Two labor markets share the Gulf’s job boards. Professional and office roles are advertised openly on regional sites such as Bayt, GulfTalent and Naukrigulf, while most construction, household and other lower-wage jobs are filled through recruitment agencies in workers’ home countries, not through public listings. Expatriates dominate both: the six Gulf Cooperation Council states added about 9.4 million workers between 2021 and 2025, and expatriate men alone made up 66.5% of the workforce in 2025, according to GCC Statistical Center data reported by Zawya.
This directory covers six platforms used across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, with reach into Jordan, Lebanon and other Arab markets through regional boards. It also explains the government job portals that are reserved for citizens, since they are often the first result in a search and not open to foreign applicants. Each site was opened on 7 November 2026; listing counts are what each site displayed that day or what its operator has published. Egypt and the rest of North Africa have their own directory.
The single most useful rule for a job seeker is that recruitment should cost the worker nothing. In the UAE, Article 6 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 bars employers from charging workers recruitment or employment costs, directly or indirectly, and only licensed agencies may recruit, as explained by Gulf News. Agencies abroad still demand “processing” fees, and Kenya’s government has reported a sharp rise in complaints about fake recruitment for Gulf jobs. How the region’s sponsorship rules have changed is covered in our guide to working in the Gulf after kafala.
Regional boards used across all six Gulf states
Most professional hiring in the Gulf runs through a few regional boards plus LinkedIn, with recruitment agencies posting a large share of the ads. These boards list jobs in several countries at once and let applicants filter by country, so one account covers the region. Agencies in the Gulf are paid by employers, and GulfTalent’s own guide to Dubai recruiters notes that they do not charge candidates fees.
Bayt
Bayt is a regional job site with country sections across the Gulf and the wider Middle East. Its UAE page offered 10,224 jobs on the day checked, and it describes its job seeker services as free. Employers and recruitment agencies both post. The UAE page carried testimonials about jobs in Qatar and Kuwait but no fraud or safety warning.
- Strength: broad coverage of white-collar roles across the Gulf.
- Strength: free for job seekers.
- Weakness: no scam guidance on the page checked.
GulfTalent
GulfTalent targets experienced professionals, with jobs in the GCC states plus Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. Recruiters search its CV database directly, so a complete profile matters as much as applications. It tells employers it holds CVs from more than 10 million professionals of more than 240 nationalities and is used by over 10,000 employers, figures it publishes on its recruiter pages. Its homepage did not load for automated checks on 7 November 2026, so current listing volume was not verified.
- Strength: CV database searched by employers and agencies across the region.
- Strength: free registration for candidates.
- Weakness: some user reviews report scam emails from people claiming to have found their profile on the site.
Naukrigulf
Naukrigulf is the Gulf arm of India’s Info Edge, which runs Naukri.com, and it covers the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain. Its app, in English and Arabic, is free and advertises more than 65,000 vacancies. Info Edge describes it as a local board that mainly serves people already in the Gulf looking for jobs there, on its business page. The company also sells paid CV-writing services.
- Strength: large volume of mid-level roles in sales, engineering and operations.
- Strength: free app with Arabic and English.
- Weakness: paid CV services are promoted to job seekers alongside free search.
Tanqeeb
Tanqeeb is a job search engine that collects listings from job boards, company sites and newspapers across 18 Arab countries. On the day checked it showed 64,609 jobs in Saudi Arabia, 61,163 in the UAE, 19,547 in Qatar, 4,122 in Jordan and 7,444 in Lebanon, among others. The site runs in Arabic and English, and accounts are free for job seekers. Because it aggregates, applying usually means going to the original site, and some listings will be duplicates or expired.
- Strength: the widest single view of advertised jobs across the Arab world.
- Strength: covers smaller markets such as Jordan and Lebanon.
- Weakness: aggregated listings need checking against the original ad.
UAE and Saudi Arabia: national boards beside citizen-only portals
Foreign workers in the UAE need a work permit from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, applied for by the employer, and the government’s Nafis program, which runs a job platform and wage subsidies, is for Emirati citizens only. Saudi Arabia’s unemployment rate for citizens was 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026, against 1.5% for non-Saudis, according to General Authority for Statistics data reported by Trading Economics, and that gap drives the country’s Saudization quotas. The Saudi government’s Jadarat platform, launched in August 2024 with about 70,000 jobs, is open only to Saudi nationals, while foreign workers’ contracts and job changes run through the labor ministry’s Qiwa platform, which is not a job board. For foreign applicants, the two boards below fill gaps the regional sites leave.
Dubizzle Jobs (UAE)
Dubizzle is a UAE classifieds site whose jobs section lists full-time, part-time, contract and remote roles. On the day checked, the Dubai jobs page showed 1,244 or more full-time listings, with sales and business development among the largest categories. Real estate brokerages, transport firms and manpower supply companies were among the posters. Applying is free, but the page carried no fraud warning, and manpower supply listings in particular should be checked against the employer and the recruitment fee rule.
- Strength: small and medium employers that do not use the big boards.
- Strength: free to apply.
- Weakness: classifieds-style posting with no visible screening of advertisers.
Wuzzuf (Saudi Arabia)
Wuzzuf, Egypt’s leading job board, now operates in Saudi Arabia and says further expansion in the region is under way. Its Saudi listing volume was not published on the pages checked. It brings the same profile-matching approach it uses in Egypt, where it says it has served more than 55,000 companies since 2012, according to its about page. The homepage does not state fees for job seekers.
- Strength: a familiar route for Arabic- and English-speaking professionals from Egypt.
- Weakness: new in the Saudi market, with no published Saudi listing count.
Household and lower-wage jobs: agencies, not boards
The household sector employed 17.4% of the GCC workforce in 2025 and construction 19.8%, per the same GCC Statistical Center data. Those jobs rarely appear on the boards above; workers are recruited through licensed agencies in their home countries and placed with Gulf employers. The UAE’s domestic worker law bars recruitment agencies from charging workers any commission or fee for their employment, as reported by the Khaleej Times.
For these jobs, the checks that matter happen in the sending country. Kenya, the Philippines and other major origin countries publish lists of licensed overseas recruiters, and in the UAE an offer that comes through an unlicensed agent or asks the worker to pay recruitment or visa costs breaks federal law. Platforms for care and household work are listed in our domestic and care work directory.
The UAE’s 31 December Emiratisation deadline
UAE private companies with 50 or more employees must raise the share of Emiratis in skilled jobs by 2% a year, half by 30 June and half by 31 December, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation set 30 June 2026 as the first-half deadline, according to state news agency WAM. Companies that miss the targets pay financial contributions for each unfilled position.
The second-half deadline falls on 31 December 2026 and completes the 2026 target. A compliance guide from the recruitment firm StrongYes puts the cumulative target for covered mainland companies at 10% of skilled roles by that date and the fine at AED 9,000 a month for each unfilled position; free zone companies are generally outside the ministry’s quotas. The ministry has not yet announced targets for 2027.