Abu Dhabi advice from expats

[MrsMust]

DH has been offered a job in Abu Dhabi. The comp is 90,000 AED per month and they will pay 45,000 AED towards school fees. How does this sound in terms of compensation for a general counsel?

We have a toddler and would like another baby - and so we have a tonne of expense ahead of us (school fees, we're also saving for our forever home here in the UK and we'd like to move out of our current house that we own). Just saying this to give an idea of what we're saving towards/need money for.

We would look to rent a 3 Beds house/apartment in a good expat area - does 300,000AED sound like a good budget per year?

In Abu Dhabi, how much roughly would a family with a baby be spending on food shopping, rent, eating out (say a couple of times a week), standard weekly costs. I guess as well, are there any unique costs to Abu Dhabi that I might not be aware of? Would I/DC need a visa to go there even if I'm not working?

We would like to save hard and ultimately return back to the UK in ideally 5-8 years.

Edit: we are British Asian... what is the Emirati attitude towards Asians? I am under the impression they can be a bit snooty/rude towards brown people but are more respectful towards white people maybe that's just my misunderstanding?

Top tip: don’t be gay!

You and your child will need visas sponsored by your husband, but his new employer should sort these out.

I'm not sure about salary levels for a GC so don't want to comment on the specific number, but areas to look at (depending on where your husband will be working) would be Saadiyat, Yas and Al Zeina (although in Saadiyat 300k will not get you a villa).

If your main focus of being in AD is to save, then I'd suggest an apartment and not a villa and possibly compromising on area. Life in the UAE is expensive and people actually want to come because it's a great place to live. It's not a hardship posting anymore.

Standard weekly costs would vary wildly depending on your lifestyle and expectations. You can pay £7 for a small punnet of strawberries in Waitrose or you can shop in Carrefour (I think mostly food prices are similar to the U.K. now unless you want something imported from really far away, like British strawberries. On the other hand mangoes are delicious and cheap!).

Good luck!

Does 90k include your housing allowance? If so, it's a very good salary. You should expect your health insurance and DC to be covered by his employer, not just DH's, plus annual return flights and ideally yours and DC visa costs too, although tbh they're not hugely expensive.

There a few schools you would want to send your DC to that charge 45k, but it's generally close to enough for early years and hopefully the allowance would increase over time (fees go up annually or in bands).

We live in a huge house with integral garage and a garden in Khalifa City - it's not an area often associated with expats but there are loads in our community and in others nearby. We like it as it's pretty much max 30 mins drive to anywhere in AD and we can be in downtown Dubai in about 1h 15. Our rent is 200k and the house is over 500sq m. You would pay a lot more per sq m in Yas, Saadiyat etc so you need to decide what's important to you. Personally, I find Saadiyat just too far from everything and although the beach and pool are nice, we really don't have the climate to want to spend all our free time there including through the summer heat.

We shop in Carrefour and Lulu and rarely spend more than 500/week, but DH isn't a big eater and I get lunch at work, so maybe that's not representative. We don't have kids, just pets. Our ADDC bill is usually in the range 1500 (winter) to 2500 (summer). We run two cars and I usually have to fill up weekly, which costs around 100 as it's not a massive car. We don't lease but leasing a car is min. 1500/month as I understand it, more for a bigger/flashier model.

I have lots of friends here who are British Asian and Canadian with Asian heritage. Emiratis are generally the kindest, most welcoming people you will interact with (and I say this as someone who works in AD government) and you don't need to fear their prejudice. What you will notice though is that the staff in service industries, when not Arab (Egyptian, Lebanese etc.) are generally Filipino, Indian, Pakistani, etc., and there are a smaller proportion of people with that heritage working in high level roles in the UAE than there are in low skilled roles.

Happy to help if you have more questions!

There is huge number of British Indians in the UAE and generally there is a lot of respect for Indians who make up a lot of the managerial and senior positions. The UAE history with India goes way back. Of course you will get pockets of issues .. mainly from entitled expats who completely change once they get to a tax free sunnier environment

Population statistics are here: https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/uae-population-statistics/

Brits fall into the 2.16% 'other countries' alongside US, Canada, European and other nationalities. You will encounter more Brits than this suggests though, especially if your DC attend a British curriculum school.

@useitorlose has really good advice here if you are looking to save.

The areas I listed are where GCs I know live - and are areas with good expat communities - but are 'flashier' than Khalifa City so you get less house for your money. Whether they are 'far' depends on where you work - and schools you want to send them to.

My advice is always to start in a serviced apartment and live there for a couple of months and get your bearings before making a decision on where to live. Everything is much easier to investigate when you're actually here!

Wow, that's an amazing salary, can I ask what your DH does

Thank you @babyparrot and @useitorlose - so much useful information, thank you!

The company will pay for our
(DH, mine and DC's) visas and medical insurance.

DH's office would be in the Corniche area. But we would prefer to be located closer to the school DC ends up at rather than his office. We have considered the British curriculum schools like Cranleigh, BSAK and Brighton. What are the local areas to those schools like if you know? And do people tend to live near the schools or do they tend to live in more compound type areas where expat communities live?

I don't know/think the 90k includes a housing allowance. I believe he has not been given a housing allowance - is that unusual? What might a typical housing allowance look like?

@babyparrot thank you for the serviced apartment suggestion. I read that when renting they usually require 12 months rent up front. Would that then mean living in a serviced apartment for the first year or do you know if the rent structure for those are a bit different?

We are planning a trip in January to understand all these things a bit better but for now we are still trying to gauge whether we can maintain our standard of living here in the UK whilst still saving enough money to justify uprooting and moving away from our family. (I feel a little nervous about that last bit tbh)

I don't know if I've read into it wrong but I do feel like the 90k is on the lower end for GCs. I think both DH and I need some reassurance and to be told it's either a good salary or (as I read on another expat forum) that he is being offered buttons because demand for these roles continue to increase.

