The changing career priorities of local candidates in the UAE and Qatar

In the UAE and Qatar, the recruitment priorities has broadly focused around localisation initiatives, which have been more about box-ticking quota fulfilling than career development. However, nationals are now taking it upon themselves to carve out a career in the financial sector.

At the same time, expats have become increasingly marginalised and are falling victim to redundancies when they occur. There are still opportunities, however, in positions that cannot be filled by local candidates.

Nationals in the UAE and Qatar have enjoyed big salary inflation in recent years. Qatari banks, for example, hiked pay for locals by 60% to compete with the public sector last year, while it’s possible for an Emirati branch manager to earn $220k in the UAE.

“At a graduate level, banks in Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are aggressively recruiting nationals, offer up to AED28k ($7.6k) a month in their first year,” says Peter Greaves, managing director of IES HR Consultants. “Most local candidates still expect a salary increase when they move positions.”

There has, however, been a change of focus more recently. In the UAE, local candidates are being locked into three-year contracts to stem job-hopping, and money has become less of a factor when switching jobs.

AbdulMattalib Al Hashimi, managing director of Emiratisation consultants Next Level, says locals are now more concerned with status and ambition: “Emiratis are very conscious of how they will be perceived in the community and you have to emphasise how the new role will enhance their status, and talk up the career potential down the line. In local banks, this means highlighting the possibility of moving up the ranks relatively quickly, but international banks offer the chance to become regional manager, or move to another location, and this can be an alluring prospect.”

In the UAE, just 35% of those employed in the banking sector are UAE nationals. With state-imposed quotas drifting above 40%, it’s easy to conclude that banks are more concerned with getting bums on seats than really investing in their local employees.

Shane Phillips, managing director of Shane Phillips Consultants, says that the more savvy local candidates are asking up front whether they’re part of a quota, and want visibility on how a company can enhance their career.

There are signs that firms are addressing the skills gap – the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, for instance, puts its graduate recruits through the CFA qualification, which will put them in a good position to compete against international peers. Meanwhile, the poaching of Goldman’s Qatar chief executive and Morgan Stanley’s country manager in the Peninsula by QInvest and Barwa Bank respectively was partly motivated by a desire to train up Qatari nationals into more sophisticated roles.

However, all of this doesn't disguise the fact that expats are still recruited for a lot of senior strategy roles in the Middle East as well as more sophisticated positions. We explore this topic in a separate article.