My Dubai Salary: ‘I earned Dh600,000 as a real estate broker in 12 months’

Blake Runciman works as a commercial real estate broker with Dubai property agency Allsopp & Allsopp.

He deals in sales and rentals of offices, warehouses, buildings and land plots.

The 24-year-old Briton, who is originally from Birmingham in the UK, lives in Jumeirah Village Circle in Dubai.

He moved to the UAE alone last year and does not have any financial dependents.

Mr Runciman’s parents divorced when he was young and he has six siblings.

He did his BTech in business from Birmingham Metropolitan College.

I joined Allsopp & Allsopp in October 2022. I attended a recruitment event organised by the agency in Birmingham. They hold these events all around the UK.

After the event, the recruiters reached out to me and held one more interview discussing more about the job, what it includes and the training. They fully onboard successful candidates and arrange for accommodation, a car and other stuff, including the visa, in Dubai.

You need to have a lot of drive and be hard working. You need to be the most hard-working person in the room. But you don’t need to be academically smart.

It’s good if you’re a people person, confident and want to do something with your life.

Once you reach Dubai, you have to be trained by the Real Estate Regulatory Agency, which my agency arranged for me.

I did a week of training with Rera and then took an exam.