I also have no idea about the payscale of general counsels. But at least 75,000 AED a month should give you a good life considering you're a family of four.

You can get a decent (and maybe a little lavish) 1 BR flat with this.

It’s a decent salary and you’d manage to have a good life on that, but my gut feeling is that it’s low for a GC.

No housing allowance is unfortunately very usual these days, although there's no harm in asking about one!

For schools people will live in a variety of areas, particularly BSAK as it's in town with not many of the 'established expat areas' in close proximity. I live in Saadiyat and have neighbours with children that attend all the schools you listed, although only one Brighton parent as it's quite far. The commute is of course much easier the closer you are.

Serviced apartments are on very short leases, weeks not months (unless you want). It's usual to move into one when you land because they are fully furnished etc and you can't sign a rental contract without residency, and your residency application cannot begin until you land.

I have a few friends who live on the corniche too and walk to work. Some nice buildings include the WTC and Nation Towers.

Whether the salary is low for a GC really depends on the company he's going. It's very specific advice I think you'd need to find information from people in similar positions here.

Your DH needs to be clear about how the 90k is split - usually there's a basic salary (this is used when calculating the end of service gratuity), some kind of spurious 'allowance' and then housing.

Neither DH or I work in the same field so I can't comment on how aligned the offer is with others in similar roles. If I tell you that a class teacher is usually on 12-15k in British curriculum schools, does that put it into perspective?! 90k is almost £20k every month, with no tax or NI to pay, and anyone that says they can't live on £20k a month needs to give their finances a serious overhaul.

We do pay our rent up front, but could split into two instalments if we wanted to. Use the Property Finder app to look at rental prices in Yas Acres and Saadiyat Beach villas - they will give you some idea of the top end of the scale for villa rentals. You can get over the Sheikh Zayed bridge and all the way to the Corniche without too much difficulty, it would take about 25 mins, but I wouldn't live in Yas/Al Zeina/Al Raha areas if he's commuting there. Reem Island is popular for apartments but there are next to no villas there.

Thank you again for such a helpful response. DH went back to them with a bunch of questions. The company will provide housing for the first month but nothing thereafter.

I wanted to ask what the Al Rawdah area was like.. it hasn't been mentioned here and the rents seem quite low. But it is a good distance between Brighton and DH's office. But I wonder what we're missing given the rent is almost half of the what the villas in Saadiyat or Reen are.

Thank you so much. It's not so much that 20k is unaffordable. But rather most of the villas seem to be on average 450k a year which would be 40% of the salary... And given I am not initially working, and we would still be paying a mortgage in London AND we are hoping to save most of it, we're just trying to figure out if it is worth the move.

We have been looking at renting in the Al Rawdah area which seems a good distance between the office and the school we like.

I am flip flopping between going for the lifestyle and staying here to be closer to our families/village.

Overall Abu Dhabi seems really appealing but I think we won't really know until we visit next month.

Thank you again for such detailed responses.

Not lived in Abu Dhabi but that salary is very respectable. Just double check that the allowance isn’t included in the package as pp pointed out it will affect end of service payment and probably bonus as well. So it’s important to know the exact salary break up. For example they may have put like 10% for transportation costs etc (i.e. a car). Also the bonus and whether it’s paid is quite important. There are a lot of competition from jobs according to Dh’s ex colleagues so it may be holding down some wages. I do think 90k is probably on the low side for a GC but it depends on the size of the company. Also health and dental. We always lived in a apartments as we were prioritising saving so don’t discount them.

As for being asian in the middle east depending on the country you may find your nationality is more important than your colour but yes there is a preference for white people to make friends with but mostly people find other expats to befriend. Generally people in the gulf are polite and well mannered so just don’t worry about that at all. Public life is very civilised.

There are pretty much two types of villas. Stand alone villas, mostly occupied by Emirati families. Compound or community villas, mixed occupancy, with playgrounds, gardens, pools, sometimes sports facilities, gym etc. The ones you're looking at are the very top end of community villas and there's absolutely no need to pay that much. You can get from Khalifa City to Brighton College in 15 mins and the Corniche in 30 mins.

You could also look at Rabdan and Bloom Gardens (although despite the name, the gardens are tiny!)

Saadiyat is priced the way it is because it's the 'nicest' area in the city with an incredible beach etc ... It's not worth those prices, I agree, but prices have gone up a lot in the last 4 years. I recommended it because I know a few GCs that live here, but if I were in your position I'd look at apartments there or possibly a villa in Yas Acres.

If you're really looking to save @useitorlose 's advice on living area is better, but most expats I meet would prefer to sacrifice on savings and have the lifestyle of Saadiyat, Yas etc. I also don't know any expat GCs that live in Khalifa City.

Abu Dhabi is a great place to live and with so many expats easy to meet people and make connections.

There are GCs and GCs so it's difficult to say whether the salary is good or not. It's certainly a salary that you can live well off (and I would assume part of the 90k is a housing allowance - if they don't pay housing at all, that's a good thing for several reasons - it's unlikely he'll just get housing on top (but no harm asking)).

90k + 45 education (per child or total?) is probably upper mid-range GC salary. So the salary that you would expect someone who was a GC of a decently sized company in the UK to command in AD, but it's not equivalent to what you would expect from someone who is an MC/white shoe US corporate partner or senior legal leadership at a major international company. If your DH is a relatively new partner/or legal director at a silver circle or similar law firm in London then it's a decent salary.

Generally AD pays more for senior lawyers than Dubai does because there's a lot of the 'Abu Dhabi Inc' JVs there and it is hard to attract talent to Abu Dhabi.

Feel free to PM me with more details of his experience and who it is.