What Is Considered A Good Salary In The UAE?
Knowing the average salary in the country you are trying to go to will help you judge and determine the amount you are being offered so that you can calculate your living costs and other expenses to see if your job is paying enough.
There is a broad range of salaries in many different sectors and industries in the UAE, it also depends largely on many factors like experience and qualifications, but in this detailed guide, we will be talking about the acceptable range your employer or client should pay you in the UAE. It is always smart to know how much your skill is worth in a particular industry so that you are not exploited or denied basic pay.
Let us look below at what is considered a good salary in the UAE!
What Is Considered A Good Salary In The UAE
There is not a single figure which can be deemed fit as a good salary in the UAE since everyone has different expenses and therefore has varying purchasing power. Moreover, a good salary in a specific city might not be sustainable at all in another city where the rent and food are too expensive.
So, to assess how much is good enough for you in the UAE, check out your expenses, lifestyle, and spending habits to determine a ballpark figure for yourself when you are in your next job interview, and negotiate your salary.
We have written extensively on the blog titled “Cost of living in the UAE”, which you can check out to have an idea of your costs should you decide to live in the UAE.
This will also help you understand what a good salary is in the UAE.
According to the popular UAE website wisemove.ae, a good range of monthly salary to live comfortably in the UAE is around AED 10,000 to AED 15,000. You can live comfortably and make some savings along the way.
What Is The Minimum Salary In The UAE
To make a comparison and write this guide, we will take the minimum salaries in Dubai and judge the minimum wages in the UAE.
Some years back, the Labor ministry of the UAE approved minimum wages for people with certain skills. However, these figures are not followed religiously, and you will rarely find these values correct in the corporate sector.
There is little to no regulation of salaries in the UAE; hence, these figures are just used to assess the minimum salary in the UAE.
If you are a university graduate, your minimum wage in Dubai should be AED 12,000 per month.
Instead, if you were a skilled ex-pat technician, your minimum wage would hover around AED 7,000.
If you are a skilled laborer, your salary would be somewhere near AED 5,000.
What Is The Average Salary In The UAE
The average salary in the UAE would also be called the median salary in the UAE.
Again for reference purposes, we will discuss Dubai in this guide.
The median or average salary in Dubai is around AED 21,500. Salary ranges in the UAE from AED 4,000 to AED 99,000 monthly. So, this is the middle ground for salaries in the UAE.
This means that half of the population earns below this salary, and the other half earns more than this.
Dubai has a very developed economy, and the industries there are booming, so these higher average salaries are not very surprising.
However, your salary will be majorly determined by your job type, experience, skill, and nationality in some cases.
Average Gross Salary by Gender
According to another source, salaryexplorer.com, women earn less than men in the UAE.
This is not surprising at all.
In many workplaces in the Middle East, men are preferred over women. This, however, needs to change as we step into the 21st century.
According to this website, the average salary of a man in the UAE is AED 20,000, while the average salary for a woman is AED 18,800, which is about seven percent less than what men earn.
We must work to end this disparity in workplaces.
Average Gross Salary By Profession
Skilled labor is highly valued in the UAE, and hence you will be surprised to know that they are some of the top earners in the UAE, as we will discuss below.
Some of the highest paying professions in the UAE include Dentists, Company Directors, Finance Directors, Sales Managers, Hotel managers, HR Managers, and Lawyers.
The UAE’s average gross salaries in these professions are AED 40,000, AED 37,450, AED 35,090, AED 25,790, AED 24,450, AED 22,700, and AED 24,400, respectively.
Some of the least paying professions in the UAE include Waiter, Cashier, Secretary, Porter, and Administrative Assistant.
These jobs do not pay as much as the jobs for skilled workers.
The average monthly salaries for these professions are AED 10,070, AED 9,930, AED 9,360, AED 9,340, and AED 8,780, respectively.
Average Gross Salary By Sector And Increments
There are many sectors where you can look for jobs in the UAE.
In this list, we will talk about some of the most booming sectors, the gross salaries offered, and the chances of increments depending on your experience level.
Can most financially rewarding field in the UAE is Law, where you can easily cross six figures in Dirhams per month.
Next up, there are fields like, Finance and Accounting, Oil/Gas, and information technologies, which have a gross salary range of AED 9,000-65,000, AED 25,000-58,000, and AED 10,000-50,000, respectively.
The sector where you should expect the least growth is the personnel management sector, where the average gross salary is between AED 10,000-30,000.
Also, most sectors will experience an incremental change in salary annually; this percentage will vary depending on the sector.
For example, the Healthcare sector sees an 8% increase in salaries annually, which is followed by a 6% increase in salaries in the information technology sector.
Apart from all this, let us talk about the annual salary increments you will likely experience based on your experience level.
Someone working at a junior level will experience a pay increase of 3-5% annually, while someone in top management might experience a more drastic increase of 15-20% of his or her annual pay.
The Purchasing Power Of Your Salary In The UAE
The UAE is the third most prosperous country in the world and is home to an extraordinary number of millionaires and billionaires; one can easily deduce that the purchasing power of the people of the UAE is increasing.
Recent studies state that the purchasing power of the ordinary person in the UAE is increasing as the cost level is stable and salaries are increasing, which effectively increases your purchasing power.
In addition, the most significant plus point in the UAE is the lack of taxes which has the most impact on a consumer, is purchasing power.
There is a massive lack of taxes on things in the UAE, which is why the average UAE resident or national has significantly increased purchasing power over the years.
A lack of income tax further helps this cause and allows people to retain their salary.
According to studies, the purchasing power of the people of the UAE has been growing at a rate of three percent a year.
Roughly around 20 years ago, the purchasing power was measured at 1.2 LCU per international dollar.
However, a recent study in 2020 revealed that the value had increased to 2.0 LCU per international dollar!
Final Thoughts
A good salary depends on the number of mouths you have to feed, your lifestyle, the city you work in, and your spending habits.
However, to conclude the argument, the average salary one needs to live comfortably in the UAE is from AED 10,000 to AED 15,000 per month.
This will cover all your high costs of living, rent, food, and utilities, so you will have a good chunk left to save up.
We hope that this article will help you to estimate what is a good salary in the UAE.