Brits who moved to Dubai, how's life?

[Southparkt]

I had several friends who moved to Dubai in the last 3 years and they are really loving it and have no plans to come back. We have been considering a move as we have young family and will be very thankful if we can afford to have nannies and driver etc as our friends have. They feel more relaxed in the sun and can afford big house with swimming pool etc. We are high earners here and used to have nanny for our oldest but if we keep spending at that rate, we can never retire here with the Cost of living increases.
I am looking to hear from Brits who moved to Dubai and how life feels like now?

Singapore is boring? Good grief I’ve never heard such tosh.

There is a thread somewhere of a woman attacked by her husband, she was going to struggle to even leave the country without him. Sadly that poster has not updated for some time which is very worrying.

I can't understand anyone wanting to holiday somewhere like that let alone live there.

Errr it's absolutely not rare in this country. The people on the boats crossing the channel are, what, trafficked by the most moral smugglers? Who take their money and never ever divert any women or children or men into prostitution or for their organs. I live in London where brothels have popped up - it's alive and kicking and plenty of women have no passports here too.

The moral hypocrisy of the British public never fails to astonish me - the people who cross the channel are overwhelmingly young men for a reason and it's not because they're the only demographic fleeing war. And for their desperation and probably life savings - we clamour to deport them as our country is full. The reform platform (majority supported) think anyone who isn't British should have zero human rights at our border... So yeah... Stand on your soapbox and clamour to be in a country a bit more like Dubai.. while you condemn Dubai.

It may not be your political allegiance btw. But I'm astonished at the absolute racism and judgement on this thread while people in our country are begging to deport legal immigrants and anyone who isn't British. Our own government is telling them they need to prove they have good character by volunteering?!

Kiers speech about British people being able to be something other than white has become the joke of the reform platform.

I have a work colleague who has just been on holiday in Dubai for the second time. Of all the places in the world you could go for similar climate and budget why on earth would anyone spend their money there I just cannot understand.

You would have a better quality of life, without question but there are compromises you have to morally be okay with accepting. We had a much nicer home, ate out daily and had a driver etc. It’s warmer, your kids will have incredible schooling and your hobbies change. On paper all the things that make life easier because you can pay someone to do everything & make life easier. It is a very safe place; I’ve never felt safer as a woman but that’s also because I’m a white English woman. It isn’t a green place to live and everything feels very artificial which was something that really impacted me. I understand the appeal for a lot of people but long term it wasn’t the place I wanted to raise a family. You do have to accept a change in your morals. People are not wrong; the way some humans are treated is questionable to say the least. You’ll see it particularly in construction work, in service staff and house staff etc. The wealth divide is massive. There’s a huge problem with racism and lack of empathy; there’s a sense of entitlement because you can buy your happiness, or at least try so the more money you have the more important you feel. You see it in people’s morals, the way people treat service staff, in how people raise their children etc. We did have a nice life but I couldn’t do it for more than a few years and I was forever coming home for some normality. At the time we didn’t have much choice but I wouldn’t live there again, as it didn’t really align with the life I wanted.

I don't know the details, but I left without my husband's word few times when I was on dependant visa.
Even saudi changed it years back, didn't they?

Tbh they are bouncing forward equal rights much faster than western countries did when they did, when you look at it. In grand scheme of history, UAE only really exists barely a wink.

I know someone who lived there for a few years, she likes the high life, is very glamorous and is the kind of British person I would expect to find there.
Even she came home after a few years saying her conscience was bothering her due to the massive disparity between the haves and the have nots, and the lack of rights certain minorities had.
My son was considering applying for Emirates airline until he realised he would have to be based in Dubai. He is gay and it is still illegal there.

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a country where if you got raped and reported it to the authorities, they would arrest you!! Or holding your partner's hand in public would earn you a clonk on the head from the morality police.
Do's & Don'ts: Dubai Laws for Tourists & Expats - What To Wear, Social Rules etc - Dubai Tour Pro

I find it strange that all these people say how disgusting Dubai is, they couldn’t be friends with anyone who would even go there on holiday……. Yet no one blinks an eye about Turkey.

I couldn’t live there - appalling human rights. Lifestyle might be ‘better’ in some ways but so culturally vacuous. I couldn’t do without the wealth of museums/galleries/theatres etc we have in the UK.

