UAE report urges policy push to move women into built environment leadership

New research published by Grant Thornton UAE and Heriot-Watt University Dubai argues that the policy, education and industry sectors of the UAE must work together more deliberately if women are to convert strong educational attainment into leadership roles across the country’s built environment. The report, the third edition of the Grant Thornton UAE Discovery Series, follows a 2025 study into female representation in financial services. It frames the question of who shapes the built environment as one of institutional design rather than individual achievement alone.

The findings arrive at a moment when the sector’s economic weight gives its governance choices broad consequence. More than a fifth of the UAE economy is directly tied to the built environment, with construction accounting for 12.9 percent of GDP in 2025 and real estate a further 7.4 percent. The UAE is the Gulf’s largest construction market by project volume, with 628 active developments worth $138 billion as of mid-2026.

Titled “Building the UAE’s next chapter. How women are reshaping value, resilience and innovation in the built environment,” the report draws on in-depth interviews with five senior women leaders spanning construction, technology, architecture, real estate, sustainability advocacy and education. It also profiles a further 20 women whose work has visibly shaped the country’s physical landscape and urban development.

The central accountability question the research identifies is a pipeline problem. The UAE has one of the strongest pools of female STEM talent in the world, with women accounting for 56 percent of STEM graduates. Yet translating that talent into senior leadership remains a challenge globally, and the report suggests the UAE is not exempt.

Professor Dame Heather McGregor, Provost and Vice Principal of Heriot-Watt University Dubai, points to the gap between the talent coming through and the leaders at the top. “The UAE has shown what is possible when policy, education and industry work together,” she says. “The talent is there. The opportunity now is to ensure more women are supported to build lasting careers and progress into leadership. As the built environment becomes more complex and skills-intensive, this is more than a question of representation, it is a business imperative.”

Her argument places responsibility on the institutions that set working conditions and career structures, not only on the women navigating them. International comparisons underscore the stakes. Women make up around 14 percent of the construction workforce in both the US and the EU, and in the UK almost half of the women who leave the industry do so before the age of 34. Long hours, rigid working patterns and male-dominated cultures are the barriers most often cited, conditions that reflect organisational policy choices as much as individual preferences.

Hisham Farouk, CEO of Grant Thornton UAE, frames the moment in similar terms, arguing that having built ambitiously for the future, the UAE now has the opportunity to be equally ambitious about who shapes that future. The women featured in the report, he notes, are already shaping how communities are designed, how technology is adopted and how future talent is developed. Making their leadership more visible and widening the path for others to lead, he suggests, would build a sector that is more innovative and resilient.

Among those interviewed are Dr Habiba Al Mar’ashi, Co-founder and Board Member of the Emirates Green Building Council; Mireille Azzam-Vidjen, Executive Director and Head of Strategic Consulting Middle East and Africa at JLL; Dr Harpreet Seth, Head of Architecture and Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt University Dubai; Leila Sobek, Founder and Director of BMA Studio; and Dr Sonia Zahiroddiny, Chief Information Officer at Innovo Group.

A key theme emerging from the interviews is the importance of creating liveable, sustainable communities built around human needs, a shift the report reads as moving beyond landmark construction towards more complex, multi-disciplinary projects that require diverse perspectives. The leaders agreed that artificial intelligence will play an important role in the sector’s future, but as a tool that enhances human judgement, creativity and expertise rather than replacing it. AI is already being used to measure emissions, improve legacy data and support design and construction processes, yet people will remain central to decision-making.

The report paints a picture of a sector undergoing significant transformation. While iconic buildings remain a symbol of the UAE’s success, it concludes that the future of the built environment will increasingly be defined by sustainable communities, technological innovation and diverse leadership, and that empowering more women into leadership roles could be one of the foundations of the country’s next chapter.