If you’ve just happened to find this blog or have been here before, I’d like to explain what this is all about.

This is a blog about living and working in Qatar which I used to update regularly when I was based in Doha, Qatar. I have now moved back to the UK but I still occasionally check in on the comments for this blog. This blog still regularly receives lots of questions so I thought I would try to address most of them here.

1. This is a blog about living and working in Qatar which I wrote in my free time; it was not my job to write this blog, I did not get paid to write my posts. This blog was written by me because I wanted to help people find more information about living and working in Qatar. I am NOT a recruitment agent, I CANNOT find you a job in Qatar, please DO NOT send me your contact details/qualifications/CV and ask me to find you a job in Qatar. Please see this post for guidance.

2. If you have received an offer of employment in Qatar, congratulations but please do not send me the details of your contract or salary and ask me if this is suitable for life in Qatar. I receive lots of questions like this and am not interested in answering them personally, everyone and every situation is different, this is why I wrote my ‘Cost of Living’ post so have a look there. There is also an up to date cost of living section on this site.

3. Everything in Qatar is linked to your Residence Permit (RP), which is linked to your employer (if you are working) or a family member (husband, wife; if you are not working). This is your working visa and what allows you to stay in the country. An individual cannot apply and pay for an RP themselves, it must be sorted out by an employer thus this is the reason why one cannot come to Qatar without a prior contract or promise of employment.

4. When I thought about the subject matter for my posts, I tried to think of the major questions that I had when I first moved to Qatar. If you have questions about living and working in Qatar, please go through all of my posts and see if your questions are answered there or in the comments. You’ll probably find your answer but if you don’t, please go ahead and ask a question.

As I mentioned before, I am no longer living and working in Qatar but this blog still sees a lot of traffic and, although I do think most of the major questions have already been asked, there may be a few things that have not been covered. I will try to check back from time to time, go through the comments and answer your questions as best I can but in the meantime, good luck and thanks for reading.

A.

*These are probably the search terms most people use you find their way here.

At work, I am finishing up one last collaboration and then that will be it from me…..for good. Dear readers I have some news, I will be leaving Qatar, permanently, at the end of August.

To make a long story short (and because I legally cannot go into details) my company is restructuring and I was made redundant. From this I have made the decision to not look for alternative work in Qatar but to call it a day instead and move back to the UK.

I stand by this decision and I am very much looking forward to the transition back to my life in London.

To sum up my time in Qatar in one blog post would not be fair so I’m not going to do that, nor will I get too sentimental here. The last 2 year and 4 months has been a crazy ride but I don’t regret making the decision to move here one bit. Hypothetically speaking and knowing what I know now, would I do it again? That’s difficult to say. Would I rule out a possible move back to Qatar in the future?  Well, never say never….

Anyway, if you’ve been lurking and have a burning question that you’ve been dying to ask, get it off your chest now or forever hold your peace. My last day at work will be the 16th August and I will try to write at least one more post before I leave (the repatriation process maybe?) but I can’t promise too much as I’ve got lots to wrap up before I go, furniture to sell, shoes to pack, contracts to cancel and several good byes to say.

I have very much enjoyed writing this blog and sharing my (ahem) wisdom over the past year, I hope you have enjoyed reading it. I like to think that I ‘ve answered some really important questions that you only find out once you’ve lived here for a while and I’m happy to have been able to share that with you. I hope I’ve helped some people find out more information about Qatar.

As of yet, I do not have a job in the UK so after over a year of fielding questions about working in Qatar and helping you guys out, I’m going to ask you a small favour; if you like what you’ve read here and know of anyone hiring or looking for a microbiologist/biochemist/molecular biologist with managerial and/or journalistic tendencies then by all means, let’s get in touch.

Doha is mostly urban and accommodation options for people moving here fall into 2 main categories; in a compound or in an apartment building.  Compounds are gated micro-communities comprised of villas (and sometimes apartments) and usually a gym and pool.  Some of the bigger compounds will also have tennis courts, a cafe, small supermarket, and maybe even a dry cleaners and hair dresser.  They can also range in size from a small crescent with 10 villas to a compound almost big enough to warrant driving from one end to the other.  There are also different ‘feels’ to compounds; some may have a very social atmosphere while in others, people may keep to themselves.