What I don’t quite understand is, while the salaries are higher and there’s no tax, surely if you wanted to save and bring money back to the uk, it would then be taxed here?

I could just about understand the temptation if you could go for 2 years and build up big savings and then return here - but it just seems like the money goes on the flash apartment and staff etc? Just not worth it imo.

This is quite old. They really do change laws quickly. Sex outside marriage is legal, having child outside marriageis also now fine. For non locals at least. Dress code is relaxed generally.

Tbh I don't see some of them on a list as ome groundbreaking laws. Not driving under influence? Not being naked in public? Well, of course...

A Lot of this article is pretty far fetched. Dubai is nowhere near as strict as people think it is or it used to be.

No one will blink an eye at you holding hands.

Pork is sold in plenty of restaurants, and there are stores that sell it.

You can eat and drink in public during Ramadan if you choose, restaurants used to cover their fronts with curtains during daylight hours, but I don’t think they do that anymore.

women have to cover up when out in public? Nope. Although it’s respectful to do so out with tourist areas.

generally it’s just about that, respect and common sense. No different to any other Muslim focused country or city.

Turkey has some serious issues, yes. At least they disciurage migration rather than encouraging people to come to be slave-like workers or porta potties.

I agree people shouldn't go there either, that's a low bar.

Laws may change rapidly but attitudes certainly don't. There are and have been enough horror stories coming out of Dubai to keep me away, particularly as a woman.
British grandfather, 59, arrested in Dubai says he is now trapped there, homeless and starving
Black Woman Still Detained In Dubai For Screaming In Public, Faces Jail Time - Essence | Essence
British woman 'arrested in Dubai after reporting rape' - BBC News
Rape Victim Jailed | Detained in Dubai
Revealed: The full story behind British teen who has been thrown in Dubai hell hole jail for 'holiday fling' - despite being CLEARED of serious accusations | Daily Mail Online
Dubai jail terror: Brits jailed for kissing and Facebooking and deaths 'hushed up' - The Mirror
British tourist Lee Bradley Brown 'beaten to death' in Dubai police cell | Daily Mail Online
‘Tortured’ tourist faces death penalty

Thats what the couples we met said too. They were getting £8500 a month approx tax free but getting ‘allowances’ towards housing, schools and medical - and when push came to shove those allowances which sounded generous on paper were not enough so were spending £2000 a month of income topping up all those- they soon realised that they were earning no more than in the UK because the woman could only fit ‘a bit of a part time job’ that in no way matched anything she had in the UK - they also found it boring and all based on malls and posh brunches ( which were £70 a time) now this might suit some, especially if no kids in the equation and happy with a cheaper flat ( and most are very nice at the higher end) but it won’t be for everyone and most with strong ethics would struggle I think - it may well be if the OP is a bit ‘made in Chelsea’ and sees success as sun/pool/cleaner/not working/ wandering round malls , she might love it . Some do - personally I put it down as one of our crappier holidays but with very flash accommodation - I also disagree with others about food - we aren’t that keen on Indian or Thai of which there was a lot and we thought the food was not great and very expensive ( because a lot is halal we got served a pizza with what looked and tasted like spam on it in a posh hotel restaurant) and drink was really expensive and not great quality too . I do see why if you just want some hot weather out of season and a flash hotel/ apartment and just to lie around it kind of fits the bill as it’s not as far as carribean or far east and much much higher standards than say Egypt -but to live there , nope! By contrast we had a similar holiday in Marrakech and despite a bit more of the ‘hassle’ factor I enjoyed that a lot more - far more to see, amazingly good food and Moroccan wine was rather good too -

I think you would have been better leaving your post at the first sentence. That is the critical point, your other points are more "questionable".,

I can’t understand your opinion on the food. Dubai has amazing food. There is literally everything and it can be cheap or expensive. There’s something for everyone.

I'm guessing your principle source of information is the UK press, and you have little experience of living and working outside Europe/US/Aus/NZ.

