The Covid-19 pandemic triggered an intensification of the global race for talents1, mainly by accelerating the digitisation and automation trends, already at play prior to the pandemic. These trends are not only changing the ways individuals work but also the types of jobs that are sought after2 globally. In light of this, Dubai must ensure it retains its local and foreign skilled workforce and is able to compete on a global stage to attract, enable and retain highly skilled individuals. Highly skilled individuals play a central role in today’s knowledge economy. Talented individuals make exceptional direct contributions to an economy, by being high wage earners and tax contributors, and indirect contributions by creating jobs and spurring knowledge spillover, ultimately driving a country’s productivity levels and economic growth3. Therefore, attracting global talent has been a key driver of countries’ development and growth strategies, as human capital is increasingly at the heart of what makes a nation competitive. The fact is that global talent has never been more mobile or sought after as the world enters a new era of ‘talentism’4. This has triggered fundamental shifts in public policies among high-income countries that wish to attract the world’s best trained and most skilled workers. These countries have developed comprehensive strategies to ensure increased coordination between immigration, employment and education policies so as to attract foreign talents while ensuring their native workforce becomes highly skilled. OECD countries are a prime example of successful strategies, as they constitute less than a fifth of the world’s population yet are host to two-thirds of high-skilled migrants in the world, according to the World Bank5. These high-income countries, in the years prior to the pandemic, were strongly backing their industries and businesses, making important investments in STEM and digital skills, focusing on technological capacity