Apartment buildings are just that, and mostly situated in the Al Sadd or West Bay areas of town, the city bits.  Some apartment buildings will have facilities like a pools and gym, but many of the older ones often will not.

If you ask me how to go about finding a place to live, I really cannot tell you how to do it.  There is no central real estate website in Qatar advertising places to rent and  most of the websites that are out there are not up to date so of little use anyway.  There are a few forums and websites that most people look to for Qatar advice and where owners can independently list their properties; this is how I found my apartment.  Many things happen by word of mouth here and finding a place to live is no exception, especially when it comes to the more popular compounds with waiting lists.

I was lucky or rather I made an executive decision to only search at a new development called the Pearl.  The Pearl is a group of apartment buildings and villas structured on a series of artificial islands in the north end of Doha.  The Pearl is a bit secluded but I was drawn to it because of its proximity to my work, and because of the shops and restaurants/cafes that encompass the buildings at ground level; in a city where you need to drive everywhere, this is one place where I can step out of my apartment and actually walk around.

I’ve been in my place for a little over a year and I really can’t complain.  Well, yes I can, the rent is high, but rent, in general, is very high in Doha.  However, I’ve got a gym and an outdoor pool so I don’t need to pay extra for any club memberships.  I feel safe living here on my own, I’ve got undercover parking, a nice balcony, a frozen yogurt place a stone’s throw away and a noodle house downstairs that delivers.

Anyway, back to the sauce…in Qatar, the only places where you can buy and publicly consume alcohol are the larger (mostly Western) hotels, and a handful of restaurants.  You can purchase alcohol for private consumption, but the only place you are able to do this is at the Qatar Distribution Center (QDC), and you must have a liquor license.  In order to obtain a liquor license you must go to QDC with a copy of your Qatar ID and a letter, signed and stamped by your employer, stating your basic salary (the word ‘basic’ MUST be used), whether or not you receive any housing allowance and if you are married or single.  There is also an application form to fill out and a 2000QAR deposit to pay.  On the application form you must also state your religion.

The amount of alcohol you can buy in one month, your monthly allowance, is based on your salary.  There are also strict guidelines in the fact that only those with a liquor license are allowed into QDC and when you leave, you must conceal the alcohol from view and go straight home.  It is illegal to gift, donate, give or buy alcohol for someone if they do not have a license.  Qatar also has zero tolerance for those intoxicated in public or driving under the influence.

There is a good selection at QDC and the prices for most items are not unreasonable.  Drinking out in Doha is fairly expensive however, probably double what you’re used to so that pint is about £6 ($10) while a glass of wine will set you back £6-10 ($10-$16).  I suppose it all balances itself out though because if you’re out drinking, then you’re not (or shouldn’t be!) driving, and the cabs in Qatar are quite cheap.

Tiny little Qatar

I did say before that when I was first told about this job, I had to go straight to Google maps to find out where Qatar was located.  Mind you, this was a few years ago, well before the 2022 World Cup bid was announced.  I did plenty of research (scouring Wikipedia) on Qatar before moving out here, and if you are considering a move abroad, I would suggest you do the same, but if you get a chance to actually visit where you may be working, even better.   I was lucky enough to travel to Qatar a couple of times (for work purposes) before moving out here, so the transition was made just that little bit easier.

Qatar is a tiny little thumb of a nation that sticks out from the Arabia Peninsula into the Persian Gulf.  Contrary to what most people think, Qatar is not part of the United Arab Emirates but it is its own emirate, a political territory ruled by a dynastic Muslim Monarch or emir.  The current emir of Qatar is His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, a member of the Al-Thani dynasty and a descendent of Muhammad bin Thani who founded the state of Qatar in 1868.  Qatar is located between Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and it shares a border with Saudi Arabia.  The capital and largest city is Doha.

In 2010, the Qatar Statistics Authority estimated the total population of Qatar to be approximately 1.7 million, a third of which are thought to be Qatari nationals while the remaining are expatriates and migrant workers.  Expatriates mainly come from other Arab nations, the USA and Europe while the migrant work force hails from mostly the Indian sub-continent and Far-East.  Arabic is the official language of Qatar but English is widely spoken, along with Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Tagalog.  Due to these foreign workers, who are mainly male, the male:female ratio in Qatar is roughly 3:1.

