Commission · 2 openings
Sales Representative
Bring us the students.
- Sign students up
- Run your own campus
- Tell us what actually works
- Pay
- Per signup. Negotiable, and we mean negotiable.
- Time
- Your hours, your campus
Three questions, about ten minutes.
Almost Done! Site in development
Internships in Dubai, without the guesswork.
Who hires students, when they open applications, what you are allowed to do on a student visa, and how to get read instead of filtered. Written for students at Dubai universities, not for graduates in London.
584 students already registered
00 We are hiring
3 roles open at DubaiStudentLife.
Before the rest of this page tells you how internships in Dubai work, here are ours. Paid, student-run, no CV, and you can apply in about ten minutes.
Part-time · One opening
Marketing Lead
Own everything we say in public.
- Own every account
- Get the team posting
- Decide what we sound like
- Pay
- Monthly, plus a cut of what your campaigns bring in.
- Time
- Around 10 hours a week, your own schedule
Three questions, about ten minutes.
Part-time · One opening
Web Developer
Build the thing everyone else is selling.
- Ship whole pages
- Keep it fast
- Build what is behind the login
- Pay
- Monthly, or per project if you would rather.
- Time
- Around 10 hours a week, deadlines over hours
Three questions, about ten minutes.
Hiring now
Apply
This is the role the whole company runs on. Every student on DubaiStudentLife is here because somebody told them about it, and for the next few months that somebody is you.
You are not cold-calling and you are not reading a script. You are a student in Dubai talking to other students in Dubai about something they will be glad you mentioned. Every one of them who signs up pays you.
I want someone who can stand up on a bus, start talking, and get off thirty signups later.
- Pay
- Per signup. Negotiable, and we mean negotiable.
- Time
- Your hours, your campus
- Where
- On campus, in queues, in group chats, anywhere students already are
- Start
- Immediately
You set your price per signup in the form below. There is no cap, no territory and nobody taking a cut above you.
What you actually do
- Sign students up On campus, at society events, in the queue for coffee, on the metro. Wherever there are students, that is the office.
- Run your own campus You pick the angle, the pitch and the hours. We give you the link, the materials and the number to beat.
- Tell us what actually works The lines that land and the ones that die go straight into how the whole company sells. Your best sentence becomes everyone's.
- Bring your network with you Society committees, course group chats, the friend who somehow knows everyone. All fair game, all paid the same.
You, probably
- Can start a conversation with a stranger without finding it strange.
- Hear no and keep going, because you already know the fourth person says yes.
- Are the one in your group who organises everything, and always have been.
- Can be trusted alone, in public, with the company's name in your mouth.
Not required: A CV. Sales experience. A degree in anything in particular. We are hiring for nerve, not for paperwork.
Every account we have is yours. The calendar, the posting, the replies, the trends we should have been on two days ago.
And then the hard part, which is not the posting: a team of students who are funny, interesting and completely unwilling to film themselves. Getting them online is the job.
Someone who gets the whole team posting, and owns every account we have.
- Pay
- Monthly, plus a cut of what your campaigns bring in.
- Time
- Around 10 hours a week, your own schedule
- Where
- Remote, with a few days on campus when it matters
- Start
- Immediately
A base you can count on, and a performance share so a campaign that works is worth more to you than one that merely posts.
What you actually do
- Own every account Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. The calendar, the captions, the comments, the DMs at eleven at night.
- Get the team posting Reps, tutors, students with stories worth telling. Most of them will say no the first time. This is the part everybody underestimates.
- Decide what we sound like We have a voice on the site and almost none anywhere else. You set it, and then you defend it.
- Watch the numbers and act Not a monthly report nobody reads. Which post brought signups, and what you are doing differently on Monday.
You, probably
- Have run a real account. A society page, a personal one that took off, a brand you freelanced for. Follower count is not the point; taste is.
- Can talk a camera-shy nineteen-year-old into posting anyway, and make them glad they did.
