio recordings have been completed these will be sent back to you via Egress Protect encrypted email, which means that the email is sent via the Egress servers and encrypted at the point it is sent, and decrypted at the point you receive it. Egress is used by the NHS, government institutions, universities and NATO to provide secure email services.

For a full article on our encrypted email solution and more information about Egress Protect, please read this article: https://www.tptranscription.co.uk/how-do-we-communicate-securely-by-email-with-you/

Yes. We are listed as users on some university systems, for example OxFiles (the large file upload service from the University of Oxford) and UCL Data Safe Haven (University College London). You will need to contact your IT department to ask them to give us access or login details.

It is good security policy not to share a password via the same method as the link. If you upload via the UK based server there is no need to share the link password as we can access it. If you are using your own university server and want to share your password then you can phone the office or WhatsApp the password so that you are not using the same method as the audio file.

To use our simple online file upload system for files smaller than 1GB each, please click here. The upload facility is SSL Encrypted.

Click here for alternative options, including our UK GDPR compliant server, Dropbox, WeTransfer, One Drive, Google Drive, Whatsapp, email and post.

Yes. Click the link below for a range of options. We can accept files using Dropbox, WeTransfer, OneDrive, Google Drive, Whatsapp, email, post, courier and a range of organisation server upload options (eg Oxfile – the University of Oxford large file exchange service).

Yes – you can Whatsapp your audio files to us by using 07884 922902 from your smartphone.

When we are recruiting we post an advertisement for Associate Transcribers on our website at this address.