Dubai and the GCC

Workplace strategy and office
fit-out, run out of Dubai.

We are a workplace consultancy with a licensed Dubai entity, working across the Gulf. Occupancy evidence, workplace strategy, office interior design and fit-out delivery, under one contract and one date.

01Market

A Gulf programme is not
a European one with better weather.

Most of the workplace playbook written in London and Paris over the last five years was written for shrinking portfolios. In the Gulf the problem is usually the opposite one, and the constraints are different enough that borrowing the playbook wholesale produces the wrong brief.

  • Growth, not contractionEuropean occupiers are mostly deciding how much space to give back. Gulf occupiers are mostly deciding how fast they can take more, and how to stage it without signing for square metres that sit empty for two years.
  • Attendance is highHybrid adoption across the GCC runs well below Western Europe. A desk-sharing ratio imported from a London scheme will under-provide on a Tuesday and cost you the credibility of the whole programme.
  • Short leases, fast decisionsLease terms are shorter than the ten and twelve year structures Europe plans around. That makes the fit-out amortisation argument different, and it makes the decision window smaller.
  • Shell and core is the normLandlords hand over shell and core or CAT A. Everything from the raised floor up is your programme, your budget and your risk. Grade A supply in the prime districts is tight, so the building is often chosen before the brief exists.
  • The Saudi questionSince 2024, companies without a regional headquarters in the Kingdom are shut out of government contracts above a threshold. For many regional structures that turns a Dubai floor plate and a Riyadh one into a single portfolio decision rather than two projects.
  • Local requirements are real requirementsPrayer rooms and wudu facilities, majlis-style reception for client-facing floors, Ramadan hours that compress a site programme, and a summer in which nobody walks anywhere. These belong in the brief, not in a late variation.
02Services

What we are asked for
in this region.

Any stage on its own, or the whole programme under one contract. Most clients here start at the first or the last of these.

  • Occupancy and utilisation studiesBadge data, sensors and observation across a full cycle, in a market where nobody has a European benchmark to lean on. Occupancy and utilisation are two measurements and hybrid pulled them apart.
  • Workplace strategy and briefRatios, settings, space budget and the business case, built on the peak day rather than the average. Activity-based working is one possible conclusion, never the starting assumption.
  • Test fits and building appraisalBefore you sign. We test your headcount against the floor plates you are considering, in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Riyadh, and tell you which building actually holds your organisation in three years.
  • Office interior designConcept through to a tender-ready package, with FF&E and the certification route, WELL, LEED or Estidama, designed in from the first sketch rather than retrofitted at tender.
  • Office fit-out deliveryCAT A to CAT B, one programme, one price, one point of accountability. We hold the trades and the variation register, and it stays open to you throughout.
  • Client-side project managementWhen you already have a contractor and a designer, and what you need is somebody holding them to the brief on your side of the table.
  • Relocation and change managementThe Monday people walk in is the only date that matters. Communication, floor champions, moving sequence, and the post-occupancy evaluation that tells you whether any of it worked.
03Approvals

The authority that governs
your fit-out depends on your address.

This is the part of a Gulf programme that surprises occupiers arriving from Europe. There is no single permitting route. Which authority reviews your drawings, and how long it takes, is decided by which square kilometre your building sits in, and it is on the critical path from week one.

  • Dubai MunicipalityMainland addresses, with Civil Defence approval for fire and life safety running alongside.
  • DDAThe TECOM districts. Media City, Internet City, Knowledge Park, Design District.
  • TrakheesThe Ports, Customs and Free Zone Authority areas, including Jebel Ali and the waterfront developments.
  • DIFC and DMCCEach free zone runs its own fit-out approval process, its own contractor registration and its own working-hours rules.
  • Abu DhabiMunicipal review with Estidama Pearl requirements for the building, and ADGM operating separately on Al Maryah Island.
  • Saudi Arabia and QatarMunicipal approval with local contractor registration, and in Saudi a Saudisation requirement on the delivery team itself.

We price and programme around the route that applies to your address, and we use contractors already registered with that authority. A contractor who has never worked in your free zone will cost you weeks before a single wall goes up.

04Coverage

Where we deliver.

Dubai is the licensed entity and the regional base. The team behind it sits across EMEA, and every project is delivered by people who live in that market rather than flown in for the site visit.

DubaiAbu DhabiRiyadhJeddah DohaKuwait CityManamaMuscatCairo

Global Workplace Advisors FZCO is licensed in Dubai for turnkey projects contracting, project management services and management consultancies.

Tell us what the space
is supposed to do.

Not how many desks. What it is supposed to do. Everything else follows from that.

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