- Know what is happening on TikTok this week, not what was happening last year.
- Can write. Short, funny, in a student's voice, without sounding like a brand trying to sound like a student.
Not required: A marketing degree. An agency background. A portfolio in a PDF with a cover page.
The site is built from scratch. No WordPress, no page builder, no framework: a Node build script that renders every page to static HTML, vanilla JavaScript on the front, and Cloudflare in front of that.
It is fast because somebody decided it had to be. You will be the second person to touch it, and you will own real pages rather than tickets.
Someone who opens the site, finds the slow bit, and has already fixed it by the time we ask.
- Pay
- Monthly, or per project if you would rather.
- Time
- Around 10 hours a week, deadlines over hours
- Where
- Remote
- Start
- Immediately
Tell us which you prefer in the form. Neither answer counts against you.
What you actually do
- Ship whole pages Data goes in, sixty-six static pages come out. You will add to that, end to end, with nobody reviewing your semicolons.
- Keep it fast Every page is on a budget, and campus wifi is the benchmark. Slow is a bug here and gets fixed like one.
- Build what is behind the login Accounts, saved events and the student profile are built and switched off. Turning them on properly is real work.
- Fix what is broken Including the things nobody has noticed yet. Especially those.
You, probably
- Write JavaScript, HTML and CSS without reaching for a framework to do it for you.
- Care about the details: the layout that dies at 320px, the contrast nobody checked, the image that was never compressed.
- Can read code somebody else wrote and work out why before changing it.
- Have shipped something real that other people used, even if it was small.
Not required: A computer science degree. Five years of experience. A LeetCode streak.
Apply
We read the answers, not the CV. There is no CV box.
01 Everywhere else
And the rest of Dubai, which is harder.
Our roles are three. The rest of this page is about the several thousand others, and how students in Dubai actually get one.
3
intake windows a year
Winter, summer and the quiet autumn one nobody applies for
6-12
weeks, typically
Long enough to matter on a CV, short enough to fit a break
8+
sectors that hire students
Not just the four everyone applies to
Dubai runs on internships. Free zones, agencies, hotel groups, logistics operators, banks and a very large startup scene all take student interns, and most of them recruit informally enough that knowing when to ask matters more than having a perfect CV.
The catch is that almost nothing is advertised where students look. Roles get filled through university career offices, LinkedIn posts that stay up for two days, and people who emailed in January for a June start. This page is the part nobody tells you.
02 The kinds that exist
8 types of internship, and which one you are eligible for.
Length, pay, when to apply and what it does to your visa. Most students only know about the first one on this list, which is also the hardest to get.
Summer internship
- Length
- 6-12 weeks
- Pay
- Usually paid
- Apply
- Sep - Jan
The default, and the most competitive. A structured block over the summer break at a company large enough to have a programme, a supervisor and a defined project.
Visa Paid, so it normally needs a training or internship permit arranged by the employer.
Best for Second and penultimate years at any university in Dubai.
Placement year
- Length
- 6-12 months
- Pay
- Paid
- Apply
- Oct - Feb, a year ahead
A sandwich year between your second and final year, arranged through the university and assessed as part of the degree. British-curriculum universities in Dubai run these; most others do not.
Visa Handled by the university and the employer together, because the placement is part of your programme.
Best for Engineering, business and computing degrees that offer a year in industry.
Term-time internship
- Length
- 10-20 hours a week
- Pay
- Paid or stipend
- Apply
- Rolling, peaks Sep & Jan
Part-time during the semester, usually at a startup or an agency that needs steady hands rather than a summer project. The least competitive route into a company you actually want.
Visa Paid work alongside study needs a permit. Confirm with your university before you start.
Best for Students who want a year of continuous experience instead of twelve weeks.
Credit-bearing placement
- Length
- 4-12 weeks
- Pay
- Often unpaid
- Apply
- A semester ahead
A placement your degree requires and your careers office signs off. Unglamorous, frequently unpaid, and the single easiest internship in Dubai to actually obtain.
