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As GCC countries position themselves as global hubs for attracting and developing highly skilled talent, many foreign professionals increasingly view the Gulf as a strategic stepping stone for onward migration to Europe or North America. Emerging research highlights the growing prevalence of stepwise migration strategies, in which professionals leverage their time in the Gulf to build experience, accumulate resources, and enhance their prospects before remigrating. Key motivations behind these movements include career advancement, higher earning potential, access to citizenship, and long-term settlement opportunities in their destination countries.
The workshop, jointly organised with the Gulf Labour Markets and Migration (GLMM) Programme of the GRC, examines the transnational migration patterns of non-Gulf highly skilled workers who move from the GCC to Europe and North America, and, in some cases, subsequently return to the Gulf. It also explores a parallel and growing trend of highly skilled migration from Europe to the Gulf. The policy reports put forward through this event will analyse the scale, drivers, and characteristics of these migration flows and assesses their wider socioeconomic and policy implications for both the Gulf and destination countries. The workshop is organised in the context of the Gulf Research Meeting (GRM) taking place in Cambridge, UK.
