Making a UAE comeback: Why people leave – and return to – life in the Emirates

Business opportunities, buzzing social scene or beach access, residents describe what brought them back to the country

Many people find their way back to the UAE after relocating. Pawan Singh / The National

People come to the UAE for many reasons, including work, family, business opportunities, quality of life and the weather.

For the estimated 11 million people who call the UAE home, each has their own motivation for being here, which helps make the Emirates such a fascinating mix of cultures, values and experiences.

Not all who come here stay. Some had set projects, goals or time spans in mind, and others have a more “let’s see how it goes” mentality. Many others have made it home for the long term.

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Then there are those who arrive, leave and then come back again, a trend that seems to be increasing in recent years. Get chatting to colleagues and friends of friends, and you'll hear of many who have made a UAE comeback.

Here, three expats share why they returned.

'I was here when Sheikh Zayed Road still had speed bumps'

After more than two decades in the UAE, Aly Rahimtoola was ready for a change of scene. Photo: Aly Rahimtoola

Aly Rahimtoola, a British-Pakistani entrepreneur, and his family had practical reasons for leaving the UAE, but for him it was also about a change of scene after more than two decades of life in the desert.

Arriving in the Emirates in September 1996, aged 26, to join the family shipping business, Rahimtoola saw "the UAE being built". After looking to expand his commercial opportunities, he founded the skincare line Herbal Essentials.

Twenty-three years later, married to wife Maliha and with a young son, Zain, Rahimtoola and family decided to leave for the UK in the summer of 2019.

“I’m originally from Pakistan but I grew up in London, and my wife is from Pakistan,” he says. “She needed to get her British citizenship and to do that we had to live in the UK for five to six years, so that's one reason why he left."

And after more than two decades in the same place, Rahimtoola was ready for a change of scene. "I was a little bit, not bored, but more ‘let’s go back to London and see what’s out there’.”

For the business director, although he loves the UK capital, day-to-day life in London had lost the rosy glow of his youth.

“London life is exhausting and the bureaucracy has got a lot worse," he says. Keeping on top on daily life also became a challenge. He talks about managing school drop-offs and pick-up, after-school clubs, while also juggling tasks such as the laundry and visiting the supermarket, as well as keeping your head above water at work. "All while its raining. But we made it work and it made our relationship stronger.”

Returning to the UAE in August 2025 felt like, he says, “slipping back into your favourite pair of trainers”.

His profession also brought him back to the Gulf. “I’m an entrepreneur and when you’re building a start-up, you want to be in an eco-system that fosters innovation, and I can’t think of anywhere like that in Europe or the US,” he says. “I saw that the UAE had really changed in the six years under the leadership of vision and tolerance from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. It is a young country, and like anything young that grows and matures, it gets better with age.”

Allowing their 11-year-old son to live among people from different countries was also a factor in the family’s decision to move back to the UAE.

“We could have gone back to Pakistan and had a comfortable life,” says Rahimtoola, “but we chose to come here to raise our son. As a parent, you want your child to grow up accustomed to meeting people from different cultures, nationalities and religions and having that understanding and tolerance.”

He adds: “There’s a reason people are upping sticks to come here, and I think it’s a combination of the eco-system that allows you to live the life you want to live and which allows tolerance of all religions, nationalities and demographic groups.”

'I got stuck in the UK, which was never my plan'

After getting stuck in the UK during Covid, Lydia Denno now feels Dubai is home for the long-term. Photo: Lydia Denno

Welsh citizen Lydia Denno swapped London for the UAE back in November 2016, when she came to help her sister take care of her young son, and what was supposed to be a month-long visit stretched into a three-year stay.

“I had visited before on family vacations starting back in 2007 but was too young to envision moving,” she says. “This was the trip when I really got to see what it would be like to relocate. I started applying for jobs and got my first role with Virgin Atlantic as a Marketing Executive in January 2017.”

Two years later, opportunity came knocking in the shape of a new role, which necessitated a move to Miami via the UK.

“It wasn’t hard for me to leave – I had such an incredible opportunity in front of me,” she says. “Moving back to the UK was a stepping stone to move to Miami, but unfortunately, it never happened due to multiple reasons, Covid being the biggest. So, I got stuck in the UK which was never my plan!”

Life back in the UK came with positives and negatives. On the plus side, Denno got to spend time with her family in Wales, which she says she “wouldn’t trade for anything”, but on the negative side, she found it hard to connect with her busy friends.

“I think because Dubai is a very last-minute city – you make plans to have dinner that day for that evening with friends,” she says. “Most places are a 30-minute drive, so the social life is buzzing and plentiful. At home, you had to plan weeks in advance to see anyone for dinner. It was also cold, so nobody wanted to go out!”

Moving back to Dubai post-lockdown for work, Denno says she “quickly started to feel at home again”.

“I remembered how easy everything is,” she says. “The commute, the serviced lifestyle like Careem boxes and Instashop, but mainly the weather and outdoor lifestyle, heading to the beach every weekend if you want and the social life.”

Back in Dubai, she first met her now-husband, then landed her dream job at integrated comms agency, Bfore.

“Dubai is definitely my home, and now I’m married to someone from Lebanon, it will be our home for the foreseeable [future] because it’s the perfect location for travelling between both countries and visiting both families,” she says.

“The UAE is so multicultural and ever-changing, and that’s the beauty of the city. I love how safe it is here and there is always something to do or see. You can have such a full life and make great friends along the way.”

'Leaving was a knee-jerk reaction'

Kaya Scott found ensuring her children settled into school after the move one of the biggest challenges. Photo: Kaya Scott

Kaya Scott, copywriter and mother of three, is candid about her experience of arriving, leaving and returning to the UAE. Her husband Charlie had been visiting friends in the Emirates for a few years before they decided to take the plunge themselves, yet she admits to being “naive” when she arrived in 2010 while pregnant with her first child.

“We loved the idea of living abroad and we thought the UAE would be a fun place to live,” she says. “When we arrived, we didn’t do our research and should have moved into a small city apartment, but we moved into a villa and went way over budget. We lost so much money in the beginning, and I felt isolated with a new baby.

“I found everything difficult, especially having to drive everywhere, I didn’t feel settled for a long time. The reality was different from our expectations.”

A change in location nearer the beach and the Scotts soon felt more settled. “We found our groove and it felt more like us,” she says. “Then, I started working and everything slowly fell into place, but it took us a while to get there.”

A business partnership, which resulted in a court case, turned the family’s UAE dream sour and after eight years, in 2018 they decided to move back to the UK.

“We left pretty quickly and were quite impulsive,” says Scott. “It was quite a knee-jerk reaction.”

The children were still young enough to handle saying farewell to friends, but the quieter village life in the UK still came with its challenges.

None of the villa-sized furniture they shipped back fit their smaller UK house, and the move from cosmopolitan city to small village was, Scott says, “a massive shock to the system”.

“It was really hard to make friends, as a lot of people had lived there their whole lives and had a different outlook. There was no Uber, no grocery delivery and the shops shut early, but the weather was the biggest factor. It was really depressing.”

She adds: “I felt like I had lost my identity completely.”

The family moved back to the UAE in 2021, first to Abu Dhabi and then to Dubai, but this time around it was harder on the children.

“We moved back into our old house, and as soon as I was back I felt I was home,” she says. “It was very hard for the kids, they were older and had made friends in the UK and it was tough for them to say goodbye.”

For Scott, the list of positives of living in the UAE is extensive: “The quality of life, the opportunities available to us, the way children are treated here; it’s a positive, can-do place. It’s definitely our home for the foreseeable future and we’re not looking to move anywhere else. It feels like here is where the world is.”