BrazilBCG, McKinsey and Kearney head LinkedIn list of the UAE’s top employers
Global strategy consultancies Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company and Kearney have all featured in the top five of LinkedIn’s latest annual ‘Top Companies’ list for the UAE.
Now into its fifth local edition, LinkedIn’s annual list is a determination of which companies offer the best opportunities for career growth, with the employment and business networking platform mining its own data to arrive at the rankings.
Metrics taken into account include internal promotions, skills development, employee satisfaction, diversity & inclusion, and a company’s local presence and stability, along with the future career prospects that its resume entry tends to provide.
This year, Boston Consulting Group has come out on top in the UAE as the country’s best company for professional growth, with fellow global strategy and management consulting giants McKinsey & Company and Kearney landing in third and fifth spot, split in the top five by Emirates and Mubadala. Ernst & Young also made it onto the list of the fifteen leading companies.
Despite a troubled international consulting market elsewhere, both BCG and McKinsey improved on last year’s rankings, up respectively five and six spots from sixth and ninth. For Kearney, the smallest of the trio but with a solid Middle East presence, it’s the firm’s third consecutive top five entry.
“We’re proud to be ranked number one for 2025,” Boston Consulting Group said of its LinkedIn accolade. “At BCG, we grow by growing others. In our Dubai office, where more than 78 nationalities work together, we thrive on diversity, curiosity and collaboration. From solving complex challenges to celebrating over shared meals or a volleyball game, our culture is what sets us apart.”
While the trio of top-ranking consultancies were all cited for the scientific computing, economics, and public policy skill-set among their employees in LinkedIn’s data dive, the platform doesn’t consider the quality of work a professional might undertake at any given company when collating its annual lists, which now span more than twenty countries around the world.
Here, it’s worth noting that all three have been awarded top-level Diamond status for management consulting in the Middle East in Consultancy.org’s own recent rankings of company expertise, which are compiled through a rigorous assessment of capabilities and employee and client feedback, with the trio also featuring in the top echelon of the strategy category.
Saudi Arabia
Meanwhile, the global aspect of LinkedIn’s UAE list – where multinationals take up eleven of the top fifteen spots – was in stark contrast to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which featured just six such companies, including EY in third behind local giants STC and Aramco and PwC in ninth, although the latter might be expected to slide somewhat in next year’s rankings.
According to LinkedIn, around three quarters of all professionals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are currently exploring fresh employment opportunities, an almost unbelievable figure which the platform says its annual list supports by providing a trusted guide of companies from which to pick if they want to advance their careers and chances of further progression.
LinkedIn Middle East news editor Nabila Rahhal said; “With a majority of professionals in the region seeking new job opportunities this year, these lists are especially valuable. By applying a comprehensive and data-driven approach, we ensure they can confidently identify top employers which excel across a diverse set of criteria to help them make the best next career choice.”
