The subjects that set UAE students on course for a hefty salary

Three university executives identify the disciplines most likely to give today’s recent graduates a head start in the world of work

Engineering and business are among the best subjects to have studied at degree level for graduates seeking well-paid jobs, experts have said.

Qualifications in IT and related fields, artificial intelligence, robotics and nanotechnology are also likely to lead to higher salaries, their survey found.

Students’ choice of course is increasingly influenced by average earnings after graduation, and academics in the Emirates have identified some subject-by-subject salary trends.

“When we look at the graduate employment range of salaries, those with technical backgrounds, like engineering programmes, have a higher salary range than, say, business programmes or any other programme,” said Dr Kavita Shukla, vice president for student affairs at Amity University Dubai.

She said that among those who gained master’s degrees in business, “those going into operational roles like logistics or project management or operations are slightly lower-paid than the ones in sales or marketing”.

“The insurance industry is a very big sector here and they do hire a lot of management graduates. That’s where the higher salaries are paid,” she said.

Business is “by far the most popular” subject among students in the Emirates, said Dr James Trotter, the dean of Murdoch University Dubai.

“People very rarely have difficulty in finding employment as a result of having done a business degree,” Dr Trotter said.

“The UAE is such a vibrant and growing economy and constantly growing population. There’s almost an ever-increasing need for highly skilled employees.”

Business graduates have an array of fields from which to choose, said Prof Ammar Kaka, provost of Heriot-Watt University Dubai.

“There’s a lot of job opportunities which require those skills from students who have business degrees,” he said. “A large proportion get jobs within the first six months of graduation.”

In recent years, there has been an increase in demand for graduates with technical backgrounds, Dr Shukla said.

IT and related fields, aerospace engineering and nanotechnology are popular. The use of technology is increasing in most fields, including retail, creating opportunities for those with the right skills.

“Then we have medical diagnostics, where robots are going to replace a lot of the work that humans are doing. Large warehouses are going to be run by robots, so there’s a renewed emphasis on technology,” Dr Shukla said.

“India is one of the biggest sources of IT professionals across the world. In our India campuses also, technical and Btech [engineering] programmes are most popular, which has been reflected here in the UAE because it is a mega-trend. It is a trend which is in line with industry demand now.

“So if you look at the job generation in the coming years, almost 130 million jobs will become redundant. They will be replaced by another 130 million jobs of a different profile, which are more linked to technology and behavioural sciences.”

It is a trend that institutions such as Heriot-Watt University Dubai regard themselves as being well placed to capitalise on.

Dr Kaka said his institution’s focus is on engineering, business, science, computing, psychology and design.

It offers specialist subjects such as robotics, renewable energy and artificial intelligence, and data analytics and computer programming are also popular, he said.

“The programmes we offer in these areas are quite technical,” he said. “We can say students get jobs very, very quickly after they graduate because there’s very, very big demand.”

But where does the emphasis on business and technology leave students who are interested in, say, literature?

In recent decades there has been a trend away from the arts, Dr Trotter said, something he considers “unfortunate”.

He thinks the pendulum may swing back in favour of such subjects because they equip graduates with “a breadth of knowledge, adaptability, these soft skills”.

For a graduate in, for instance, history and French, the job opportunities are “not so obvious”, Prof Kaka said. But if these subjects reflect a student’s interest, he would not advise against choosing them.

“I strongly believe students need to follow their passion,” he said.

Students with artistic leanings can combine them with skills that are in demand from employers, Dr Shukla said.

She described Amity University Dubai’s bachelor of fine arts in animation as a “technocreative programme”.

“There is software to be learnt from and a lot of technical aspects to it,” she said.