Employee Turnover Rate UAE & KSA: Benchmarks for 2026

If you want to know whether your turnover is a problem, you need a credible number to compare against.

This piece puts the best-sourced 2026 figures for the UAE and Saudi Arabia in one place — actual job moves, mobility intent, salary growth, and the reasons people leave — each attributed to its source.

Then it goes one layer deeper than any benchmark can: because the number that matters most isn't the market average. It's which of your people are part of it.

01The mobility picture

How much are GCC employees actually moving?

Start with what actually happened, not what people say they'll do: 27% of GCC professionals changed employers in 2025, and close to four in ten are considering a move in 2026, per the Hays GCC Salary Guide 2026, a survey of more than 1,600 employers and professionals across the region.

For context, US voluntary turnover averaged 13% over the same period (Mercer, 2,617 organisations) — Gulf mobility runs roughly double the US baseline.

The intent layer is even starker. 80% of employees in the UAE and Saudi Arabia say they are willing to change jobs for better pay, a 25% jump on the prior year, per Korn Ferry research spanning more than 1,000 organisations and 400,000 employees.

That is not 80% actively job-hunting, but it is a workforce sitting with its options open.

The driver is a squeeze — and a paradox.

Korn Ferry's 2026 pay forecast puts salary growth at 4.1% in the UAE, 4.6% in Saudi Arabia — the highest in the region — and 4.3% in Qatar and Oman.

Hays found 58% of professionals received a pay rise in 2025 (up from 51% the year before), yet 60% still feel their pay does not match their responsibilities.

Raises are happening; they just aren't closing the gap with cost-of-living pressure, especially housing and education. When pay stops keeping pace with the bills, willingness to move rises — and shows up later as turnover.

80% willing to move is not 80% leaving. It is the size of the pool your competitors are fishing in — and the cost of being the easiest catch.

02The 2026 benchmark table

What the sourced numbers say.

• Changed employers in 2025 (GCC) — 27% — Hays GCC Salary Guide 2026 (1,600+ surveyed).
• Considering a move in 2026 — ~40% — Hays GCC Salary Guide 2026.
• Willing to switch jobs for better pay (UAE/KSA) — 80%, +25% YoY — Korn Ferry (1,000+ orgs, 400,000 employees).
• UAE salary growth — 4.1% — Korn Ferry Salary Forecast 2026.
• Saudi Arabia salary growth — 4.6% — Korn Ferry Salary Forecast 2026.
• Qatar / Oman salary growth — 4.3% — Korn Ferry Salary Forecast 2026.
• Received a pay rise in 2025 — 58%, vs 51% in 2024 — Hays GCC Salary Guide 2026.
• Feel pay doesn't match responsibilities — 60% — Hays GCC Salary Guide 2026.
• Organisations reporting skills gaps — 90% — Hays GCC Salary Guide 2026.
• US voluntary turnover (comparator) — 13% — Mercer 2025 Turnover Survey.

Two of these numbers deserve top billing on their own.

Saudi Arabia now leads the region on pay growth, a direct result of Vision 2030-driven competition for talent.

And the 27%-versus-13% gap with the US means a Gulf employer loses people at roughly twice the rate its global benchmarks assume — budgets and workforce plans imported from HQ will systematically understate the problem.

03Why they leave (and why it's not all pay)

When Hays asked employers why they lose talent, pay led — but didn't dominate: low salaries and benefits (38%), competition for talent (31%), and lack of career progression (28%).

Nearly a third of attrition is attributed to something no counter-offer fixes.

PwC's Middle East Workforce Hopes and Fears survey (1,286 employees) sharpens the same point from the employee side: Gulf employees rank job security among their top priorities at higher rates than global peers, 69% gained new skills in the past year (versus 56% globally), and 81% prefer roles that build transferable skills.

This is not a reckless workforce — it is a development-hungry one that moves when growth stalls.

That matters because pay is the one lever most employers can't win on alone. Progression, recognition and visible development are levers you control entirely.

04The layer the average can't show you

Your turnover isn't a number. It's specific people.

Here's what even a fully-sourced benchmark table can't tell you: a company-wide rate is an average of wildly different realities.

A 27% market figure might be 8% in one team and 40% in another, under one struggling manager, concentrated in your highest-value roles.

The benchmark tells you whether to worry. It can't tell you where the problem is, who is at risk, or when — while there's still time to act.

A market benchmark is a mirror, not a map. It shows you how you compare.

Seeing who is actually leaving takes a different kind of visibility — deterministic, behavioural intelligence that tracks engagement at the level of the individual and the team, not the company average reported a quarter too late.

PraiseLoop's Outcome Engine captures verified, KPI-linked events as teams work, building an early read on where engagement is decaying — and because a third of attrition traces to progression and recognition, not pay, it's decay a manager can actually reverse.

05The bottom line

Use the benchmark. Then look past it.

The 2026 picture is clear and well-supported: more than a quarter of the market changed jobs last year, twice the US rate; pay is rising but not keeping pace with expectations; and a meaningful share of attrition is driven by progression, not compensation.

That's the most complete public benchmark available for the region this year.

But the employers who actually move the number are the ones who stop managing to the average and start seeing the specific, individual attrition it hides.