How to read the 2026 Salary Survey, and what it doesn’t show
Data: January 2025 to January 2026. Published October 2026.
The Nameless Ventures 2026 Salary Survey shows basic monthly salaries for tech roles in the UAE, by discipline and seniority. Each level has a lower quartile, a median and an upper quartile, built from salary data shared by 2,000+ UAE tech professionals between January 2025 and January 2026. The figures don’t include bonuses, stock options or benefits like housing allowance, healthcare, schooling and relocation.
A salary table is only useful if you know what’s in it. Here’s how to read ours, and where its limits are.
What does the 2026 UAE tech salary survey cover?
It covers four disciplines in the UAE: software engineering, product management, product design and data. Software engineering includes frontend, full stack, backend, DevOps, QA and mobile engineers.
Market | UAE |
Sample | 2,000+ tech professionals |
Period | January 2025 to January 2026 |
Source of the data | Professionals interviewing with us, people placed into new roles, feedback from hiring processes we ran, and verified salary data shared by candidates during interviews and onboarding |
Seniority | Mid-level up to VP or C-suite (product design stops at head) |
Figure reported | Basic monthly salary in AED |
The source matters most. These are salaries shared during real hiring processes. They aren’t job board estimates or “expected” salaries.
What do the median and quartiles mean?
Every level in the survey has three numbers. Together they show where most salaries sit, not just one average.
Lower quartile: a quarter of people at that level earn this or less.
Median: the middle salary. Half earn more, half earn less.
Upper quartile: three quarters earn this or less, so a quarter earn more.
The middle half of salaries sits between the two quartiles. Take senior software engineers: the lower quartile is AED 26,000, the median AED 33,000 and the upper quartile AED 40,000 a month. So half of the senior software engineers in the survey earn between AED 26,000 and AED 40,000.
Source: Nameless Ventures 2026 Salary Survey. UAE, 2,000+ tech professionals, January 2025 to January 2026. Basic monthly salary in AED.
Where the survey says “monthly total salary”, it means basic salary, before bonuses, stock options and benefits. The UAE doesn’t charge personal income tax, so there’s no tax to take off them.
How should employers read the survey?
You can use it to build salary bands finance can sign off, check an offer before it goes out, and get everyone involved in a hire working from the same numbers. Whatever you use it for, read each level as a range, not a single number. The median tells you where the middle of the market sits. The quartiles show how far real salaries spread either side of it.
That spread can be wide. For mid-level data roles, the band runs from AED 22,500 at the lower quartile to AED 32,000 at the upper quartile (Nameless Ventures 2026 Salary Survey, UAE). So “what does a mid-level data hire cost?” doesn’t have one answer. Where a role lands in the band usually comes down to its scope and the skills it needs.
How should candidates read the survey?
Compare basic to basic. UAE offer letters usually split basic salary from allowances, so check your basic figure against the table, not your total package.
Match on the work, not the title. A “lead” at one company can be a “senior” at another. Find the level whose scope matches what you actually do.
What doesn’t the survey show?
Here’s what the figures don’t include, so you don’t read more into them than they say.
Bonuses and stock options. Neither is in the figures. For senior and leadership hires especially, these can change the value of an offer a lot.
Benefits. Housing allowance, healthcare, schooling and relocation vary from company to company. Some employers offer all of them, some a few, some none. Two people on the same basic salary can be on very different packages.
Junior and entry-level roles. The tables start at mid-level.
Markets outside the UAE. Every figure is UAE data.
Movement since January 2026. The data runs from January 2025 to January 2026. For what’s happening in live searches now, talk to the desk that covers the role.
The sample leans towards the middle of the market. 33.5% of participants are mid-level, 54.3% are senior, lead or principal, and 12.2% are head, director or VP and C-suite, so the leadership rows rest on a smaller group.
The survey also mentions pay rise forecasts for the year ahead. Those come from external sources, not Nameless Ventures data.
Get the full survey
The full tables for all four disciplines are in the 2026 Salary Survey. For a worked example by level, read how much software engineers make in the UAE.
Setting a salary band for a hire? We’ll benchmark it against the survey for free, whether you’re hiring now or planning ahead. Get in touch through the site.
FAQ
What is the Nameless Ventures 2026 Salary Survey?
A salary survey of 2,000+ tech professionals in the UAE, covering software engineering, product management, product design and data. It reports basic monthly salary by seniority, from January 2025 to January 2026.
Where does the salary data come from?
From real hiring conversations with Nameless Ventures: professionals interviewing with us, people placed into new roles, feedback from hiring processes, and verified salary data shared by candidates during interviews and onboarding. It isn’t built from job board estimates.
Does the survey include housing allowance and benefits?
No. The figures are basic monthly salary only. Housing allowance, healthcare, schooling and relocation are excluded, and they vary by employer.
Which roles does the survey cover?
Software engineering (frontend, full stack, backend, DevOps, QA and mobile), product management, product design and data (data scientists, data engineers, data analysts and BI specialists), from mid-level up to VP or C-suite.
Are the salaries in the survey before or after tax?
The UAE doesn’t charge personal income tax, so there’s no tax to take off the figures.
