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taqat · Talent Intelligence

Emirati talent
intelligence

taqat is a talent intelligence platform for finding and assessing Emirati professionals. Candidates are ranked against the role you describe by readiness, and every assessment is supported by a source reference. The talent pool holds more than 17,000 profiles in Dubai today and is growing to more than 70,000 across the UAE.

Type the role as the hiring manager gave it, in English or Arabic. We run this search live in your demo.

Watch the filmHow a search works, in 2 min 33 s
  • Ranked by readiness
  • Supporting evidence for every assessment

The platform

What a search returns

Each search returns a shortlist ranked by readiness for the role described, together with a findings brief on the shortlist as a whole. Every candidate profile includes the following.

Snapshot One search, step by step, as the recruiter sees it. Counts from a real search; profiles invented.

taqat Search · New search

Product manager for the payments team. Someone who has shipped a payments product, owned a roadmap, and worked with risk and compliance. Around 6 years, based in Dubai or Abu Dhabi

forSadeem PaymentsFind them · 1 token

Reading the brief…

The brief is typed as the hiring manager gave it: plain language, English or Arabic, with the client it is for.

taqat Search · What taqat understood

What taqat understood

Own and drive a payments product end to end: define and maintain the roadmap, specify features, work with engineering to deliver, coordinate with risk and compliance so controls and regulatory requirements are met, and iterate after launch.

Level6+ years · senior
Must be on record
Has shipped a payments product to production (card, wallets, gateway, acquiring, issuing, payouts or similar)Has owned a product roadmap and prioritised features against business and technical constraintsHas worked directly with risk and compliance teams on product controls, KYC/AML or local payments regulationExperience defining product requirements and writing user stories or specifications for engineeringExperience coordinating cross-functional stakeholders: engineering, risk, compliance, operations, partnershipsExperience monitoring product metrics and running post-launch iteration
Can be taught
The client's own platform, internal APIs and vendor stackLicensing and regulator procedures specific to the clientInternal processes, templates and SLAsThe client's merchant onboarding workflows and partner integrations

The recruiter reads this before a single profile is judged, and corrects it in a sentence if the brief was misread.

taqat Search · Results
Product manager for the payments team. Someone who has shipped a payments product, owned a roadmap, and worked with risk and compliance. Around 6 years, based in Dubai or Abu Dhabi
for Sadeem Payments
Found7,552 in range200 read
Verdict14 ready now74 with training2 not backed by the record110 not a fit
Ready nowHireable as they are: every requirement that must be on record is on record.14
Name withheld Regional product manager, payments · Dubai · 7.7 years

Senior regional payments product remit with 7.7 years; ready to start with normal onboarding.

titleRegional Product Manager, Paymentsyears7.7emirateDubailevelseniorskillsproduct management; payments
With trainingThe record supports the role except for a named gap that can be taught.74
Name withheld Senior business analyst, cards · Abu Dhabi · 5.2 years

Cards product experience and roadmap ownership on record; no shipped payments product yet. Gap: end-to-end delivery of a payments product.

titleSenior Business Analyst, Cardsyears5.2emirateAbu Dhabiskillsroadmap; risk and compliance
Not backed by the recordThe claim in the summary could not be traced to a stored field, so it is set aside.2
Name withheld Sales development representative · Dubai · 10.6 years

Payments-adjacent employer, but the role on record is sales, not product. The record does not support the claim.

titleSales Development Representativeyears10.6emirateDubai
taqat Search · Candidate profile
Name withheld Regional product manager, payments · Dubai · 7.7 years
ReadinessReady nowset by: every must-be-on-record requirement is met

Senior regional payments product remit with 7.7 years; ready to start with normal onboarding.

Supporting evidence, quoted from the record

  • titleRegional Product Manager, Payments matches the stored title
  • years7.7 equals the stored number
  • skillsproduct management; payments whole words, in the stored skills
  • skillsPSD2 compliance programmenot in the stored record · set aside
Skills gapCard-scheme and tokenisation integrations · about 8 weeks to close

A claim that cannot point at a stored value is set aside rather than shown. Nationality is never inferred from location.

