Abu Dhabi

[Questioningthingz]

Considering a move to Abu Dhabi with 2 primary school aged kids. Want to save a chunk whilst enjoying life ie holidays, 4 bedroom villa or condo. School fees for kids.

what would you say should be the minimum we earn to achieve this? Sorry vague happy to answer any questions. Just keen to get people’s views.

Almost no one is living in a 4 bedroom villa whilst also saving money anymore …

I love living here but cost of living is similar to London in terms of rent and food. I can’t answer ‘how much is the minimum’ because I don’t understand what lifestyle you lead or what jobs you have.

It’s no longer a ‘hardship posting’, so I think it’s important to get that out of your head. People really want to move here, salaries and packages are less than they were previously as there’s a lot of competition for jobs now. You absolutely could still save money, but you’d be living in an apartment in a more modest area, not using the top schools nor going for brunch every weekend. Or maybe you are high earners and you would be!

I’d advise you to either give more information here (what industry, what is the prospective salary, are you ‘replacing’ a top private school or a state school etc) and people can help you better.

Also join British Mums Abu Dhabi on Facebook which is very helpful with similar questions.

Good luck! I do absolute love living in AD and have no plans to leave, but have seen costs increase a lot over the last few years (and a huge influx of Brits!)

Rent per square metre goes up and up. You want a 4 bed villa and a good school, then you could look at Saadiyat and you would need at least 500k in rent and another 170k in school fees for Cranleigh.

Move out to Khalifa City and send your kids to Noya and it will be closer to 300k total for rent and fees.

I meet few expat families that don't have both parents working.

Thanks for the replies to this sorry for taking so long to look.

DH and I are consultants, he’s senior and I am management level. My worry is that I’ve heard the work life balance isn’t good. I would need to collect my kids from school at least a couple of times a week if I split the task with DH, meaning I need an element of flexible working which I envision being problematic but of course don’t know. Has anyone got experience of this?

Work life balance is company and industry dependent. Local companies tend to have a better work-life balance (or at least preferable to the UK), also from what I understand it’s much better in AD compared to Dubai. The main reason my family and I are here is that my husband can do the same job but spend much more time with me and the kids.

In terms of flexible working, again it’s company dependent but most companies will assume you have full time help at home (a flip side to help being more affordable here) which erodes the ‘need’ for flexibility. But having said that I do have plenty of friends who have an arrangement that ‘they always do pick up on Tuesdays’ and similar.

The best I can advise is speak to people in comparable jobs in the actual companies you are targeting and assume you’d have more help than in the U.K.

Also @thornburyhas excellent advice on cost of living here - although if you wanted a villa on Saadiyat prices are now above 500k 🫠

I think you need to understand the income you’d have and the lifestyle you are aiming for. Then the Facebook groups like British Mums Abu Dhabi are brilliant for area recommendations and cost breakdowns

Thanks so much that’s really useful to know. How does it work that your husband has more time with kids out there? Less hours in office?

im in a very large international consulting firm. I guess more help out there but I want to be collecting my kids from school or there for when they’re home. I guess that’s the trade off. Do most wives/mums work?

Saadiyat would be out of budget. Re salaries we just aren’t sure yet but expect possibly around 160-200 aed pcm combined. we do want to save money out there so quite key to understand this side of things really.

I’ve been looking into Al Reem or Raha beach not sure if you have insights on those?