Dubai among world’s top 10 most attractive cities for expat workers

Dubai has been ranked among the top 10 most attractive cities for expatriates looking to work abroad, according to a new study.

The Decoding Global Talent 2018 study, conducted by The Boston Consulting Group and The Network found that the emirate was ranked sixth worldwide, up five places when compared to a similar study conducted in 2014.

Up to 12 per cent of the respondents were willing to move to Dubai to work, compared to 22 per cent who were happy to move to top-ranked city London and 16 per cent to New York.

Berlin, Barcelona and Amsterdam rounded off the top five.

The study also found that Abu Dhabi has moved up the list to rank 14th, above places such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Melbourne.

Overall, it found that 57 per cent of all workers are open to move to another country for work. That number is almost 7 percentage points lower when compared to the 2014 study.

Heightened debate over immigration and trade in many countries appear to have influenced respondents’ thinking about many traditional work destinations, the report stated.

“For instance, even though the US is still the world’s most popular work destination overall, it is now less attractive—amid the volatility of its national politics—to people in Mexico and to those in a dozen other countries where it was previously the number-one choice,” it explained.

Meanwhile Germany has risen to the second spot, while other European countries such as the UK and Switzerland have become more cautious about immigration.

“Making a decision to pursue work in a new country is very personal,” said Mike Booker, the managing director of The Network and a coauthor of the report.

“But there are larger forces too, including uncertainty about future government policy. Interestingly, we have found that cities can have brands that stand apart from their country’s brand, and this is what we have seen in the UK. While uncertainty in the UK may have been one of the reasons the country dropped in popularity among international workers, London continues to be the first-choice city for talent worldwide.”

The study also found that while workers in China are less willing to leave their country as compared to 2014, more people from India and Brazil are looking abroad for opportunities.

Experts in areas like user interface design, mobile app development, and artificial intelligence or machine learning were also found to be more willing to move to a new country for the right job, the survey found.

The survey spoke to 366,000 workers and 6,000 recruiters in 197 countries worldwide.