MENA 2025: Capability Building at a Turning Point

The GCC entered 2025 with strong economic momentum and a clear policy push toward human-capital development. The IMF projects GCC GDP growth at 3.2% in 2025, rising to 4.5% in 2026, while GCC-Stat reports the labour force reached 34.9 million in 2024; a 25% increase in four years. This scale is accelerating demand for structured skills, standards, and capability frameworks.

1. Employers Prioritise Capabilities That Drive Transformation

Across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, organizations are concentrating investment on skills that support digitalisation, governance, performance, and workforce analytics, and are shifting their preferences toward verified global certifications over short-form training.

2. Saudi Arabia Is Scaling Workforce Investments

Vision 2030 continues to drive capability-building across government and enterprise. Saudi demand is highest for codified standards, leadership development, and globally recognised certifications.

3. The UAE Reinforces Its Role as a Credentialing Hub

With IMF-forecasted GDP growth of 4.8% and unemployment near 1.9%, employers in the UAE maintain a strong appetite for structured professional pathways.

4. Shift From Training Volume to Capability Value

2025 marks a clear transition: organizations are leaning toward outcome-based capability development, certification ladders, and multi-course pathways that provide evidence of competence.

The TaW Perspective

MENA is entering 2026 with the right conditions for associations to scale: economic headroom, workforce expansion, and employer demand for global standards. The associations that win next year will be those that pair internationally recognised credentials with regional relevance, build multi-step pathways, and engage employers as long-term capability partners, not one-off training buyers.