The UAE Wealth Dashboard
See exactly where you stand among 11 million residents.

Where does your income rank in the UAE?

Enter your gross salary and pick a comparison group. The UAE labour market is sharply segmented, so who you compare against changes everything.
Your gross salary
AED / month
All workers · ~9.2MEveryone employed in the UAE, including labour-camp, collective-household and domestic workers
Household-survey view · ~5.5MWorkers living in regular households, comparable to the official Labour Force Survey
Professionals & executives · ~2.0MWhite-collar professional and management roles, the group most salary guides describe
Your position
–
Income distribution
Source: model calibrated to FCSC Labour Force Survey 2024, Wage Protection System coverage and World Inequality Database
The percentile curve
The ladder gets steep at the top
Gross income required at every percentile of the selected group (log scale). Hover to explore any rung; your position is marked.
Source: site model — see Methodology
Percentile ladder
Gross salary needed to reach each rung of the selected group
Salary by age (individual, white-collar)
Source: Paylab UAE 2026 age medians; percentile tiers modelled from the overall white-collar spread
The segmented workforce
Six workforces, one labour market
Bar length is workers (millions); label shows typical (median) gross monthly pay
Source: FCSC, MOHRE, industry estimates; model segments
Income concentration
Lorenz curve: cumulative share of total income against share of the group, poorest first. The straight line is perfect equality; the deeper the bow, the greater the concentration. Hover to explore.
Source: computed from the site income model
Why three views?

Official statistics disagree because they measure different populations. The Labour Force Survey samples regular households and reports a median of AED 10,000, while Wage Protection System coverage shows over 60% of all workers earn under AED 5,000. Both are true: labour-camp and collective-household workers are invisible to household surveys.

This dashboard models all three populations so you can see both realities. Toggle groups above and watch the median move from about AED 3,700 to AED 20,000.

Income here means gross labour income. Total-income percentiles including capital income run higher: the World Inequality Database puts the UAE's top 1% threshold near AED 154,000 per month per adult. See Methodology.

Is your salary fair?

Benchmark your total package against recruiter salary guides for your role, adjusted for your experience and emirate.
Your details
AED / month
Include basic + housing + transport and other fixed allowances; exclude bonus. Benchmarks are recruiter-guide ranges on the same basis.
Verdict
Pick a role and enter your package to see where you stand.
The verdict compares you with the matched role's guide range (min of mins to max of maxes across matching rows), reduced by 10% because published guide figures typically include benefits that vary a lot by company, then scaled by an emirate factor derived from relative average salaries, with an experience-based expected point inside the range (early career sits near the bottom, 12+ years near the top). Pay for the same title varies widely by employer, sector and hiring market, so treat this as a benchmark, not a promise.

Where does your net worth rank?

Total assets (property, investments, cash, business equity) minus all debts, compared against the adult resident population.
Your net worth
AED
Wealth data is modelled from the World Inequality Database with UBS and Knight Frank anchors. The UAE's wealth Gini of 0.82 is the highest in the world, so small differences in net worth move you many percentiles.
Your position
–
The wealth curve
Wealth compounds; the curve goes vertical
Net worth required at every percentile of UAE resident adults (log scale). Hover to explore; your position is marked.
Source: WID-based model with UBS and Knight Frank anchors — see Methodology
Wealth ladder
Net worth per adult needed to reach each rung
Millionaire migration
The world's strongest millionaire magnet
Net inflow of USD millionaires per year, the world's highest four years running
Source: Henley & Partners / New World Wealth private wealth migration reports
Global wealth hubs
Dubai is climbing the millionaire league
Resident USD millionaires by city, end-2024. Dubai ranked 18th worldwide, the biggest climber in the top 50, with numbers up 102% in a decade.
Source: Henley & Partners / New World Wealth, World's Wealthiest Cities 2025
The ultra-rich pipeline
More of the very wealthy are coming
UAE residents worth $30M+ (UHNWIs), Knight Frank forecast, plus UBS's projection of ~15% millionaire growth to 2028.
Source: Knight Frank Wealth Report 2026; UBS Global Wealth Report
Model caveats: below-median values are extrapolated; UBS's survey-based median (USD 32,746 per adult, 2023) sits well below the WID model median used here (~USD 92,000). Percentiles at the extremes carry wide uncertainty. Sources and reconciliation in Methodology.

