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The 2026 Barclay Simpson Salary Survey & Recruitment Trends Guide: Middle East
Barclay Simpson has been producing market reports across the areas we recruit for since 1990. For the 2026 edition of our Salary Survey and Recruitment Trends Guide for the Middle East, we surveyed professionals working across the region to gather their views on the issues affecting their industry and profession.
This includes permanent jobs trends, as well as wider developments shaping the region’s corporate governance recruitment markets, such as artificial intelligence. We also examine current salary trends and provide information on how compensation packages across the Middle East are evolving.
Middle East permanent jobs market
The Middle East recruitment market for risk, governance and controls-related roles has been reasonably active over the last year, although hiring demand remains concentrated in specific areas and punctuated by quieter periods.
After a slow start to last year, the second half of 2025 was much busier, before softening again around Ramadan in the first quarter of 2026. This in itself is not unusual, as business activity often slows across the region during the holy month. However, elevated regional tensions due to the US-Iran conflict added further uncertainty this year. We are therefore pleased to report the impact on businesses and hiring, at the time of writing in late June 2026, appears to have been limited.
“As the US-Iran situation developed, schools in several Middle Eastern countries moved to distance learning and businesses remained cautious while events unfolded,” says Tim Sandwell, Head of Middle East Search at Barclay Simpson.
“But after some initial uncertainty, most organisations returned to business as usual quite quickly. From a recruitment perspective, the market is still moving at a healthy pace and we have not seen an exodus of candidates from the region.”
Indeed, hiring demand across a range of Middle East jobs remains relatively buoyant as we head into the second half of the year. Newer market entrants and wealth and asset management firms are key drivers of this activity, while the traditional banking sector remains subdued.
Meanwhile, professionals based in the Middle East remain optimistic about the current state of the jobs market. Our Candidate Survey revealed that 88% feel confident about their prospects. Of these, 40% say they are ‘very confident’.
“As the US-Iran situation developed, schools in several Middle Eastern countries moved to distance learning and businesses remained cautious while events unfolded. But after some initial uncertainty, most organisations returned to business as usual quite quickly.”
The most common issue for governance professionals was that too few jobs were being advertised, a factor that nearly four out of ten (39%) respondents cited. Challenging recruitment processes (28%) and hesitance over moving from an existing role (19%) were also mentioned.
Notably, only 14% of candidates said advertised salaries or day rates were too low, the lowest figure by some margin across the markets we recruit for. This suggests remuneration remains one of the region’s clearest attractions for candidates considering a move to or within the Middle East.
What are the biggest challenges to securing a new role at the moment?
| Challenge | % of candidates |
|---|---|
| Too few jobs being advertised | 39% |
| Challenging recruitment processes | 28% |
| Hesitant to move from current role | 19% |
| Advertised salaries or day rates are too low | 14% |
Respondents could select all options that applied.
Key regions for Middle East jobs
The UAE and Saudi Arabia continue to be the most active GCC countries, while Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait are significantly quieter. Roles are still advertised in the latter markets, but less frequently, and workforce nationalisation rules mean employers usually prioritise local nationals when they hire.
In the UAE, the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) is the core financial services hub, and it announced strong growth across revenues and profits in 2025. Overall, the hub has seen 39% growth in registered companies year on year, and the total workforce has increased 9% to reach 50,200 employees.
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has also seen strong growth over the last year, helped in part by commercial space in the DIFC becoming limited. ADGM’s workforce now totals more than 44,000 individuals, having jumped by more than 50% in 2025 alone.
Wealth and asset management firms have been particularly active in both zones, with growth in the sector leading to steady hiring demand over the last 12–18 months. At the same time, other Dubai free zones, including the DWTC Free Zone, are attracting more activity in virtual assets, AI and related digital-economy sectors.
DIFC growth in 2025
Year-on-year growth in registered companies
Increase in AI, fintech and innovation firms
Rise in wealth and asset management firms
Combined revenues climbed 20% to AED2.13 billion (approximately £435 million)
Source: DIFC
In Saudi Arabia, the country’s tourism, entertainment, infrastructure and mega projects continue to create a busy economic backdrop, even if some of the larger initiatives have been scaled back from their original ambitions. For risk, governance and controls professionals specifically, the more pertinent story is the amount of government-backed investment going into major businesses.
The Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, has been increasingly investing in family-owned and strategically important companies. Many of those businesses are now hiring to strengthen governance, audit and risk frameworks as they prepare for future growth or possible IPOs.