Two aspects to your post. Firstly the Entitlement. Agreed, there are hundreds of entitled Brits, many of then in their 20s and fully deserving Chav status. Plenty of entitlement amongst the 30-40 mums one sees doing the school rum in fancy cay, dressed in floaty beach dresses or yoga wear. Thankfully these are a small minority, but one that the UK press focuses on and hence the horrible trash TV shows.

The existence of the entitled chav Brits are not the fault of the Dubai system, there are plenty of decent Brits and nationalities there too, from many many countries. When our goddaughter was at school there in 2010-15 there were around 25 in the class. No more than three came from the same home country. All the children and parents rubbed along nicely.

Now consider the human rights you mentioned. Walked around Dubai staff accommodation recently? My OH does as part of his job. He also has recent experience of the project management sector in the following countries, Kuwait, KSA, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, India, Sudan. Turkey, Chad, Mali. The country with the most impressive record on workers rights, welfare, and living conditions is Dubai/ AD. Nowhere else in the region comes close.

The place may not be a perfect liberal democracy, but it just WORKS.

Funny, I used to hear similar when I lived there from people who’d been hired to consult on making Dubai less of a catastrophic ecological and environmental disaster zone. Lots of hot air, report-writing, and big promises. The more honest people admitted after a while they’d been hired to greenwash a situation no one had any real will to change, only to perform lip service to for the sake of maintaining an image to the rest of the world. Bluntly, it’s no place for a city. It’s dependent on energy-guzzling desalination plants for water, which cause enormous marine pollution, and as it has no agricultural land, all food is imported, often over huge distances, at a huge environmental footprint. Air-con is also a huge energy consumer.

No rentier state like Dubai has a normal civil society. I’m not even talking about democracy here — I’m talking about the fact that governments don’t need to raise revenue from domestic taxation, and in the absence of taxes, citizens have less incentive to pressurise the government to respond to their needs. Hence authoritarian regimes in so many oil/oil-adjacent states. The Dubai ruling family (little or no oil, remember, compared to Abu Dhabi) essentially bribes its own citizens with what is essentially a high-end social welfare programme (subsidised utilities, all education covered through to post-doc stage, weddings paid for, jobs in which they can do little or nothing in a bloated bureaucracy, or as the compulsory local partners in overseas firms which are required to have Emirati majority control and staff), and the higher end of its population of overseas workers is kept quiet by tax-free salaries and cheap domestic labour. Hence an unusually politically inert, surveyed and controlled population, whether Emirati or foreign. People stay fat and happy. (Until they don’t. Increasing numbers of Emiratis are being imprisoned or ‘disappeared’ for dissent.)

So, to go back to the OP’s question, the Brits who settle in Dubai are okay with being paid off to turn a blind eye to the authoritarian regimes in which they are complicit. No decent person would commit it to it.

I watched this after seeing your post. Indescribably awful.

I've never wanted to visit there and never will. Even my son refuses to entertain the idea.

@19lottie82 thing is though it’s massively spread out so you end up driving out or taxis to go for meals- we had one really nice meal which was Lebanese , a Thai one that was average ( both these were expensive too) everything else was a bit freezer food ‘in my opinion’ geared to American tastes , however I’m a bit of a foodie on holiday and in all fairness I can see most would find it totally fine - didn’t see anything cheap though that was of any quality but that could be where we were ( we split hotels between old town and the beach area )

Well, given that you can’t grow anything much in Dubai, given the climate, lack of arable land, etc, (though there’s some attempts to develop soilless hydroponic farms) well of 90% of what you’re eating is imported. If you’re eating in one of the high-end restaurants, it will have been flown in that day, if you’re somewhere more basic, it will come from much further away and much longer shot. Produce in supermarkets is very ‘tired’, having come from NZ or somewhere equally distant.

Imagine the psychoactive cacti you can grow there. (Joking)

DH came to me last year with an offer to move to Dubai. The conversation lasted all of 30 secs. We're still both in the UK.

We’re in the process of relocating full time to Dubai. I’m here full time now with our children and my partner has another 3 months of travelling back and forth.

Kids are 19 and 14yrs. We’ve been here 7 months and can’t see us ever going back to the UK. We’ve been back a few times and can’t wait to leave again. We have a far higher quality of life here, the lifestyle suits us, it feels extremely safe, plenty of opportunities and health benefits.

Our only regret is not doing it sooner.