Last updated: 2026-09-07
Both markets advertise almost entirely in English, so language is not what separates them. Qarera's index holds 6,428 live postings in the United Arab Emirates and 2,057 in Saudi Arabia. What differs is where the work sits and who is advertising it.
Every figure on this page is counted from postings collected directly from company career pages and applicant tracking systems, not from other job boards, and it refreshes daily.
| Measure | United Arab Emirates | Saudi Arabia |
|---|---|---|
| Live job postingsadvertised right now | 6,428 | 2,057 |
| Postings written in Englishcount, and share of all postings | 6,368 (99.1%) | 2,003 (97.4%) |
| Remote-friendlyshare of all postings | 6.4% | 8.8% |
| Mention visa or relocation supportshare of English-language postings, not comparable across countries | 10.6% | 6.6% |
| Largest hiring cityshare of the country total | Dubai (62%) | Riyadh (54.4%) |
10.6% of English-language postings in the United Arab Emirates mention visa sponsorship or relocation support, against 6.6% in Saudi Arabia. Those two numbers sit in the table above, and they should not be read as a ranking. The systems behind them differ in kind, so a posting's silence means a different thing in each country.
The United Arab Emirates
Almost every private-sector job carries an employer-sponsored residence visa by default. Sponsorship is close to universal, so mentioning it in a posting carries very little information.
Saudi Arabia
Foreign hiring runs on employer-held work permits and quotas under the Saudisation rules, so authorisation is held by the employer and is near-universal for expatriate roles.
The phrase match is blunt in both directions as well. It counts a posting that says sponsorship is available and a posting that says the candidate must already hold a valid work visa, and those point opposite ways. Read the share within one country over time, or across employers inside one country. Do not read it across two immigration regimes. Rules also change faster than any index; check the responsible authority before relying on the summaries above.
Riyadh holds 54.4% of all postings in Saudi Arabia. Dubai holds 62% of the United Arab Emirates's. The second cities pull them further apart: Abu Dhabi carries 1,585 postings against Dubai's 3,984, while Jeddah carries 197 against Riyadh's 1,118.
| # | United Arab Emirates | Postings | Saudi Arabia | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dubai | 3,984 | Riyadh | 1,118 |
| 2 | Abu Dhabi | 1,585 | Jeddah | 197 |
| 3 | Sharjah | 131 | Dammam | 175 |
| 4 | Ras Al Khaimah | 56 | Al Jubayl | 120 |
| 5 | Al Ain City | 34 | Khobar | 64 |
| 6 | Ajman | 29 | Madinah | 56 |
Not every posting names a city, so these shares do not add up to 100%. The six cities above account for 90.5% of postings in the United Arab Emirates and 84.1% in Saudi Arabia.
Neither market is held up by a handful of employers. The largest single advertiser in the United Arab Emirates, Marriott International, accounts for 1.7% of the country's live postings. In Saudi Arabia it is Hudson Manpower, at 8.3%. The lists below are what sits at the top of each market, which is a question of composition rather than concentration.
Remote-friendly postings run at 6.4% in the United Arab Emirates and 8.8% in Saudi Arabia. On this measure the two markets are the same, and a decision between them should not turn on it.
Each of these is written to stand on its own, with the sample and the date inside the sentence.
The United Arab Emirates advertises 6,368 live job postings in English to Saudi Arabia's 2,003 (Sep 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
Riyadh holds 54.4% of live job postings in Saudi Arabia, against Dubai's 62% in the United Arab Emirates (Sep 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
10.6% of English-language job postings in the United Arab Emirates mention visa sponsorship or relocation support (678 of 6,368 postings, Sep 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
6.6% of English-language job postings in Saudi Arabia mention visa sponsorship or relocation support (132 of 2,003 postings, Sep 2026), according to Qarera's live job index.
Figures for the comparison of job postings in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are drawn from 8,485 live postings across both markets, as of 2026-09-07. Postings are collected from company career pages and applicant tracking systems and refreshed daily; see how the index is built and what it cannot tell you.
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