The UAE will need to add more than one million workers by 2030 to sustain economic growth and support its accelerating push into technology and artificial intelligence, according to a new workforce forecast by ServiceNow and Pearson. The report estimates a 12.1 percent increase in the UAE’s workforce, the highest projected growth rate among the countries studied.
The analysis attributes this expansion to continued digitisation, large-scale AI adoption, and the transformation of services across both public and private sectors. Demand is expected to rise across manufacturing, education, retail, finance, healthcare, energy, and utilities, with technology-related roles playing a central role in enabling this growth.
By 2030, organisations in the UAE are expected to require more than 91,000 additional technology specialists, particularly in areas such as programming, computer systems analysis, and search marketing strategy. The report challenges common fears that AI will reduce employment, instead suggesting that AI-driven augmentation will fuel job creation when paired with targeted upskilling initiatives.
ServiceNow noted that collaboration between people and AI will be critical to capturing the next phase of economic growth, especially in fast-moving digital economies such as the UAE. The findings align with the country’s broader ambition to become a global AI leader, supported by investments and partnerships with companies including Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI, as well as the development of a large-scale AI data centre campus in Abu Dhabi.
While most countries in the study are expected to see workforce growth, Germany and Japan are forecast to experience declines due to demographic pressures and slower job creation, underscoring the UAE’s distinctive growth trajectory driven by technology-led economic diversification
