The most reliable and respected information relating to the size of the GILT Industry is provided by Common Sense Advisory, which is an independent market research company. The majority of their articles and reports require payment and, as such, free resources are limited.

As an example, the abstract portion of the 2012 Language Services Market research is available as a 'free of charge' resource on the internet, whilst the primary body requires payment. This abstract focuses on the overall market size estimate and the top 100 LSPs. (See Appendix 1.) As such, the data outlined below is applicable to language services industries at large, not specifically localisation. For readers who would like to read the more detailed research, this is available for a charge of $1,000.

According to the survey from Common Sense Advisory, the market for outsourced language services is worth US$33,523 million (£21,760 million).