Qatar is 4,416 sq miles in area, slightly smaller than the American state of Connecticut (where I’m from!).  The dominant religion is Islam and the currency is the Qatari Riyal (QAR).  Qatar is 3 hours ahead of GMT or 8 hours ahead of EST however, this changes with the seasons as summer time (moving the clocks forward) is not observed in Qatar.  Most commonly, the working day is 7am-3pm with Friday and Saturday being the ‘weekend’.  The average high temperature in January is 22°C (72°F) while the average high in August is 41°C (106°F).

The Al Khalifa family of Bahrain dominated the area until 1868 when, at the request of Qatari nobles, the British negotiated the termination of the Bahraini claim.  The British were particularly interested in Qatar because of its strategic position en route to their colonial interests in India, and the state of Qatar was officially recognised on December 18, 1878, although it did not gain official standing as a British protectorate until 1916.

Up until this point, Qatar was mainly a poor nomadic nation with most inhabitants eeking out a living from either pearl diving or fishing however, this all changed with the discovery, in 1940, of high-quality oil at Dukhan, on the western side of the Qatari peninsula.  The onset of World War II delayed exploitation of Qatar’s oil resources and oil exports did not begin until 1949.  Qatar’s future wealth was secured by the 1971 discovery of an offshore gas field, the same year that it became an independent sovereign state.

Qatar has oil reserves of 15 billion barrels, while gas reserves, almost as large as the peninsula itself, are estimated to be between 80 trillion cubic feet to 800 trillion cubic feet (1 trillion cubic feet is equivalent to about 80 million barrels of oil); at the current production pace, oil reserves are expected to last more than 40 years.  Qatar shares with Iran the largest single non-associated gas field in the world, the North Field, and Qatar is now the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG).  Oil and gas production and revenues have seen Qatar move from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest as the International Monetary Fund ranks it at number 1 for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the World FactBook ranks it as second.  With no income tax, Qatar, along with Bahrain, is one of the countries with the lowest tax rates in the world.

Qatar also has the highest, per capita carbon emissions in the world.

Doha Skyline

I have been living in working in Doha, Qatar for a little over a year now.

Why Qatar you ask?  Well, why not?  When the contract for my previous job in the UK was coming to an end, and I wasn’t having much luck in my job search, a colleague informed me about a position that may be available in Qatar.  I thought about what she had told me for a moment and wondered if an offer would really materialise, and if it did, would I seriously consider it.  The next thing I did, although I probably shouldn’t admit this, is Google ‘Qatar’ to see where in the world it was located.

An offer did eventually materialise and I did eventually accept it so this job kind of found me, rather than me finding it.  I accepted the job because it was by far one of the biggest challenges of my professional career and definitely the most amazing opportunity that I had ever encountered, one that I certainly would not have gotten in the UK.  Things in Qatar are advancing quite rapidly in my field of work and, although there is still a fair way to go for this little country, this job offer was too good for me to pass up.

Personally, I left behind a fiancé (now husband) and a flat in South London knowing full well that my move to the Middle East would not be a permanent one.  I thought I’m young, with no children and not too much tying me down so if there was ever a time and a place for me to do something like this, it is probably now.  My advice for people debating a move abroad for a job is to just do it (easier said than done, I know!), what have you got to lose?

Seriously though, the fact that you are debating (and not flat out saying ‘No’) means there is a sizeable portion of you that would like to take the plunge and live/work abroad.  There are lots of websites that you can log on to and heaps of questionnaires that you can take to discover if such a move is right for you but ultimately, the decision is yours and no matter how many websites you visit (or blogs you read about living/working abroad) the final verdict rests in your hands (making a list of pros and cons really helps).

Everyone’s situation will be different and sacrifices will be made, you just need to make sure that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (see making pros/cons list above).  For me, my husband and our home remain in London, there is no chance of him finding work out here.  Was it difficult moving to the Middle East and leaving him behind?  Yes, of course.  Do I regret doing this?  No, this has been a fabulous experience, one that I will never forget and I am lucky enough to have a partner who understands this.  This arrangement works for now and I know that it is not permanent, once I feel I have accomplished what I came to do in Qatar, I can always move back to the UK.

Hopefully I will be able give you some insight as to what it’s like living and working in Qatar, answer any burning questions you may have and possibly even convince you to make the first move and try something different.  It hasn’t been the smoothest of rides, but then again, I didn’t think it would be; if moving abroad for work was so easy, everyone would be doing it.