Across the Gulf, a profound economic shift is underway. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are not positioning themselves for a distant future; they are actively building knowledge-driven, skills-first economies designed for an era defined by AI.
The scale of disruption is clear. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, 46 per cent of key skills in MENA will change in the next five years, and nearly half of the region’s workforce will require retraining by 2030. As automation accelerates, degrees alone are no longer sufficient indicators of career readiness.
The region is moving toward a system where skills are the currency of economic mobility. Governments, businesses, and universities are redesigning learning pathways to better align with industry demand, using platforms like Coursera to help people build job-relevant capabilities at scale.
On Coursera, the UAE ranks number one in the Arab world on the AI Maturity Index, with GenAI enrollments up 48 per cent year-over-year, accelerating to one enrollment every seven minutes from every 50 minutes in 2023. The country now has nearly 1.5 million Coursera learners, a 23 per cent year-over-year increase. Saudi Arabia is close behind, ranking number two on the AI Maturity Index, with GenAI enrollments growing 27 per cent year-over-year in 2025 and more than 400 per cent since 2023, reaching one enrollment every 7.7 minutes. With 1.7 million learners, the kingdom is now Coursera’s second-largest market in MENA.
These trajectories matter because the economic opportunity is immense. GenAI could add more than $81bn to the UAE’s economy and $42bn to Saudi Arabia’s economy, respectively. Capturing this value will require a workforce fluent in AI, data literacy, cybersecurity, cloud engineering, and green technologies – skills that traditional systems alone cannot deliver at the scale or speed required.
Across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, institutions are shifting from degree-centred models to agile, skills-focused frameworks designed for modern labour markets. In Saudi Arabia, 38 per cent of companies expect to remove degree requirements to improve talent availability, double the global average, while 60 per cent of university students are pursuing degrees that do not align with job market demands. In the UAE, 72 per cent of organisations report that skill shortages are restricting their ability to grow.
Against this backdrop, micro-credentials are emerging as a credible signal of job readiness. Employers increasingly seek faster, verifiable proof of skills as roles evolve.
Nearly 94 per cent of employers in MENA say graduates with micro-credentials possess skills that are immediately applicable to job roles, and 97 per cent are willing to offer higher starting salaries to candidates who hold them. Students share this confidence: more than two in five learners in MENA have already earned at least one micro-credential, and 94 per cent believe it will improve their career prospects. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, 97 per cent of students say Professional Certificates help them stand out to employers.
To meet this rising demand, Coursera now offers more than 150 Professional Certificates, a 48 per cent year-on-year expansion, including over 50 new programmes launched in the past year with industry partners such as IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon, equipping learners with the skills that open pathways into high-demand, workforce-aligned roles.
The next phase of economic transformation across the Gulf will be defined by how quickly the region can equip people with the skills that AI-driven industries require. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have the ambition, infrastructure, and momentum to lead globally. However, the challenge — and the opportunity — lies in scale.
Coursera will continue to partner with governments, businesses, and universities across the region to help students, employees, and public-sector workforce build the capabilities needed to innovate, adapt, and lead.