This reflects a wider regulatory shift across both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where recent company law reforms have placed greater emphasis on corporate governance, including compliance, risk, internal audit and cyber security roles.
AI in Middle East recruitment
In our 2025 Middle East Salary Guide, we discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) was fast becoming a strategic priority across the region, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia positioning themselves as early movers in the space.
The UAE became the first nation in the world to appoint an AI Minister in 2017, and two years later it launched the first graduate-level AI university, MBZUAI. Today, 70% of the country’s working-age population is using generative AI — the highest in the world. It is also the second-fastest growing economy for AI adoption, while Qatar (5th) and Saudi Arabia (10th) are in the top 10.
75% of workers in the Middle East have used AI tools in their jobs over the last 12 months
Source: PwC
According to CSIS, a US thinktank, the UAE is expected to derive 20% of its non-oil GDP from AI by 2031. This is in line with its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, with AI expected to contribute AED335 billion (£69 billion) to the economy by that time.
Saudi Arabia has similar ambitions. PwC figures forecast that AI could contribute over US$135 billion (£102 billion) to the kingdom’s economy by the end of the decade, which is roughly 12.4% of GDP. In 2025, the PIF also launched HUMAIN, a state-backed AI company focused on developing data centres, cloud infrastructure and AI models.
Currently, our consultants are not yet seeing these wider trends translate into a major shift in the types of roles or skillsets being sought by employers across the Middle East. Over time, that may change as AI moves from high-level strategies and investment, into the everyday systems businesses use, manage and oversee.
Candidates sceptical of AI use in recruitment
Increasingly, employers worldwide are incorporating AI into their hiring processes to support CV screening, candidate searches, interview scheduling and communications with applicants. With that in mind, we asked governance professionals to provide their thoughts on how they feel about the technology being used in recruitment.
Nearly a third of candidates (31%) based in the Middle East admitted they had not noticed employers using AI during recruitment, but of the 69% who had, their opinions tended to be negative. According to our data, 65% believe the technology worsens the process overall.
When asked what specific impact it has, 41% claimed it makes the process neither more effective, nor more efficient — the most common answer. However, a sizeable minority of 22% said it achieves both, which was among the highest levels of support for AI that we saw across our Candidate Surveys.
Even so, more than two-thirds (67%) of professionals told us they had never personally used AI themselves to improve their chances of success during a job application.
What impact does AI have on recruitment processes?
Have you used AI to improve your chances during a job application?
Salary and bonus trends
Starting salaries across the Middle Eastern markets that we cover have remained broadly unchanged over the last 12 months, and remuneration packages are overall less generous now than in years past.
This is partly a knock-on effect of how desirable Middle East jobs have become to professionals who are facing tougher employment conditions in the UK and elsewhere. An abundance of available candidates in the market has given employers greater choice and more leverage, even with recently elevated geopolitical tensions in the region.
“Salary growth has been somewhat suppressed because there is still a lot of interest in moving to the Middle East for work, but the number of jobs hasn’t increased at the same rate,” says Tim Sandwell, Head of Middle East Search at Barclay Simpson.
“However, successful candidates can still expect to receive remuneration packages that compare very favourably to what they would get in the UK.”
Tax-free bonuses and other attractive relocation benefits have become rarer in recent years, but remuneration remains the biggest draw factor for candidates considering a new role in the Middle East.
What was your most recent bonus as a percentage of salary?
| Bonus as % of salary | % of candidates |
|---|---|
| 21–30% | 22% |
| 11–20% | 17% |
| 75–99% | 14% |
| 1–10% | 14% |
| No bonus | 12% |
| Prefer not to say | 5% |
| 150%+ | 5% |
| 31–40% | 5% |
| 41–49% | 3% |
| 100–124% | 3% |
In fact, our annual survey revealed that 38% of professionals currently located in the region prioritise remuneration when switching roles. It is worth noting, however, that this is considerably lower than the 56% who said the same in our previous salary survey. Career development is the first-choice factor for 34% of professionals considering roles in the Middle East, a figure that has more than doubled year on year.
What is your main priority when considering a new role?
| Priority | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Remuneration | 38% | 56% |
| Career development | 34% | 15% |
| Job security | 14% | 10% |
| Work-life balance | 9% | 15% |
| Better benefits | 5% | 1% |
| Remote working | 0% | 3% |
How Middle East remuneration packages are structured
Every year, we produce up-to-date salary grids outlining base salary ranges across the many markets we recruit for. These give employers and candidates a benchmark for setting pay, assessing offers and understanding the state of the market.