Visa The simplest case. An unpaid, university-credited placement is normally straightforward.
Best for Anyone whose programme has a mandatory placement module.
Startup / founder's associate
- Length
- 3 months to open-ended
- Pay
- Paid, sometimes with equity
- Apply
- Rolling, project-led
No programme, no cohort, no HR. You sit next to the people making decisions and the scope is whatever the week needs. The most responsibility a student can get in Dubai.
Visa Small companies improvise here. Get the arrangement in writing before you start.
Best for Students who would rather own something small than observe something large.
Insight week / spring week
- Length
- 3-5 days
- Pay
- Paid or expenses
- Apply
- Oct - Dec
A short structured programme at banks, the Big Four and law firms, designed as a recruiting funnel. Doing one is the normal way into that firm's summer internship the following year.
Visa Too short to need a permit in most cases; the firm will tell you.
Best for First years, who are otherwise too early for everything else on this list.
Remote internship
- Length
- 6 weeks to 6 months
- Pay
- Paid, often in another currency
- Apply
- Rolling, all year
A role at a company in another market, done from Dubai. Pay is frequently better than the local equivalent and the competition is global rather than local, which cuts both ways.
Visa Working remotely for a foreign employer is a different question. Take advice before you accept.
Best for Software, design, marketing and research, where nothing needs to happen in a room.
Research assistantship
- Length
- One semester or a summer
- Pay
- Stipend or hourly
- Apply
- Any time
Working for a professor on their own research. Almost never advertised anywhere, awarded to whoever asked, and the only internship on this list you can get by sending one email inside your own building.
Visa On-campus work through your own university is the least complicated arrangement available.
Best for Anyone considering a masters, and anyone who has not managed to land anything else.
03 Who hires students
8 sectors, and how each one behaves.
Every sector recruits on a different clock and reads a CV differently. The edge line is what moves a student applicant to the top of that particular pile.
Tech & startups
The most accessible sector for students, because small teams need hands and cannot afford to be precious about experience.
- Software engineering
- Data & analytics
- Product & UX
- QA and support
The edge A public GitHub, a shipped side project or a hackathon placing beats a 3.9 GPA here. Almost nowhere else in this list is that true.
Banking & finance
The most structured programmes and the earliest deadlines. Treat these like UK or US internship cycles, because that is how they are run.
- Investment banking
- Asset & wealth management
- Risk and compliance
- FinTech operations
The edge Excel modelling, a CFA Level 1 registration and a clean, one-page CV. Cover letters are still read in this sector.
Hospitality & tourism
The largest volume employer of students in the city, and the one most willing to take a first-year with no experience.
- Front office
- F&B operations
- Events & guest experience
- Revenue and marketing
The edge Availability is the qualification. Say yes to split shifts and weekends and you will be shortlisted over someone with a better transcript.
Media, marketing & creative
Agencies take interns constantly and convert a real share of them, because the work is portfolio-shaped and easy to hand over.
- Social and content
- Brand & campaign support
- Design and motion
- PR and events
The edge Bring a portfolio, not a CV. Three finished pieces you can talk through will outperform a list of software you have opened.
Logistics & supply chain
Quietly one of the best-paid student internships in the city and one of the least contested, because students do not think to apply.
- Freight & forwarding operations
- Warehouse and inventory analytics
- Procurement support
- Trade compliance
The edge Any Excel or Power BI competence at all makes you unusual in an applicant pool for these roles.
Engineering & construction
Site and consultancy placements, often arranged through a university rather than applied for directly.
- Site engineering
- MEP and building services
- Structural design support
- Project controls
The edge Accredited programmes often require a logged placement. Ask your department first — they usually hold relationships you cannot reach alone.
Real estate & property
Brokerages and developers take students year-round, and the commission-linked roles start paying faster than anything else on this list.
