On 16 August 2026 the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD), in partnership with the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing, announced a decision raising the Saudization rate for project management professions in the private sector to 70%, effective 14 February 2027.
The decision covers every private-sector establishment employing three or more workers in the targeted professions, and the rate is calculated at entity level rather than per branch. Between the announcement and the effective date there are roughly six months — one hiring cycle, in professions where qualified supply is already tight.
Key Highlights
- The rate is 70% of total headcount in the targeted professions within the entity.
- Effective 14 February 2027, about six months after the announcement.
- Three targeted professions under the Saudi Unified Occupational Classification: project management manager, project management engineer, and project management specialist.
- The trigger is three or more workers in those specific professions, not in the establishment overall.
- Calculated at entity level, so branches are aggregated rather than assessed separately.
- Rounding goes up: an establishment with five workers in the targeted professions needs four Saudis, because 70% of five is 3.5, which rounds to four.
- Support programmes cited by the ministry cover sourcing, training and qualification, retention, and priority access to Saudization support schemes.
How the Rate Is Actually Calculated
The formula itself is simple: Saudis in project management professions divided by total workers in those same professions, times one hundred. Three practical points are where establishments get it wrong:
The numerator and denominator move together. An employer with ten workers in the targeted professions, three of them Saudi, does not need four hires to reach 70%. Each additional Saudi hire raises the numerator and the denominator at once, whereas replacing a non-Saudi with a Saudi raises the numerator and leaves the denominator unchanged. The two routes produce very different numbers, and you can measure both directly in the Nitaqat calculator by entering 70 as the required rate.
What counts is the registered occupation, not the internal job title. The calculation runs on the occupation recorded in the contract authenticated through the Qiwa platform, not on what your organisation chart calls a project manager. Registering a non-Saudi worker under a different occupation to dodge the quota is a violation in its own right.
A profession quota is not Nitaqat. This is an occupational localization decision computed inside the targeted professions only, and it is separate from the entity-wide Saudization rate behind the Nitaqat Motawar programme. An establishment is bound by both at the same time, and can sit in a green band while breaching the profession decision.
One Point That Needs Verifying: the Wage Floor
The earlier decision covering these professions (No. 141749) set two phases at 35% then 40%, and required that a Saudi count toward the rate only if paid at least 6,000 riyals a month as registered with the General Organization for Social Insurance. For the new decision, press reports differ on whether that wage condition still stands. Do not build a hiring plan on a news report: the procedural guide published on the ministry's website is the only reference for counting conditions, mechanics and compliance controls.
Impact on Employers
The window is short, and the first four steps need no budget:
- Export the occupations actually registered in Qiwa for each worker and compare them against internal titles. The gap between the two is the first thing an inspection surfaces.
- Quantify the gap before drafting a hiring plan: how many Saudis are needed to reach 70% by replacement, and how many by net addition.
- Wire the calculation to a live data source instead of a spreadsheet refreshed once a quarter. Teams building this in code will find the full formula and constants in our guide to building a Saudization engine in TypeScript.
- Model every resignation and every hire before it happens, because the rate moves with any change inside the targeted professions.
Penalties for non-compliance with occupational localization decisions include suspension of the establishment's electronic services: inbound and outbound transfer of services, work permit issuance, and recruitment.
Background
The decision extends a long run of occupational localization rulings covering hundreds of private-sector professions in recent years — accounting, engineering, marketing and sales, customer service and others — at rates ranging from 30% to 70%. What is new here is the partner: the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing, the authority behind most of the infrastructure and urban development projects that employ these professions.
What's Next
The procedural guide on the ministry's website is the operative document: it lists the covered professions with their classification codes, the calculation mechanism, and the compliance controls. Establishments that manage Saudization in a manually updated spreadsheet will discover their rate after a breach rather than before it.
If your organisation needs HR data wired into Qiwa and Saudization rates measured automatically before each hiring decision, get in touch for a free diagnostic session and we will review your integration setup.
Source: Saudi Press Agency (SPA)