The seven emirates

Economic output, estimated household wealth, population and cost of living. Abu Dhabi and Dubai together produce about 80% of national GDP.
Estimated household wealth per adult
Dubai holds the household wealth
Model estimate, USD. National wealth stock (UBS mean × adults) allocated 55% by resident-millionaire shares, 45% by adults weighted by income and property levels. Whiskers show the 45–62% top-share scenario range. Why isn't Abu Dhabi first? Abu Dhabi is richer as a state — higher GDP per capita and ~$1.7T in sovereign funds (ADIA, Mubadala, ADQ) — but that is government wealth, excluded here. Private wealth held by residents concentrates in Dubai: 81,200 resident millionaires vs ~20,000 in Abu Dhabi, and 237 vs 75 centi-millionaires.
Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, Henley & Partners / New World Wealth city data; site model
GDP per capita
Oil lifts Abu Dhabi's output per head
USD, 2023 — latest consistent cross-emirate set. Abu Dhabi's figure includes oil rents accruing to the state, which is why its household wealth ranks below its GDP.
Source: emirate statistics centres, 2023
Typical 1-bedroom rent
A Dubai 1-bed costs about twice the north
Per year, midpoint of typical asking range
Source: Bayut annual rental market reports, 2025
Emirate-level income data is the weakest part of the official record: results of the 2024 national Household Income & Expenditure Survey (~19,000 families) were still unpublished as of mid-2026. Salary index figures are third-party estimates, useful as relative comparison only. Wealth per adult is this site's model estimate — no official figure exists. Population figures mix official series (Dubai 2025 register-based, Abu Dhabi 2024, Sharjah 2022 census) with third-party estimates for the northern emirates.

Salaries by role & industry

RoleSalary rangeRange · rank vs all workers
How to read the rank: "Top 5% overall" means a person earning this role's midpoint salary earns more than 95% of all ~9.2M workers in the UAE — labourers and domestic workers included. Most listed professional roles rank in the top 10% precisely because recruiter guides describe the professional tier, not the whole workforce. Recruiter-guide figures (Cooper Fitch, Robert Half, Michael Page) are shown reduced by 10%, since published ranges typically include benefits that vary widely by company. Market and sector sources (GulfTalent, UAESalary, Jooble postings, SOEG hospitality bands, nursing and aviation data, manpower-supplier blue-collar bands and others) are unadjusted; blue-collar figures are base pay and often exclude employer-provided food and housing. Strategy consulting (Tier 1 & 2, incl. MBB) and investment banking rows come from the Cooper Fitch 2025 guide tables, cross-checked against Glassdoor, PrepLounge and Levels.fyi Dubai submissions; they are base plus fixed allowances and exclude bonuses. Note the two-tier IB market: these ranges reflect the regional mix, while international bulge-bracket desks at DIFC pay near New York scales (a separate analyst row shows that tier's base).

Methodology & sources

No official income percentile series exists for the UAE, so this dashboard is built on a synthesized model that reconciles several partially conflicting sources. Every design decision is documented here.

The income model

Incomes are modelled as a mixture of lognormal distributions over labour-market segments: domestic workers (~0.75M), construction labourers (~1.4M), other low-wage services (~3.3M), skilled trades and clerical workers (~1.7M), professionals (~1.7M) and senior executives (~0.3M). Segment weights come from the FCSC Labour Force Survey 2024 (9.4M labour force), MOHRE data and industry estimates. Medians and spreads are calibrated against four anchors: the WPS-linked finding that over 60% of workers earn below AED 5,000 per month (model: 59.7%), the LFS 2024 median of AED 10,000 and mean of AED 16,000 for the household-survey view (model: 8,900 and 15,200), crowd-sourced professional medians of AED 12,000 to 20,000 (model: 20,000), and recruiter executive bands of AED 80,000 to 275,000 (model 99th percentile, all workers: 87,000).