- Research & valuation support
- Leasing and sales support
- Marketing and listings
- Property operations
The edge Be explicit about whether a role is salaried or commission-only before you accept. Both exist and they are very different jobs.
Healthcare & life sciences
The most regulated placements here, and the ones that need the most notice. Clinical exposure is limited by law for most students.
- Hospital administration
- Public health and research
- Lab assistance
- Health tech and informatics
The edge Non-clinical routes are far more open than clinical ones. Administration and research placements convert into graduate roles more often than students expect.
04 The calendar
When to apply, which is most of the battle.
The same email lands very differently in November and in April.
-
September - October
Apply for the following summer at banks, the Big Four and the large structured programmes. These close earliest and nobody warns you.
-
November - January
Winter placements and the January starts. The quietest window and the easiest one to win a place in.
-
February - April
Summer hiring opens across tech, media, logistics and hospitality. Most students start here, which is why it is the hardest.
-
May - August
Summer placements run. Also the best time to line up an autumn internship, when competition disappears.
05 Before you apply
Five things worth more than another draft of your CV.
-
One page, and it fits on one page
Nobody in Dubai reads a two-page student CV. Education, any work at all including retail and tutoring, projects, skills, languages. Languages matter far more here than in most markets — say if you have Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Russian, Tagalog or Mandarin.
-
Ask your university first
Every Dubai university has a careers office holding employer relationships students never hear about. They are underused to the point that asking puts you near the front of a very short queue.
-
Check what your visa allows
A student visa is not automatically a work permit. Paid internships usually need a training or internship permit arranged by the employer, and universities can often sponsor one. Confirm before you accept, not after.
-
Email in the quiet months
A direct, short email in November about a June start is read. The same email in April joins two hundred others. The calendar is the single biggest lever a student has here.
-
Accept the unglamorous one
A logistics internship in Jebel Ali converts into a graduate offer more often than a marketing internship at a name you recognise, because far fewer people applied and you will be given real work.
Visa and permit rules change, and yours depend on your nationality, your university and how the internship is structured. Treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with your university's careers office before you accept a paid role.
Internships in Dubai, answered
The questions students ask us most, answered properly rather than in a sentence.
See how students actually got inYes, and it is common. The condition is permission to work, not nationality. An unpaid, university-credited placement is usually straightforward. A paid internship normally requires a training or internship permit, which the employer or your university arranges.
Confirm the paperwork before you start. An employer offering to pay you cash with no permit is asking you to carry a risk that is entirely yours.
It varies by sector. Banking, logistics, engineering and larger tech employers usually pay a monthly stipend. Media, creative agencies and smaller startups often offer unpaid or credit-only placements, though this is slowly changing.
Ask directly and early. Dubai employers are used to the question and are not offended by it, and the answer tells you how seriously the role is being taken.
For structured programmes at banks and large firms, the previous September or October. For tech, media, logistics and hospitality, February to April is normal, and rolling applications mean earlier is simply better.
The autumn window between September and November is the least contested time of year to find a placement and almost nobody uses it.
Not for your first one. Hospitality, retail, events, tutoring and campus society roles all count as experience, and employers here read them as evidence that you turn up and can deal with people.
For technical roles a visible project is worth more than any of it. A repository someone can open answers the question an interview would otherwise take an hour to answer.
University career portals, LinkedIn, and direct email. Very few reach the large job boards, because student roles are filled before anyone pays to advertise them.
The most effective single tactic is a short, specific email to a named person at a company you can explain why you want to join. It works far more often in Dubai than students expect.
Frequently. Conversion is the normal hiring route for a lot of Dubai employers, particularly in logistics, hospitality, real estate and startups, because it is cheaper and lower risk than recruiting a stranger.
Treat the placement as a twelve-week interview. Ask about conversion in your final fortnight rather than on your last day, when the decision has already been made.
You will hear about the first role before anyone else does.
The board goes live with the platform. Registering now is the difference between reading a listing on day one and reading it after four hundred people have.
584 students already registered