Dubai has more Brits than Oxford. Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

> Today more British people live in this booming Emirati city than in Oxford: at least 180,000…

> … Katy Holmes, head of the British Chamber of Commerce Dubai, said she “would feel comfortable” to say there are more than 180,000 Britons living in Dubai. Oxford Economics thinks it could be as many as 250,000 — equivalent to the population of Southampton — since Britons made up 6.7 per cent of the population in 2022.

> Some surveys suggest the UAE is now the third most popular destination for people leaving the UK…

It’s an overpriced shopping centre in the desert. It’s only use is for tryhards to impress other tryhards.

Well, Dubai is essentially built on slave migrant labour so if you’re well off and don’t have a conscience then of course you’ll live well there.

It’s a dismal hellhole. Worked there for a few months, turned down every contract since. You literally could not pay me to go there again.

I expected to not like Dubai. But I did. It’s clean and safe. For all of its criticisms they’re creating a nice environment for the people who live there.

I’m sorry but if someone claims the UK is awful and then follows that up with a desire to move to Dubai, I am 100% going to judge that person.

Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Well, you could probably make more money and live a higher standard of life, but at what cost? I’m not one for moral grandstanding, go live where you want. But if you choose to go and live in a, let’s face it, autocratic oil state in the middle of the dessert because of less tax, well you should probably expect to be judged for it.

You can tell a lot about a British person by their opinions on Dubai

It’s a tacky and soulless amusement park built by slaves for people who unironically have live laugh love cushions in their homes and veneers brighter than the surface of the sun.

It’s a flawed place that pays well with the chance of extreme opportunities. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure.

Dubai is a shit hole, where shit flushes into the lorry.

City with 3.5 million population has more ______ than city with 150k population.

Show me shocked

Went there on a 2 day stopover on our way back from the Maldives for our honeymoon. It was fucking awful. Tacky as fuck and the only way you’re going to be able to do all the cool stuff you see on TV is if you’re absolutely minted.

Lived there for 6 months. If your only motivations in life are money and status it’s paradise. Otherwise, you are selling your soul.

Worked for a Dubai based company, was looking at moving there. Nope. It’s as if Katie Price designed a city.

Many reasons for this, but I do remember going out of the hotel room and it being 46c then seeing the same Indian guys working on a new skyscraper out all day long in it – utterly brutal, you can’t treat people like that.

Dubai has more Brits than Antarctica. You heard it here first. 

Only if you want to live as a product of essentially slave labour…..

Somebody once described Dubai as a sweaty Canary Wharf and that’s spot on.

The interesting thing about Dubai is that all the people with the strongest protestations of what an absolute shit hole it is, have never been. Also, a lot of those people probably live in an extremely mediocre two up two down in a modest middle England small town, and are quite happy with a lifestyle that revolves around tending to the garden and popping into the local on a Friday night. And that’s fine. The trouble is that because they have those tiny, easily entertained, unambitious minds… They forget that not everyone does too.

I shall try to answer this question too but as somebody who has lived there for 3 years but does not live there anymore.

The first thing worth saying is that I love Dubai. You get paid more money for doing the same thing as you would at home, and your quality of life is much higher. It’s easier to pay other people to do all the things that you would normally have to do yourself, which makes it easier to focus on doing the things you enjoy. It’s quite easy to engage with expat communities and have hobbies there you wouldn’t have at home. It’s a great place to have kids. As a city it’s very safe so letting them get out and explore is much easier than it would be in London. The quality of education for white people is generally very high and they’ll get opportunities they wouldn’t get at home. All my friends still there have very healthy, mature, well spoken kids who’ve grown up with mutli-culturalism being normal, which is a definite asset. The weather is nice and the additional vitamin D meant I found myself getting up and going out more than I ever did at home. Morning swims, cycling on dedicated tracks, things I’d never do at home. I had a lot of friends there and we’d regularly go out for dinner, watch rugby together in the pub, late nights drinking nice wine in hotel gardens… It was a mature, relaxed, happy lifestyle.

But… For me the problem was that it was never real. It all just feels like it could come crashing down at any moment. You’re investing in a life that you know you can’t live forever. And the workplace was challenging. I value my work but dubai is a race to the bottom. You can be onto something great but it’s always only a matter of time before the Lebanese come and do it cheaper and then the Indians come and do it even cheaper and there is no market for Westerners in it anymore. It moves fast and it suits people who don’t get too attached to stuff and can move with it.

I fucking love dubai and I challenge anyone to say that it has no heart or soul, after spending any amount of time there. Those people are mostly just bitter, jealous old farts who wish they’d done more with their lives. Dubai is brilliant. But for people who need to feel at home, the fact that we will always be expats, living on our work visas, means nothing ever really feels permanent and for a lot of us, that’s a deal breaker. So to that end, its exactly why it works for people with an objective. A goal to work towards. Move there, live the dream, achieve the objective, but come home before it burns out.

Ask Prisoners Abroad (https://www.prisonersabroad.org.uk).

Or the guy who was detained for a negative Google review (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y74479yk4o.amp)

or the woman detained for attempting suicide (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c897jlr9274o.amp)

or the woman arrested for reporting rape (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38013351.amp)

Dubai is a religious autocracy marketing itself as a modern tax haven.