The National this month published a detailed report on UAE salary trends for 2026, which also highlights skills required by job seekers to succeed this year. This led to more questions from audiences.
So we decided to take the conversation a step further and connect job seekers with recruiters to explore what hiring managers are looking for.
In a live Q&A hosted by The National, Vlacheslav Shakhov, managing director at Cooper Fitch, answered questions ranging from salary expectations and in-demand sectors to CV filtering, Gen Z workplace expectations and how to show genuine AI capability without overselling it.
Is the UAE job market slowing down in 2026?
Mr Shakhov says hiring is continuing, but decision-making is slower as employers weigh global uncertainty against regional growth.
“I think we are in a very interesting time where we have a lot of headwinds, particularly from global economic factors, and then we have a region that's flourishing and growing,
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