Living and working in Riyadh

The capital, and by a wide margin the largest professional job market in the Kingdom. It is inland and on a plateau, which decides most of what daily life feels like: summers are dry and punishing, and winter nights are genuinely cold in a way people arriving from the Gulf coast do not expect.

Who is hiring

Government and the entities around it, banking and finance, technology, consulting, and the headquarters of nearly every giga-project — including the ones whose sites are a thousand kilometres away. If you are being recruited into a NEOM or Red Sea corporate role rather than a site role, you are almost certainly being recruited to Riyadh.

Housing

The most expensive of the major cities, and the gap has widened as the city has grown. Two broadly different lives are on offer.

A compound is a gated community with its own pool, gym, shops and often a school bus route. It is what most international families with children choose, it is priced accordingly, and the good ones have waiting lists. A standalone apartment or villa in an ordinary district costs substantially less and is increasingly the normal choice for single professionals and couples.

One mechanic surprises almost everyone: residential rent is typically paid annually in advance, sometimes in two cheques. Ask early whether the employer pays a housing allowance monthly or as a lump sum before the lease, because a monthly allowance against an annual demand is a cash-flow problem in your first month, not your twelfth.

Getting around

The metro has changed daily life in the districts it serves, and not at all in the ones it does not. Outside those corridors a car is still assumed — by employers, by schools, and by the city's distances. Women drive, and have done since 2018.

Family and schooling

The widest choice of international curricula anywhere in the Kingdom — British, American, IB, French, Indian and more — and the most competitive admissions. Apply the moment an offer is real, not when you arrive.

School fees are the largest line in most family budgets after housing, and whether they are covered is the single most consequential clause in an offer. Employers vary from full fees for two children to nothing at all.

Before you accept

• Is housing an allowance or provided accommodation, and paid on what schedule?
• Are school fees covered, for how many children, and up to what amount?
• Is the role actually in Riyadh, or Riyadh-based with rotation to a site?
• What is the medical insurance tier? Cover is a legal requirement, but tiers differ enormously, and family cover is not automatic.