Middle East transformation: the work moves from the plan to the people who deliver it

On May 21, Semafor reported that Saudi Arabia had told its ministries, the Public Investment Fund and the fund’s portfolio companies to halt payments to consultants, strategy advisers and law firms until the end of June, and to stop hiring new consultants in the meantime. The Finance Ministry disputed the account, saying that more than 85% of payments had been made a couple of weeks before they were due and 99.5% within the contractual timeframe. [1] Whatever the precise mechanics, the report landed in a market that already understood its meaning. The kingdom had recorded a first-quarter deficit of $33.5 billion, defense spending had risen 26% year on year, and the firms most exposed to a slowdown in advisory spending included McKinsey, BCG, Bain and the Big Four. One executive told Consultancy-me that the freeze was “a continuation of a slowdown and reprioritization that’s been happening for a while, but the war has brought it into sharper focus.” [2]

That reprioritization was visible long before the conflict with Iran began on February 28. In December 2024, the Public Investment Fund ordered spending cuts of at least 20% across more than 100 portfolio companies, with some project budgets reduced by as much as 60%, and the value of construction contracts awarded in the kingdom fell by about 60% in 2025 to under $30 billion. [3] In April, the fund’s board approved a new strategy for 2026 to 2030, organizing assets of more than $900 billion into three portfolios and leaning more heavily on private and foreign capital. [4] In May, Semafor reported that major work on The Line at NEOM had been postponed beyond 2030, with its target population cut to around 100,000 people. [5] The war did not start this shift, but it shortened the time Saudi institutions were willing to give it.

Across the border, the direction looked very different. On April 23, with attacks on the UAE still fresh, the federal Cabinet approved a plan to deploy agentic AI across half of government sectors and operations within two years, with ministers and directors-general assessed on how quickly they adopt it. The same decision adopted a new code for government services under the country’s Zero Bureaucracy program. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid described AI as the government’s future “executive partner to support decisions, enhance services, boost efficiency of operations, and evaluate results.” [6] It is unusual for any government to tie the performance of its most senior officials so directly to the speed of a technology rollout.

Together, these stories describe a transformation market that is changing its center of gravity rather than shrinking. Source Global Research had forecast the Gulf consulting market to grow 12% in 2025 to $8.3 billion, with Saudi Arabia worth $4.3 billion in 2024 and the UAE expected to reach $1.8 billion. Even then, its analyst Dane Albertelli expected public-sector growth to “slip into single digits.” [7] By July, the regional head of Alvarez & Marsal, Colie Spink, was telling Semafor that the consulting market overall “is not growing,” even as her firm expected to double its Gulf revenue this year, helped by work on localizing military manufacturing. In her words, “the tailwinds are stronger than the headwinds.” [8] The firms still growing are those that have found work their clients need delivered rather than simply designed.

Gartner’s research explains why delivery has become the scarce part. In its survey of chief financial officers for 2026 budgets, 64% planned to keep overhead growing more slowly than revenue and 42% expected some reduction in administrative headcount through AI. Randeep Rathindran, a distinguished vice president in Gartner’s finance practice, said that “operational efficiency, not just revenue growth, will define success in the coming year.” [9] The functions CFOs planned to trim first were HR, corporate IT, legal and finance, which are exactly the areas where transformation programs now concentrate. In March, Gartner found that 78% of chief human resources officers agreed that workflows and roles would have to change before AI investments could pay off, and more than half of organizations had already redesigned roles because of AI. [10] Yet its earlier research found that only 45% of employees achieved the change goals their organizations set for them, and Neal Woolrich, a director in Gartner’s HR practice, estimated that only a quarter of the workforce was “embracing change as quickly as desired and in a way that does not damage their health.” [11] A strategy can be agreed in a quarter, while getting people to work differently usually takes far longer, and most of the risk in these programs now sits in that gap.

The macroeconomic backdrop has made the gap more expensive. In June, the World Bank cut its 2026 growth forecast for the Gulf to 1.3% and for the UAE to 2.4%, and its deputy chief economist, Ayhan Kose, urged governments to use the moment “to strengthen policy frameworks” and “accelerate business-enabling reforms.” [12] S&P Global’s survey of UAE businesses for June, published on July 3, showed employment falling for the first time in more than four years, with firms citing weak demand, rising costs and “productivity initiatives.” David Owen, the survey’s principal economist, described “the double whammy of soft client demand and rising cost burdens.” [13] An interim ceasefire agreed in June then came apart on July 8, when President Trump said of the truce, “For me, I think it’s over.” [14]