However, we do not produce salary grids for the Middle East because it is such a broad and diverse market, with remuneration structures and hiring practices materially differing across countries, industries and types of business.
Instead, we would like to offer practical information on how remuneration packages are typically structured in the Middle East, and some of the changes that are occurring.
Traditional salary composition
In the UK, professionals usually receive their base salary as a monthly payment, with additional non-cash elements – such as pensions, private healthcare and other benefits – added or paid separately.
In the Middle East, an employee’s monthly pay is instead broken down contractually into various elements. This will include the ‘base salary’ (typically 60–65% of the total) as well as amounts allocated to housing, transport and living allowances or other expenses.
A nominal sum is attached to each of these additional elements and paid as cash in the monthly salary. The total of these various sums equals what would usually comprise the monthly ‘base’ in the UK.
Below is an example of how a typical UK salary might compare to one in the UAE.
Remuneration comparison: UK and the UAE
The below table provides a like-for-like comparison of an example remuneration package for a Chief Internal Auditor at a small to medium-sized local bank in the UAE.
| Compensation component | UK (£) | UAE (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Annual base salary | 240,000 | 144,000 |
| Housing allowance | 0 | 72,000 |
| Transportation allowance | 0 | 24,000 |
| Income tax | -96,000 | 0* |
| Pension | 16,800 (7%) | 0 |
| End of service gratuity | 0 | 12,000 |
| Take-home value | 160,800 | 252,000 |
Typical UAE benefits
Benefits packages in the UAE vary by employer, job role and level of seniority, but they often include a mix of annual allowances and non-monetary support, with common elements outlined below.
Middle East benefits packages
Contribution towards accommodation costs
Family cover included
Typically provided for the employee and family
Typically around £10,000 per child per annum
30 days plus public holidays
Performance-related annual bonus opportunity
Support with moving and settling costs
Employer-funded protection
One reason for this structure is employers were historically required to show that employees were being adequately housed, and so a notional housing element was built into the monthly salary. This salary composition can affect professionals in two key ways:
- Many companies pay bonuses based on a multiple of the ‘base’ salary
- All organisations must pay a statutory payment at the end of an employee’s employment. In the UAE, for example, this is called the End of Service Gratuity and is calculated by reference to the final ‘base’ element of salary, rather than the full package.
It is therefore important for candidates to consider what ‘base salary’ means in the context of a job offer in the Middle East and how it impacts their wider remuneration package.
Which job benefits do professionals based in the Middle East value most?
| Benefit | % of candidates |
|---|---|
| Annual bonus | 47% |
| Private healthcare | 21% |
| Remote working | 15% |
| Company share options / Sharesave scheme | 9% |
| Flexible working | 8% |
Recent salary trend changes
Companies in the Middle East are increasingly paying salaries in the same way as the UK — a base figure with separate non-cash benefits. This structure is particularly common in international businesses within the region’s free zones, including the DIFC and ADGM.
In some cases, employers expect candidates to cover items such as school fees and annual flight allowances out of the headline figure themselves. As such, professionals will often look for a like-for-like package in these situations, with salaries adjusted to reflect any additional costs.
Tax treatment is another consideration when moving from countries with income taxes. Historically, many employers negotiated against a candidate’s previous gross salary, with the move to a tax-free environment treated as an automatic benefit.
While this remains common, it is no longer universal, and some organisations are now less generous in how that tax advantage is shared.
The UAE is often seen as expensive, although this is less so for the rest of the Middle East. Even in the UAE, higher costs are usually concentrated in accommodation. Many cost-of-living indices still rank it as cheaper than London overall, though much depends on lifestyle.
These examples should be taken as a guide rather than a rule, as packages can differ considerably in practice.
If you would like to talk any of this through, or discuss career opportunities in the Middle East, please call us on +44 (0) 207 936 2601 or email to ts@barclaysimpson.com.
Attract and retain the skilled professionals you need in the Middle East with Barclay Simpson
Whether you’re looking to build a local team, attract international candidates or find a new job in the Middle East yourself, our consultants are well-versed in the logistical, cultural and regulatory considerations across the region.
With over two decades of experience recruiting in the Middle East, we understand the nuances of this complex market. If you’re an employer, we can support you on a retained, exclusive or contingent basis, helping you secure people with the right skills and experience for your organisation.
For professionals, we’ll work closely with you to find opportunities that align with your current and future ambitions, all the way from initial interviews through to salary negotiations.
Arrange a consultation today to discover how Barclay Simpson can help you achieve your recruitment aims.