Readiness level

Candidates are grouped as ready now, ready with training, not backed by the record, or not a fit for the role. The requirement that determined the readiness level is stated alongside it, and the skills gap for a candidate who needs training is named rather than scored.

Supporting evidence

Each attribute carries a source reference, a confidence level and a suggested verification question, and is marked as either on record or inferred. A claim that cannot point at a stored value cannot be constructed.

Interview preparation

Each profile includes a skills gap with a ramp estimate for each gap, a salary estimate set against the client budget, three screening questions with the expected content of a satisfactory answer, and an assessment of the candidate's motivation to move.

Talent pool coverage

The talent pool holds more than 17,000 profiles of Emirati professionals based in Dubai, assembled from professional records rather than job-seeker registrations. Coverage of the rest of the UAE is being added and will take the pool beyond 70,000. Where a record is too thin to classify, the platform says so rather than guessing.

Why now

Emiratisation has become a sourcing problem

The requirement is set in law, dated and priced. The hard part is finding the people who can do the role, at the right level, before the deadline.

AED 10,000a month

On every Emirati position left unfilled, from 1 July 2026. AED 120,000 a year for each open seat.

10%

Of skilled roles to be held by Emiratis at mainland companies with 50 or more employees by 31 December 2026. Banks are held to 45%.

1,300companies

Penalised for fake Emiratisation. Only genuine hires count: paid through the Wage Protection System, registered for pension, and retained.

Where employers look, and where the candidates are

Illustrative, not to scale.

Most Emirati professionals are in work under many different titles and are reached by no job board or employment platform; a title search returns only the holders of the title; taqat reads every profile against the requirements of the role.

What a recruiter is left with

  • A title search that returns whoever holds the title, in a market where titles change faster than careers do
  • Profiles read one by one, with seniority guessed from a headline
  • A list sent to the hiring manager with no reasons attached, and the deadline still running

What taqat does instead

  • Reads every profile in the pool against the requirements of the role, not the title
  • States how ready each person is, and names the requirement that set the level
  • Shows the record behind every claim, so the hiring manager sees why

Sources: Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, June 2026; banking target as reported from the Central Bank of the UAE. Checked 6 September 2026.

Process

From role to shortlist

A search proceeds in four stages.

Stage 1

Typed ask

The role is typed in plain language or pasted from the client's document, in English or Arabic, and mapped onto the vocabulary the talent pool actually uses.

Stage 2

Candidate builder

Each requirement shows the size of the pool it leaves before it is placed, so a search that returns nobody cannot be built without seeing it happen.

Stage 3

Shortlist review

Candidates are presented by readiness level, with the first results in under a minute and the full read of a large shortlist finished within a few minutes. Each profile opens to the supporting evidence.

Stage 4

Shortlist submission

Selected candidates are shared with the hiring manager through a link that needs no login, expires, can be revoked, and closes with the role. The recruiter is notified when it is first opened.

Who it is for

Built around the people who carry the target

One search, read by everyone with a say in the hire. Each of them sees the same evidence.

The recruiter

Talent acquisition partner

Licensed recruitment agencies and in-house talent teams.

“The brief says product manager. The people who have done that work call themselves five other things.”

  • The brief typed as the client gave it, in English or Arabic
  • A shortlist ranked by readiness, with the reason for each level
  • The record behind every claim, ready for the call with the hiring manager
taqat Search pricing
The team lead

Head of talent or HR director

Companies with 50 or more employees, and banks under the 45% rule.

“The target is 10% by December. I need to know which of our open roles the market can actually fill.”

  • The size of the pool for each requirement, before a search is run
  • Readiness across every shortlist: ready now, with training, not a fit
  • Five seats on one workspace, with sector depth where you hire most
Team subscription
The hiring manager

The person who says yes

Any role, any department. No account needed.

“Show me why this person, not a score.”

