Education opportunities in Saudi Arabia
Published 27 October 2014
© Crown copyright 2014
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-opportunities-in-saudi-arabia/education-opportunities-in-saudi-arabia
1. Market potential
The Saudi education and training market has been identified as a high value education opportunity (HVO) for the UK owing to:
- Significant business opportunities already having been secured by UK education and training providers in deals worth more than £1 billion, e.g. UK providers operate 16 vocational and technical Colleges of Excellence (CoE) for men and women across KSA
- Significant potential for future business – accessible value to the UK in excess of £100 million
- Opportunities existing across all sub-sectors – including schools (K-12), vocational education and training, higher education (HE) and CPD/professional training
- UK education and training expertise being highly valued in KSA across a range of industry sectors
2. Large-scale education and training opportunities in 2015/16
Saudi Arabia is a UKTI Education priority market and a number of major contract opportunities have been identified for UK education and training providers, including potential opportunities with:
- Delivering and reforming technical and vocational education and training (TVET)
- Harmonising standards for technical qualifications and assessments
- Delivering advanced technical training for the energy sector
- Developing professional training for teachers and schools leaders
View all education opportunities in Saudi Arabia
3. Additional market information
3.1 Geographical considerations
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) occupies around 80% of the Arabian Peninsula. Most of Saudi Arabia’s 30 million population is concentrated in five key cities – Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, Medinah and Dammam. Close to half of the population is below the age of 25.
3.2 Education sector overview
The Saudi Arabian government is investing heavily in education and training programmes to develop a skilled, knowledge-based local workforce. The 2015 government budget for education is £37 billion. An additional five-year education development plan with a budget of more than £13 billion has also been approved.