Career Opportunities for Doctors in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has the largest population of the Middle East Gulf States and the lowest percentage of expatriate workers. Nevertheless its healthcare system continues to expand in response to increasing demands from its growing population and despite the proliferation of medical schools and locally qualified doctors in the country, there is still a strong demand for international physicians and healthcare staff, especially those with rare skills or a high degree of specialisation.

However, before doctors apply for jobs in Saudi Arabia, they should be aware that there are two distinct and separate components to the healthcare system, the public and the private, which require varied skills and offer different employment and remuneration terms. You must understand the differences between these so that you can decide which sector (or both) is right for you and then tailor your job applications, curriculum vitae (CV) and interview technique accordingly.

We shall start with an overview of both sectors and then contrast the employment and remuneration terms offered and the skills you need to succeed in each sector.

The Public Healthcare Sector

The Saudi Arabian public healthcare system was modelled on the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) with primary, secondary and tertiary medical care provided free of charge at the point of delivery to all Saudi Arabian citizens.

It is funded by the Government's large budget surplus derived from oil and gas revenues. The system evolved rapidly from the 1970s until the early 2000s and more slowly thereafter.

There are three different groups of public hospitals:

1: The Ministry of Health (MOH)

The Ministry of Health owns and operates 80% of public hospitals in Saudi Arabia and formulates health policy and regulation of hospitals and clinics for both public and private sectors. The MOH provides acute, elective and long term medical care to the civilian population via clinics, secondary and tertiary care hospitals.

2: Military and Police Hospitals

The Ministry of the National Guard Health Affairs runs hospitals across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which cater to the National Guard staff and their families. The hospitals are of high standard and hold accreditation from the Joint Commission International (JCI).

The Ministry of Defence and Aviation operates over 26 hospitals in Saudi Arabia for the services of the armed forces and their family members. The major hospitals are in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam and details of these can be read here.

The Security Forces Hospitals cater to the police and security services, although do provide emergency medical care to civilians.

3: The King Faisal Specialist Hospitals and Research Centres (KFSHRC)

The King Faisal Specialist Hospitals and Research Centres represent the pinnacle of the Saudi healthcare sector providing highly specialised tertiary medical care to civilian and military populations and conduct clinical research and medical education.

The Medical Consultant Role in the Public Sector

The public healthcare system aims to provide the population with the best quality of medical care possible using the available resources of facilities, equipment, staff and budgets. Many of the hospitals hold international accreditation including the prestigious Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation from the Joint Commission of the USA.

The public sector trains most of Saudi Arabia's medical graduates at undergraduate and postgraduate levels providing clinical training, internships, residency programs and fellowships and it conducts a limited amount of clinical research.

Its function is therefore clinical, educational and research orientated.

Consultants are fully trained medical specialist physicians who lead teams of junior doctors - specialists, residents and interns to provide the best specialist clinical service possible in collaboration with other consultants in the same department. Consultants work under the delegated authority of a Clinical or Medical Director and usually have some responsibility for the supervision, mentoring and education of their junior staff.

The Private Healthcare Sector

Private healthcare in Saudi Arabia started in the 1970s with modest beginnings. One of the first hospitals was Dr Soliman Fakeeh Hospital in Jeddah which became a trailblazer for the sector and was one if its chief innovators pioneering new medical technologies and treatments. Whilst this company remained localized to the Hijaz (it later opened a hospital in Dubai), new companies opened in Riyadh and other cities of Saudi Arabia.

One of the oldest private healthcare companies is Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group which opened its first hospital in Riyadh in 1986. This company rapidly expanded, opening hospitals and polyclinics in Saudi Arabia, Dubai UAE and Bahrain, eventually floating on the Saudi Arabian stock exchange in 2021 with an oversubscribed IPO which raised further capital for new hospital constructions across the Kingdom.

Since the early 2000s, and particularly since the development of healthcare policy as detailed in Vision 2030, the Saudi Arabian government's plan for wide ranging economic diversification, the emphasis has been diverted from public healthcare to the development of the private healthcare sector, which has grown rapidly.

Some hospital companies are privately owned and often run as family businesses but others, like Al Habib Group, are publicly traded companies with both private individual and institutional investors.

Whilst the private sector aims to provide quality medical care, and many hospitals within the sector hold prestigious international accreditations, the overriding goal is profit. This is particularly acute when there are institutional investors who demand solid returns on their capital invested.

Private hospitals have a very limited role in medical education, although Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Group has bucked the trend by opening an academy which provides medical education programs, publishes a medical journal and makes awards for outstanding research.

The Medical Consultant Role in the Private Sector

The consultant in the private hospital may be supported by a team of specialists and residents but is often a sole practitioner responsible for managing his or her own patients, growing the practice and outshining the competition, which can be intense in the major cities.. 

Hospitals and clinics manage the billing and administration of the practice for the consultant, provide the equipment and infrastructure, the support staff and some marketing and a guaranteed salary but the rest is up to the consultant who will succeed or fail in the market on his own merits. The hospital management judges success first by profit, secondly by revenue and finally by clinical outcomes.

Employment Terms - Public Versus Private

The table below lists the main employment terms you would expect to see on a job offer and contrasts the offerings of public and private sector. As you will see, the offerings of both sectors are comparable in terms of basic salaries and legal requirements such as healthcare insurance and end of service awards which employers must provide to all employees. However there are important differences in rates of pay, annual and study leave, family benefits, specifically education allowances and incentive schemes which require closer inspection.

The main differences between public and private sector are:

• the actual amount of hours worked for the salary. You will note that the private sector has a 6 day working week in contrast to the 5 days of the public sector which means that the daily/hourly pay rate is lower, although the monthly total is comparable.
• reduced holiday entitlement in the private sector which awards the legal minimum or just above that compared to the more generous awards of the public sector which often gives up to 60 days per year plus public holidays. Official public holidays are 14 per annum in Saudi Arabia but many private hospitals award just 10 days to employees each year.
• study leave is an entitlement in the public sector whereas in the private sector it is negotiable and dependent upon circumstances. These circumstances often include a requirement to work a minimum time period which may be 6-12 months.
• education allowances for children are usual in the public sector but not always in the private sector which varies according to the policies of the employer.
• incentive schemes / profit share schemes may be offered by private sector employers but depend upon the employer policies and crucially on the employee performance. The terms of any incentive schemes should be incorporated into employment contracts. If they are not, they will not be actioned. Read more about this in our guide to physician remuneration in Saudi Arabia.