The traditional 'apprenticeship' for languages graduates in the translation departments of major companies, where they learned the tools of their new trade under the supervision and guidance of experienced translators, has all but disappeared in the UK. Would-be translators now follow a languages degree with a postgraduate course in translation prior to launching themselves onto an unsupervised, and largely unrepresented, freelance labour market. While they arguably enjoy a better theoretical grounding than the translators of the past, the disappearance of staff posts means that they do not have the chance to learn the full range of skills associated with 'being a translator'. This paper reports on the findings of substantial empirical research among practising freelance translators and identifies some aspects not normally included in academic syllabuses.