  • One link from the recruiter, opened without a login
  • The same evidence the recruiter saw: readiness, the requirement that set it, the salary estimate against your budget, the screening questions
  • The recruiter is told the moment you first open it, and the link closes with the role
How the shared link works

Services

Services

All services draw on the same talent pool and the same assessment models. Further services will be announced as they become available.

Available now

Search

A subscription service for recruitment agencies and in-house recruitment teams. Searches, evidence review, the findings brief and shortlist submission to the hiring manager are carried out in the platform.

Pricing
On demand

Market

Aggregate reports for employers and government bodies, prepared on request: the proportion of open roles the Emirati talent pool can fill, an organisation's Emiratisation position, and talent supply by sector and emirate. Reports do not identify individuals.

Enquire

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does taqat carry out recruitment?
No. taqat identifies candidates, ranks them and presents the supporting evidence. Approaching, interviewing and hiring candidates remain with the client.
Where does the data come from?
From professional information that UAE nationals have published about themselves. It is indexed by a search engine built for this market. Sources are not disclosed. What is retained, where it is processed, and how an individual can question their profile are documented and available on request.
Is the platform compliant with the UAE Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL)?
Publicly available professional information is indexed under a documented lawful basis, and only the data the service requires is retained. Processing in the UAE is planned. Enquiries and removal requests are handled at privacy@taqattalent.com.
How is nationality established?
From information that individuals have published about themselves, never from location. Each profile is marked as on record or inferred, so that the weight to be placed on it is clear before contact is made, and any profile can be disputed from inside the platform.
Does inferring nationality raise a discrimination concern?
Emiratisation targets are set in law, and employers are already required to identify candidates who qualify. taqat proposes candidates who plausibly do and ranks them by readiness for the role. Verification rests with the hiring party, and nationality is not written into any export.
How current is the data?
The talent pool is refreshed continuously. Each profile shows the date on which it was last updated.
How do you know the assessments are right?
Readiness comes from a deterministic rules engine, so every score can be traced to the stored field it came from, and a claim that cannot point at a stored value cannot be constructed. The platform reports its own gaps on screen: how many candidates fall inside and outside the asked band, and which records are too thin to classify. The models used for enrichment are off the shelf; the talent pool, the taxonomy and the evidence discipline are taqat's.
What does the service cost?
A Team subscription for five users is AED 2,400 per month and includes 200 searches; an Individual subscription is AED 900 per month and includes 100. Full details are set out on the pricing page.
How does this differ from a global sourcing platform?
A global platform cannot establish who is Emirati, and it ranks candidates by activity rather than readiness. taqat covers the professionals who are not actively seeking a position and who are therefore largely absent from such platforms.
How does this differ from Nafis and other government employment platforms?
Government employment platforms list UAE nationals who have registered because they are seeking work. Most Emirati professionals are currently employed and have not registered. taqat covers them.
How should a company of taqat's size be assessed?
On the documentation: where the data is processed, what is retained, the data processing agreement taqat signs, and the facility in the platform by which any individual can question their profile. Each of these can be checked.
What are the security arrangements?
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, with hosting in the UAE planned. Access is controlled by role-based permissions. Viewing contact details and exporting shortlists are subject to usage limits that prevent bulk extraction.
Will taqat sign a non-disclosure agreement or a data processing agreement?
Yes. taqat signs mutual non-disclosure agreements and data processing agreements on request.
What happens to client data on cancellation?
Client data is deleted 90 days after cancellation, or earlier on request. The talent pool is subject to a separate retention policy, and any profile in it can be questioned or removed.
Are results padded?
No. Each candidate carries supporting evidence and a readiness level. Where the candidate pool for a role is small, the shortlist is correspondingly short and the summary states this.
Is there a charge per hire?
No. The service is provided on subscription, and no placement fee or charge per hire applies.
Is a free trial available?
No free trial is offered. A single month can be purchased and the subscription cancelled before the next billing month.

Contact

Request a demo

Demos are run on the live platform, using a role currently open with the client.

Opens in your email. Requests are answered within one business day.