Almost thirteen thousand live UAE and Saudi postings: which functions are hiring, how the roles split between cities, what seniority employers want and which tools they name.
On 1 November 2026 our index held 9,352 actively listed UAE roles from 4,453 employers, and 3,642 Saudi roles from 1,952 employers. That is roughly two and a half UAE openings for every Saudi one.
Both markets keep moving. 1,083 of the live UAE postings were published in the previous seven days, and 503 of the Saudi ones. A search you ran last week is already missing a meaningful slice of what is open today, so it pays to re-run it weekly.
Many people treat a UAE job search as a Dubai job search. Among UAE postings that name a city, Dubai holds 2,497 and Abu Dhabi 1,614, so the capital accounts for about 39% of city tagged roles. Plenty of postings only say "UAE", which is another reason to search at country level as well as by city.
In Saudi Arabia, Riyadh leads with 1,853 postings, about 62% of those that name a city. Jeddah follows with 353, then Dammam (142), Al Khobar (107), Madinah (94) and Makkah (93). Saudi Arabia has publicly encouraged international companies to base their regional headquarters in Riyadh, which fits the concentration we see, though our data cannot show cause on its own.
Sales and business development is the largest function in the UAE this month with 1,044 postings, just ahead of IT and software (954) and engineering (873). In Saudi Arabia, IT and software leads with 397, followed by engineering (371) and sales (313).
Construction and real estate takes a visibly larger share of Saudi hiring (202 of 3,642) than of UAE hiring (361 of 9,352). Marketing and healthcare are also relatively larger in Saudi Arabia than their raw counts suggest.
Across both markets, 6,039 postings are mid level and 5,023 are senior, together about 85% of everything listed. Executive roles add 1,011 more. Entry level and internship roles total 921, around 7%.
In practice, most Gulf employers advertise for people who can contribute from the first week. If you are early in your career, lead your CV with internships, projects and measurable results rather than coursework, and look closely at graduate programmes alongside open postings.
About 4.4% of UAE postings and 5.3% of Saudi postings mention a national or local hiring requirement such as Emirati or Saudi nationals. The large majority of advertised roles do not state one, although employers may still apply policies that are not written into the posting.
Arabic appears in 21.6% of Saudi postings and 14.3% of UAE postings. If you read or speak Arabic at a useful level, state that level clearly on your CV.
We counted how often each tool, credential or language is named in live postings. This shows what employers write down, which is exactly what an applicant tracking system reads, though it is not the same as what they will test you on.
Excel is named in 39.7% of UAE postings and 34.6% of Saudi ones. CRM platforms appear more often in the UAE (7.3% against 4.8%), as do Salesforce and Azure.
Saudi postings lean more towards project delivery and security. Cybersecurity appears in 5.8% of them against 4.1% in the UAE, PMP in 3.0% against 2.3%, ISO standards in 2.7% against 2.0%, and Primavera P6 in 1.9% against 0.7%.
Active postings on 1 November 2026. A posting can match more than one function, so the bars do not sum to the market total.
| Function | UAE | Saudi Arabia |
|---|---|---|
| Sales & Business Development | 1,044 | 313 |
| IT & Software | 954 | 397 |
| Engineering | 873 | 371 |
| Finance & Accounting | 850 | 251 |
| Administration | 764 | 250 |
| Operations & Supply Chain | 723 | 283 |
| Marketing | 472 | 227 |
| Construction & Real Estate | 361 | 202 |
| HR & Recruitment | 359 | 159 |
| Healthcare | 330 | 154 |
| Hospitality & Retail | 351 | 129 |
| Education | 120 | 70 |
Every hiring function plotted by its live UAE postings against its live Saudi postings.
Share of live postings in each market whose description text mentions the term. This measures what employers write, not verified hiring requirements.
| Skill or credential | UAE | Saudi Arabia |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | 39.7% | 34.6% |
| Arabic language | 14.3% | 21.6% |
| CRM platforms | 7.3% | 4.8% |
| Cybersecurity | 4.1% | 5.8% |
| ERP systems | 4.6% | 4.1% |
| Python | 4.2% | 3.4% |
| SQL | 4% | 3.5% |
| Azure | 3.3% | 2.5% |
| SAP | 2.7% | 3.3% |
| PMP | 2.3% | 3% |
| AWS | 2.5% | 1.9% |
| Power BI | 2.3% | 2.4% |
| Oracle | 2.2% | 2% |
| ISO standards | 2% | 2.7% |
| AutoCAD | 1.7% | 2.5% |
| Salesforce | 1.5% | 0.9% |
| Kubernetes | 1.3% | 1.5% |
| IFRS | 1.3% | 0.9% |
| Primavera P6 | 0.7% | 1.9% |
| Revit | 0.9% | 1.3% |
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Reusing these figures? Please credit DexterCV FindJobs Insights and link to this report.