The survey assessed participants’ levels of financial, professional and personal fulfilment…

The results are in: the UAE is one of the most liveable countries in the world according to a new report published under HSBC’s Expat Explorer Survey.

The annual survey, now in its tenth year, is one of the biggest and longest running studies into expat life, having polled over 27,500 migrant workers from 159 countries between March and April of this year.

Singapore took top honours in the survey, with Norway, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands claiming the remaining spots in the top five best countries to live and work in.

So, how did the UAE do?

Not too badly as it turns out, the survey has the UAE ranking in at the number 10 spot overall.

HSBC focused on assessing the levels of financial, professional and personal fulfilment of participants across the areas of economics, experience and family.

The highest scoring of these was economics (the UAE placed 5th) which revealed that expats in the UAE earn around 27 per cent more than their counterparts elsewhere, with an average annual salary of Dhs467,200. The report noted that “Indeed, income was a key factor for many in making the decision to move to the UAE, as more than half moved there to improve their earnings,”

The country also scored relatively well in the experience category where it ranked 20th, with positive results in finance, safety and healthcare.

Where things were let down a bit was in the family category – the UAE placed last out of 46 countries for the “overall cost of children”. This is sadly nothing new as we reported on last month that the average cost of raising a child in the UAE was a whopping Dhs500,000 (and that’s just up until the end of high school).

“Private schooling in the UAE is expensive,” confirmed the report. “It’s no longer standard practice to include an education allowance in expat employment packages so you’ll need to budget for school fees, along with all the additional costs such as uniforms, textbooks, transport and extracurricular activities.”

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom in this category as the UAE still placed 24th in family, scoring high marks in the quality of childcare services, with 66 per cent of parents saying that their children’s lives had dramatically improved since moving to the country.

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