A few years ago, a friend had the opportunity to move to Dubai, but he dismissed it outright, saying it was a "concrete jungle", "soulless", "too hot", and that he would never swap London for Dubai. However, early last year, he did exactly that. He moved to Dubai with his family, and the business he had set up there has already begun to show results. "It wasn't Dubai's sun versus London's gloomy weather," he told me recently over the phone. "It was the ease of doing business versus endless bureaucratic hassles and crushing taxes in the UK."
My friend was one of the nearly 1.9 lakh people who moved out of the UK lock, stock and barrel in 2024-25, the majority of them heading to Dubai, Qatar and other Gulf destinations. They were young entrepreneurs and salaried professionals.
Dubai, indeed, is one of those cities that divides opinion here in the West almost instinctively. To its critics, it feels soulless, a concrete jungle rising out of sand. Others recoil from its curtailed political freedoms or dismiss it as a place sustained by money and mammon-worship. And yet, steadily and relentlessly, people are moving there in waves, not for its sandy beaches and sun but for job and business opportunities
Young professionals, entrepreneurs, startup founders, consultants, investors, freelancers are all moving with their families and children. They are arriving from India, Europe, Russia, Britain and other countries. Many are fully aware of what Dubai is not. But they are equally clear about what it offers. Ambition, work, utmost ease of doing business and mobility are being redefined in the 2020s.
Why People Are Leaving Anyway
If you disregard the rhetoric, you will find Dubai's appeal to be remarkably practical. Safety. Order. A decent standard of living without urban chaos. Infrastructure that works. Roads that are sans potholes. Public services that function predictably. The system is free of bribery. Digital systems do what they promise. Above all, it offers a business environment that does not exhaust you before you begin.
The arithmetic is brutal and persuasive. No personal income tax. Very low corporate tax. Clear rules. Minimal bureaucratic theatre. In a world where ambition is often throttled by paperwork, Dubai offers speed. And speed, today, is a form of freedom.
It is, because setting up a company, for example, is not a long ordeal. In many free zones, a business can be registered, licensed and operational in five to seven working days. Visas, medical tests and Emirates ID processing are integrated into a single workflow. What takes months of coordination in labyrinths of democratic countries is compressed into a matter of days. And if you want the process to be fast-tracked against higher fees, most services can be delivered the same day or the next day.
I have been there only once, almost six years ago, and my lasting impression was that the city occupies a strategic geographic sweet spot. It is neither fully Western nor fully Asian, but a bridge between the two. Eight hours from London. A little over three from Delhi. Two from Riyadh, with Doha even closer. From one base, you can service Europe, Africa and Asia without fully exiting any world. For globally mobile professionals and founders, this matters.
Perhaps most striking is Dubai's social reality. People from countries that glare at each other across borders elsewhere work side by side here, and even start companies together. Pragmatism often triumphs over border skirmishes. My broader impression was that the city felt culturally India-dominated. During my trip, I met an extremely wealthy Sheikh who effortlessly broke into fluent Hindi, spoke warmly about hosting Bollywood stars, and took pride in celebrating Holi and bursting crackers on Diwali with his Indian friends.
The Pandemic That Nearly Broke Dubai
It is easy to forget how close Dubai came to the edge in 2020. When Covid-19 hit, the city gasped. Lockdowns paralysed its tourism-driven economy. Hospitality collapsed. Real estate froze. Expo 2020 was postponed. A survey by the Dubai Chamber suggested that nearly 70% of businesses feared closure within months if restrictions continued. Comparisons with the 2009 debt crisis returned with force.
Dubai, a city built on movement, trade and openness, had suddenly lost all three.
