The hard cost of full-time employment in the GCC
Hiring a permanent Data Engineer or MLOps Lead in the Gulf isn’t just about salary.
For UAE-based roles, employers typically pay:
Work permit and employment visa fees – government fees for employment visas and work permits in the UAE generally range from AED 3,000 to AED 7,000 per employee, depending on category, company classification and whether you’re mainland or free zone.
MOHRE work permit issuance – official fees to issue or renew work permits range from AED 250 to AED 3,450, depending on company category.
Medical tests, Emirates ID and insurance – medical, Emirates ID and mandatory health insurance typically add hundreds to a few thousand dirhams per person, depending on coverage.
In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, employers also absorb visa and work permit costs, which can range from a few hundred to several thousand US dollars per employee when you include government fees, medicals, insurance and processing.
On top of that, there are the soft but real costs:
Relocation flights and initial accommodation.
Allowances (housing, transport, schooling in some cases).
End-of-service benefits and local labour-law obligations.
The time and internal effort to onboard, integrate and (later) exit people.
For long-term, core roles, this investment can absolutely make sense. For 12–24 month Data & AI programmes with peaky workloads, it often doesn’t.
Why Data & AI programmes are different
Large Data & AI initiatives in the region—new data platforms, AI-enabled customer intelligence, LLM-based support layers, regulatory analytics—tend to have a few common traits:
Front-loaded complexity
You need heavy-hitting roles (Lead MLOps, Senior RAG Engineer, Data Governance Lead, Programme Manager) early to set architecture, patterns and ways of working.
Their workload drops after the platform stabilises and teams are trained.
Project-based budgets
Many programmes are funded as capex or time-bound transformation projects, often linked to a consulting partner or vendor.
It’s easier to justify contractor day rates than permanent headcount that sits on the P&L forever.
Multi-country or multi-entity scope
It’s common to run a single programme across several GCC markets or business units.
Not every role needs a local, full-time presence in each jurisdiction.
In that context, forcing everything into permanent roles—with full visa, relocation and long-term obligations—can make programmes slower, more expensive and harder to adjust mid-flight.
When contracting clearly wins
For Data & AI in the Middle East, contractors (or project-based squads staffed via a specialist partner) often make more sense when:
You’re building or stabilising a platform
Roles: Lead MLOps, Senior RAG Engineer, LLM Platform Architect, Data Migration Lead.
Why contractors: you need their depth for 12–18 months to design and harden, but not necessarily forever.
You’re delivering a bid or regulatory programme
Roles: Programme Manager, Change Lead, Data Governance Lead, Privacy Specialist for a specific transformation or regulatory response.
Why contractors: work is defined, time-bound and often tied to specific milestones and board commitments.
You need global talent, fast
You might want to tap into senior engineers or architects in Eastern Europe, Pakistan, India or other regions without immediately putting everyone on local visas.
Working through a partner that can handle cross-border contracting and EOR (employer-of-record) structures can avoid weeks of immigration work per hire.
You’re testing a new AI business line
Spinning up a new AI-enabled product or service line is high-uncertainty.
A contractor-based squad allows you to test and iterate without committing to a full permanent headcount structure before the business case is proven.
In these cases, the cost of a contractor day rate is often less than the fully loaded cost (and risk) of a permanent role once you factor in visa, relocation and end-of-service obligations.
Where full-time roles still make sense
Permanent hires still matter, especially in a few critical areas:
Core data platform ownership – the people who wake up thinking about your platform every day, long after consultants leave.
Embedded analytics in key business lines – product analysts and domain-focused analytics leads who carry long-term context.
Internal governance and risk – for some institutions, regulators will want to see internal named owners, not only external advisors.
A healthy Data & AI organisation in the Middle East often looks like a hybrid:
A permanent spine of core leaders and embedded roles.
Contractor waves for build-outs, migrations, AI experiments and time-bound programmes.
A practical split for a GCC Data & AI programme
As a rule of thumb for a 18–24 month programme in the region:
Permanent / internal
CDO / Head of Data & AI
Head of Data Platform (or equivalent)
One or two senior analytics leaders embedded in business lines
At least one internal governance / privacy owner
Project-based / contracted
Extra MLOps, Data Engineers and RAG Engineers for build-out and stabilisation
Specialist roles (vector search, evaluation, FinCrime models, marketing optimisation, etc.)
Programme and change resources tied to the transformation window
Temporary spikes for migration, testing or multi-country rollout
This setup respects local labour frameworks and visa realities while matching the shape of Data & AI work: heavy up front, more stable and smaller later.
Why Calimala leans into contracting for Data & AI
Calimala is built around this reality:
We help GCC enterprises and consultancies design the right Data & AI roles, not just post generic job ads.
We source senior contractors globally, with a strong focus on Data & AI talent that knows how to work in distributed teams.
We work with partners to handle compliant cross-border contracting, so clients get the right people in place without wrestling immigration and paperwork for every role.
Contracting isn’t “cheaper labour.” In the Middle East, especially for Data & AI, it’s often the cleanest way to align cost, risk and delivery to the real shape of the work.
Calimala supports CDOs, CIOs and business leaders with specialised Data & AI talent, structured engagements and delivery oversight — so critical initiatives are staffed with the right people, on time.