The household view

Household mode compares combined household income against ~2.4M regular households (a count anchored on Dubai's official ~771,000 households), averaging about 2.3 earners each. The distribution is a four-component mixture: modest expatriate households (1.05M, median AED 11,000 per month), mid-income family households (0.75M, median AED 25,000), professional and executive households (0.35M, median AED 60,000) and Emirati households (0.25M, median AED 60,000), the last consistent with the Dubai HIES 2014/15 finding that Emirati family income (AED 866,890 per year average) ran about 2.6x non-Emirati family income (AED 337,392). The mixture is calibrated to an aggregate-consistency test: mean household income (~AED 34,000) must equal the number of workers living in regular households (~5.5M) times their mean individual income (~AED 15,200) divided by the household count, and household percentile thresholds must sit at or above every individual view's thresholds (verified numerically; the household curve tracks within 2% of the professionals curve where they meet). Collective households and labour camps are excluded, since "household income" is not meaningful there. Household net worth applies a factor of 2 wealth-holding adults per household to the per-adult wealth curve.

The wealth model

Wealth percentiles use World Inequality Database derived anchors (median AED 337,549; p90 AED 2.17M; p99 AED 14.4M per adult), monotonically interpolated, with lognormal extrapolation below the median. UBS Global Wealth Report figures (mean USD 157,612 in 2025; median USD 32,746 in 2023; wealth Gini 0.82, the world's highest) and Knight Frank's top-1% threshold (USD 1.6M, 2023) serve as independent references. The UBS millionaire series has a break: 240,343 (2024 data, GWR 2025) vs 183,000 (2025 data, GWR 2026, revised methodology); this site cites by edition.

Wealth per adult by emirate

No official or third-party estimate of household wealth by emirate exists, so this is a model. The national household wealth stock (UBS mean per adult x ~9.9M adults ≈ USD 1.56T) is split in two parts. The top-tier share (55% central case, reflecting UBS data showing millionaires hold roughly 50–60% of wealth) is allocated by each emirate's share of resident millionaires: Dubai 81,200, Abu Dhabi ~20,000 (Henley reports range 17,800–22,700), Sharjah 4,100 (Henley/New World Wealth city data), with a small residual for the northern emirates. The mass share (45%) is allocated by adult population weighted by income and property-price levels. Ranges shown reflect top-share scenarios of 45% to 62%. Sovereign wealth funds (ADIA ~$1.1T, Mubadala, ADQ, ICD) are state assets and are excluded throughout; this is also why Abu Dhabi's household wealth ranks well below its GDP per capita.

Salary check and roles adjustment

Recruiter-guide salary ranges (Cooper Fitch, Robert Half, Michael Page) are displayed and benchmarked at 90% of their published values, because guide figures are typically quoted inclusive of fixed benefits packages whose cash value varies widely by company. GulfTalent's self-reported non-office benchmarks are not adjusted. The salary check verdict further scales ranges by an emirate factor (Dubai 1.00 down to about 0.88 for the northern emirates) derived from relative average salary levels, and places an experience-based expected point within the range.

Known limitations

  • The 2024/25 national Household Income & Expenditure Survey results are unpublished; when released they will replace several model assumptions.
  • World Bank survey-based inequality figures (Gini 26.4 in 2018) appear nowhere as headlines because Gulf household surveys capture only ~20–39% of national income and truncate the top tail.
  • Crowd-sourced data (including the age chart) skews toward English-speaking professionals; the majority low-wage workforce is nearly invisible in it.
  • Emirate wealth figures are model estimates with wide uncertainty; small-emirate populations are stale census extrapolations.
  • Nationality-based pay differences are real and large (the same role can span 3–5x by hiring market) but are not modelled separately.

Primary sources

Data compiled July 2026. AED pegged at 3.6725 per USD. This dashboard is for information only and is not financial advice.