A Big Comeback
Five years on, Dubai is not merely back on its feet but is outperforming its pre-pandemic self. Population growth has surged. Real estate demand has returned with force. Tourism has hit record highs. Business registrations continue to climb vertically. An Indian friend, who often shuttles between Dubai and Riyadh, told me rents have doubled, and the population has also doubled since Covid. But he said the government was busy continuing to construct world-class infrastructure to meet these challenges
Everything is in control because the growth is not organic; it is organised and deliberate. The rulers have engineered Dubai as a business magnet. Under its D33 agenda, the city aims to double the size of its economy and push foreign trade beyond $6 trillion over the next decade. That ambition is matched by momentum. GDP growth of around 4% in early 2025, record foreign direct investment inflows of $14.2 billion in 2024, and four consecutive years as the world's leading destination for greenfield FDI point to substance, not spin.
High-profile business forums, rapid licensing, sector-specific free zones and regulators who engage rather than obstruct have drawn startups across fintech, healthcare, logistics and digital services. The city now adds tens of thousands of new businesses every year, many of them small, founder-led firms that value speed over scale in their early years.
A key part of this appeal lies in choice. Entrepreneurs can opt for free zone entities, which offer full foreign ownership, simplified regulation and fast setup, or mainland licences, which allow direct access to the UAE market and government contracts. This flexibility allows founders to design their legal structure around their business model, rather than contort their business around regulation.
Not Just Dubai
Dubai may be the most visible face of the Gulf's rise, but it is no longer alone. Across the peninsula, capitals like Riyadh and Doha are building their own versions of the Gulf opportunity story.
Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 reforms have unleashed a wave of economic diversification, reshaping Riyadh into a financial and technology hub. Regulatory reform, massive infrastructure investment and new special economic zones are drawing global firms and talent at scale. Doha, buoyed by the recent football World Cup infrastructure development and one of the world's highest per-capita incomes, has quietly expanded its footprint in finance, logistics and digital services. Doha is a place for early birds, early movers
What these cities share with Dubai is institutional clarity. Long-term residency pathways. Investor-friendly tax and legal frameworks. Clean compliance. Predictability. For globally mobile professionals and entrepreneurs, the Gulf now offers multiple points of entry. Many of them already based there believe they have made the best decision by moving there.
This shift is also changing the nature of enterprise in the region. Beyond legacy trade and real estate, a growing number of technology-led ventures are taking root. Fintech firms are building AI-driven tools for regional SMEs. Health-tech companies are expanding preventive care and diagnostics. Digital commerce, cloud services, logistics platforms and niche consultancies are carving out regional roles.
Many of these ventures are small, agile and internationally staffed. Their founders come from varied backgrounds and geographies. The Gulf, and Dubai in particular, has become a place where ideas convert into operations quickly. Remember the early years in Silicon Valley?
The Singapore Comparison
To understand Dubai's rise, comparisons with Singapore give us a perspective. I say this because many professional Indians are moving to Singapore as well. There is no doubt that Singapore remains wealthier per capita, more institutionally dense and deeper in finance and advanced research. Its regulatory and legal architecture is among the world's most trusted. Yet Singapore is also expensive, tightly regulated and socially demanding. You can say it is a premium product.
Dubai has positioned itself differently. It may not yet match Singapore's institutional depth, but it compensates with speed, tax clarity and lifestyle ease. Where Singapore optimises excellence, Dubai optimises momentum. For many young founders and professionals, this difference matters. Dubai offers a neutral global platform where ambition converts faster into outcomes.
A Shifting Global Landscape
This Gulf moment is also being shaped by changes elsewhere. The United States, under President Donald Trump, has become increasingly restrictive towards migrant workers, students and young professionals. Uncertainty rules now. For millions of aspirants, the American dream is almost over.
Europe, meanwhile, is struggling with nearly no growth, housing stress, debt and fiscal pressure. Its traditional promise of high wages and stable prosperity no longer evokes trust. As Western destinations become less predictable, alternatives gain appeal. Dubai, Doha and Riyadh are benefiting from this shift. They do not promise utopia; they offer an opportunity. "Work hard, and you will be successful," a Mumbai-based Dubai businessman told me once. Dubai may not be loved universally. But it works. The same can be said about the Gulf region in general.
(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
