Dubai is ranked at second position followed by Melbourne in Australia as the most popular destination for digital nomads in the world, in a new index of the best cities for remote workers.
The Work-from-Anywhere Index from Nestpick, a search engine for furnished apartments, analyzed cities according to three broad categories including costs and infrastructure, legislation and freedom, livability, which made them attractive places to both relocate to and work remotely.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the work-from-home trend, with the adoption of new technologies encouraging more workers to move away from the city or country where their employer is based.
Omer Kucukdere Founder & CEO Nestpick
“The last year has really proved to many companies that remote working is not only a possibility but actually something that can be beneficial to everyone involved. The technology has been available for a while now, but it’s taken seeing it in practice for the idea to really take hold.”
In response to the pandemic, the UAE has enacted legislation including a one-year residency permit for remote workers in April to help attract more talent to the region and boost business opportunities. The program follows the success of a remote working initiative unveiled in Dubai last year that also encouraged people who work remotely long-term to move to the emirate.
In May, Dubai was also found to be the most popular beach city for digital nomads with 27,007 Instagram users tagging #digitalnomad on their posts, a study from Netherlands-based resume building platform ‘resume.io’ found. It analyzed the data for 90,000 #digitalnomad posts and ranked the cities for freelancers in 2021.
“Very few countries have enacted legislation designed to attract foreign-employed workers. Instead, they only offer visas to those who take jobs on location, therefore missing the opportunity to bring high-wage earners to their cities without the need to generate new jobs,” said Nestpick.
The index from Nestpick which included 75 cities around the globe also assessed how the pandemic affects the liveability of many metropolises, noting the percentage of people who are fully vaccinated in each location, as well as those with low infection rates.
