Saudization of 94 Engineering Technical Occupations Rises to 35%: What Should Your Business Do Before It Applies?

What changed in the Saudization of engineering technical occupations, and when does it start?

The required share of Saudis in engineering technical occupations is now 35%, applying from 9 May 2027, as announced by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development in its media centre on 8 November 2026 in partnership with the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing. The decision's procedural guide page on the ministry's website gives its issue date as 28 Jumada al-Ula 1448H, corresponding to 8 November 2026, and the decision's execution date as 3 Dhu al-Hijjah 1448H, corresponding to 9 May 2027.

The previous procedural guide for the engineering technical occupations Saudization decision, published on the ministry's website in 2025, set a Saudization rate of 30% in these occupations from 27 July 2025. The November 2026 announcement raises the rate to 35% and puts the targeted occupations at ninety-four. What your business needs to do can be arranged in time as follows.

• Now: open the new procedural guide on the ministry's website and read the list of targeted occupations, the rate calculation mechanism and the compliance controls.
• Over the coming weeks: match your workers' job titles against the targeted occupations and calculate the Saudi share in them today.
• Before 9 May 2027: complete hiring and align contracts and job titles so the Saudi share reaches at least 35% in the covered occupations.

Which establishments and occupations does the decision cover, and how is the rate calculated?

According to the ministry's announcement, the decision covers all private sector establishments that employ five or more workers in the targeted engineering technical occupations, and the rate is calculated at the level of the establishment's entity. What matters is the number of workers in these occupations specifically, not the establishment's total headcount: a business with a hundred employees of whom only four are technicians falls below the threshold the announcement states, while a business with twenty employees of whom eight are technicians is above it.

The ministry gives as examples of covered occupations: civil engineering technician, electrical engineering technician, mechanical engineering technician, electronics engineering technician, surveying technician, mechanical maintenance technician and architectural draftsman, among other engineering technical occupations under the Saudi Unified Classification of Occupations. The full list of the ninety-four occupations is in the procedural guide published on the ministry's website, and that is the reference you match your workers' titles against.

Do not confuse engineering technical occupations (technicians, draftsmen, surveyors and the like) with engineering occupations (engineers): the ministry has a separate procedural guide for engineering occupations with its own rates and conditions. If your business employs both engineers and technicians, review each guide separately and calculate each rate on its own.

The announcement explains that the procedural guide sets out the implementation mechanisms, the calculation of Saudization rates and the compliance controls. As an illustration only: if your business has twenty technicians in the targeted occupations at entity level, 35% of them means at least seven Saudi technicians. How fractions are rounded, and which Saudis count toward the rate, is governed by the new procedural guide.

What has the announcement not settled yet, and where do you find it?

The ministry's announcement of 8 November 2026 does not state a grace period after the start date, any exemptions, specific steps in the Qiwa platform, or the penalties, and refers the details to the procedural guide published on the ministry's website. So do not base your decisions on what circulates on social media, and read the new guide itself before you count anyone toward the rate.

For reference, the previous procedural guide (the 2025 version at 30%) required, for a Saudi technician to count, that his monthly wage registered with social insurance be no lower than a set minimum, and that he hold professional accreditation from the Saudi Council of Engineers. It also stated that the decision applies to both the occupational titles and the worker's actual work, and that compliance is monitored automatically based on the occupational titles in the social insurance database. We have not yet verified that these conditions remain unchanged in the new guide, so confirm them there.

• The full list of the ninety-four occupations and their codes in the Saudi Unified Classification of Occupations.
• The conditions for counting a Saudi technician, including any minimum wage and any professional accreditation requirement.
• The rate calculation mechanism and how fractions are rounded.
• Any grace period or exemptions, and the penalties and enforcement procedures.
• The support programmes available for hiring and training.

The ministry says the human resources system offers incentives and support programmes covering recruitment, training, qualification, employment and job stability, with priority access to the available Saudization support programmes, so build them into your hiring plan from the start.

What steps should your business take before the decision applies?

Start with an accurate map of your workers in engineering technical occupations, then calculate the gap, then arrange hiring and contracts around known dates. These are the steps in order:

1. Read the new procedural guide on the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development website, and note the list of ninety-four occupations, their codes and the counting conditions.
2. Pull from the establishment's Qiwa account and from the social insurance records a list of every worker and his registered occupational title, across the whole entity, not one branch alone.
3. Match each title against the list of targeted occupations, and look at the actual work, not only the title: a technician doing engineering technical work under another title may count within the targeted occupations.
4. Count the workers in the targeted occupations; if there are five or more, your business is covered according to the announcement. Then calculate today's Saudi share among them, counting only those who meet the guide's counting conditions.
5. Identify the gap: the number of Saudi technicians you need to reach 35% on 9 May 2027, allowing for any expected growth in your technician headcount by then.
6. Set a hiring plan with fixed dates for advertising roles, interviews, contracting and start dates, and review the available Saudization support programmes before you begin.
7. Build a schedule of the non-Saudi workers' contracts in these occupations and their expiry dates, and decide for each contract before it expires: renew or do not renew, respecting the contract's terms and the Labor Law.
8. Correct job titles in the contracts and in the official records so they match the actual work, and document any change of occupation or duties in a written annex signed by both parties.
9. Recalculate every month until the start date, because every hire, resignation or transfer between branches changes the rate.

How do you align job titles and employment contracts so the count holds?

Get two things right: the title in the contract must match the actual work and the occupational classification, and you must know in advance when each contract ends and what happens when it does. A non-Saudi worker's contract must be written and fixed-term under Article 37 of the Labor Law as amended by Royal Decree M/44; if the contract does not state its term, its term is one year from the worker's actual start, and if work continues after it ends, it is deemed renewed for a like period. Article 12 of the Labor Law Implementing Regulation provides that such a contract stays fixed-term however long its term or renewals run, and never becomes indefinite even if the parties agree to that.

In practice, every non-Saudi technician's contract has an expiry date you know in advance, and renewal happens if work continues after the term ends without a decision from you, so do not let the expiry date pass before you decide. Ending a contract before its term expires in order to raise the rate has consequences under the Labor Law, so do not do it without a lawful reason and legal review.

As for the Saudi technician you hire to close the gap, you may sign either a fixed-term contract E-01 or an indefinite contract E-02 with him. Article 55 of the Labor Law provides that a fixed-term contract ends when its term expires, and if both parties continue performing it, it is deemed renewed for an indefinite term; if it contains a renewal clause and is renewed three consecutive times, or the original term plus renewals reaches four years, whichever is less, and the parties continue, it becomes indefinite. Article 26 of the Labor Law requires all establishments, whatever their headcount, to work to attract and employ Saudis, provide the means for them to stay in work, and train and qualify them. Retention matters here, because losing a single Saudi technician can take you below the rate.

Changing a non-Saudi worker's title does not solve the problem if he keeps doing the same work: the previous procedural guide provided for penalties where the duties of Saudized occupations are assigned to a non-Saudi worker directly or indirectly under any other job title. The sound path is for the title to match the work, and for the count to be managed through hiring and contract expiry dates.

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