The hiring data shows employers protecting the roles that keep the business under control. Cooper Fitch’s Gulf Employment Index recorded a 12% fall in hiring in March followed by a 13% rebound in April after the first ceasefire. [15] For the second quarter as a whole, published on July 14, it found hiring across the Gulf down 3% and in the UAE down 4%, while hiring rose in finance by 5%, in data and AI by 4% and in cybersecurity by 2%. Demand held up for roles in delivery, compliance and financial control, and employers set a higher bar before approving any new position. Trefor Murphy, Cooper Fitch’s chief executive, put it simply: “Nothing kills growth like uncertainty.” [16]

None of these sources counts strategy, transformation or program management roles on their own, so the evidence for those positions is indirect. It points in a consistent direction, though. When Saudi institutions slow payments to outside advisers while still committing to Expo 2030, the 2034 World Cup and a reshaped PIF portfolio, the work of reprioritizing, re-scoping and delivering those programs does not disappear. A larger share of it moves in-house, to people who can run a portfolio of projects against a budget that is smaller than it was planned to be. When the UAE asks ministries to move half of their operations onto agentic AI within two years, the demand is for people who can redesign processes, manage the effect on staff and measure whether the change worked. In both countries, employers want transformation professionals who have run programs through to the end, not only people who can describe where a program should go.

That shift is changing what makes a candidate valuable. The profiles in strongest demand combine three things: experience running a program management office or a cost transformation inside an organization, rather than advising on one; enough fluency with AI and data to know what an automation project will actually change in a workflow; and the judgment to manage people through change without losing the ones the business most needs. Organizations are increasingly asking experienced operators to lead change rather than relying on advisers to direct it.

Looking to the third quarter, I expect Saudi Arabia’s restraint on external advisory spending to continue for as long as the deficit and the conflict persist, with demand for transformation talent concentrated in the entities responsible for delivering the kingdom’s fixed commitments. In the UAE, the government’s AI mandate should keep demand for process redesign, change management and program leadership steady through the summer, even if private-sector hiring stays cautious after the collapse of the June truce. If hostilities intensify, I would expect hiring for new programs to pause before hiring for programs already under way, because the roles least likely to be cut are those that make an existing plan work.

For employers, the practical consequence is that the people they need for this phase are already employed and rarely looking. The program director who delivered a cost program on time, or the change lead who took a function through an automation rollout without losing its best people, is a known quantity inside their current organization. Hiring them means offering a better program to run, not simply a better title.

In May, the question in Riyadh was when the consultants would be paid. By July, the question for most organizations in the Gulf is who will carry the plans those consultants helped write. Transformation in the region has not lost its ambition, but it has become a question of execution, and execution depends on hiring people who have done it before.

Sources

1. Semafor, Saudi Arabia freezes consultancy payments, May 21, 2026.
2. Consultancy-me.com, Saudi government freezes and delays consulting spend amid conflict-driven fiscal tightening, May 22, 2026.
3. Middle East Briefing, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund strategy shift in 2026, March 18, 2026.
4. AGBI, PIF sets new five-year strategy to drive returns, April 15, 2026.
5. Domus, citing Semafor, The Line postponed beyond 2030, May 27, 2026.
6. Dubai Media Office, Mohammed bin Rashid chairs UAE Cabinet meeting, April 23, 2026.
7. Consultancy-me.com, Consulting market of GCC to grow by 12% to over $8 billion in 2025, May 31, 2025.
8. Semafor, US advisory firm A&M looks to win rivals’ market share, July 1, 2026.
9. Gartner, Gartner Survey Shows CFOs Are Trimming Overhead, But Not Revenue Growth Ambitions in 2026, October 15, 2025.
10. Gartner, Gartner Identifies the Top Change Management Trends for CHROs in the Age of AI, March 16, 2026.
11. Gartner, Gartner HR Research Finds Less Than Half of Employees Achieved the Change Goals Set by Their Organization, October 9, 2025.
12. Khaleej Times, UAE, GCC economies to bounce back in 2026-27 after slower growth in 2026: World Bank, June 11, 2026.
13. Arab News, reporting S&P Global UAE PMI for June, July 3, 2026.
14. WLOS, Trump says Iran ceasefire is over after US strikes, July 8, 2026.
15. Khaleej Times, Jobs in UAE: these sectors are hiring in GCC as firms expand after ceasefire, May 14, 2026.
16. Khaleej Times, GCC hiring falls 3% in Q2 as Strait of Hormuz disruption bites, July 14, 2026.