What you tell it
- Your role, years of experience, sector and specialism.
- Your UK salary and the UK city you live in.
- Your highest qualification, and whether your degree is attested.
- Your notice period.
- Your household: a partner, and for each child their school year this September and the school tier you would look at.
- The emirate you are aiming for and when.
- Whether you want an employer-sponsored job, contract work or your own company.
- Whether you have worked in the Gulf before.
The form also has an optional LinkedIn field. The check does not read it.
What is calculated, and from which table
- Your UK take-home: HMRC's 2026/27 Income Tax and National Insurance rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- A planning UAE salary and its range: the benchmark range for your role, level and emirate from Landed's salary table, matched from your job title, with the middle of the range as the planning salary. Each benchmark shows its source, or "not yet verified" when it has none. When no benchmark matches your role, the planning salary is your UK gross salary plus 15%, converted to dirhams at the dated exchange rate, and the range runs from 25% below it to 40% above it. The 15% and that range are Landed's planning assumptions, not sourced figures.
- Monthly living costs in the UAE and the UK: rent, groceries, utilities, transport, health cover and spending money, scaled to your household, plus school fees for each child from their year group, tier and emirate.
- Your monthly advantage: what you would have left each month in the UAE after living costs, minus what you have left in the UK today.
- The upfront cost of the move: the cash that leaves your account in the first month, worked out with the same rules as the first-month cash calculator: the first of four rent cheques, a security deposit, the agency fee with VAT, tenancy registration, the electricity and water deposit (and in Dubai the connection fee), Emirates ID and medical tests for family members, degree attestation if not done, a mobile plan, a driving licence exchange, a Salik toll tag in Dubai, a bank opening balance and a contingency. Sharjah and "Not sure yet" are costed on the Dubai rules. On top come flights, a school application fee in Dubai and back-to-school extras (uniform, books, devices, activities) for each school-age child. Employment visa fees are left out on the employer-sponsored route because the employer pays them; they are counted if you are open to contract or freezone work.
- Payback: the upfront cost divided by the monthly advantage, shown up to 60 months.
- The verdict: Go needs an odds score of 65 or more, a positive monthly advantage and payback within 60 months. Go with conditions is a score of 40 to 64, or 65 or more without the money test. Hold is below 40.
- The Golden Visa salary test: whether the planning salary reaches AED 30,000 a month, the figure ICP publishes.
What the AI writes
An AI model from Anthropic (Claude) writes the odds score, the role fit score, the explanations, the three steps that would most improve your odds, the action plan and the suggested areas. It picks recruiters and employers only from Landed's own lists, and it cannot add a firm that is not on them.
It sees only your answers and Landed's tables. It has no web search and no live job or salary data. Before the report is shown, every amount, percentage and number of weeks or months in its text is checked against the figures it was given. A passage that quotes any other figure is replaced with wording built from Landed's figures.
What is not covered
- Scottish tax rates, student loans and pension contributions.
- Your partner's income: it is not added to the money comparison.
- Nursery for children under 3.
- Sharjah school fees: the check uses the Dubai figures and says so.
- Moves to or from anywhere other than the UK and the UAE.
Method, scope and limits
- Tax maths: HMRC 2026/27 rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Student loans and pensions not included.
- Scope: moves between the UK and the UAE only.
- Data: each dataset shows its source and the date it was checked, or says it is not yet sourced.
- Recruiters and employers: chosen only from Landed's list. The list has not yet been checked against a source.
What Landed is not
Landed is not a recruitment agency, an immigration consultant or a financial adviser, and nothing here is regulated advice. For UK tax the official source is HMRC; for UAE residence visas, ICP, or GDRFA in Dubai.
Who is behind Landed
Landed is an independent project built by a UK professional who moved to the UAE. We keep names off the site so the focus stays on the method and the numbers. Run the free Landing Check, read a sample report, and check any figure against the source beside it.
Sample reports
Two fictional households, with every figure worked out by the same code as a real report:
- Household A: a family of three weighing a Dubai offer
- Household B: a working couple looking at Abu Dhabi
Sources
Every dataset Landed uses, where it comes from and when it was last checked. “Not yet sourced” means the figures have no recorded source yet; treat them as rough planning figures.