TAKING the biggest gamble of his life in June 2016, Euan Craigie booked a one-way ticket to Dubai, leaving behind his £375,000 first home, his girlfriend and a £70k-a-year sales job.
He dreamt of earning a six-figure tax-free salary and living a glamorous beachfront lifestyle – but before long he was desperate to leave after discovering the dark side of the desert city.
“The job was horrendous,” Euan, 33, says.
“Dubai life looks glamorous online, but I was making 100 cold calls a day, finishing at 11pm, then hopping on Zoom calls with Canadian clients at 3am and back at work at 6am. Everyone was fighting for deals, and I barely slept.”
Thousands of Brits have moved to Dubai seeking Instagram-worthy lifestyles, year-round sunshine and above all, tax-free salaries.
Unlike the UK, where workers pay 20% on earnings between £12,571 to £50,270 a year, 40% on earnings between £50,271 to £125,140, and 45% on earnings above this, you don’t pay ANY personal taxes in Dubai.
With the Chancellor Rachel Reeves expected to freeze income tax thresholds, which will raise income tax bills for millions in her Budget, even more Brits could be thinking of fleeing to Dubai to escape the tax crunch.
Ideally income tax brackets should rise along with wage growth, but when they don’t it means people get dragged into higher tax brackets than they otherwise would – which means your tax bill goes up.
Around 240,000 UK expats already live in Dubai, but there’s more to the city than sleek skyscrapers and Ferraris, as Euan discovered. He talks to Sun Money about why quitting Dubai to move back to the UK was the best business decision he ever made.
‘I was working 18-hour days – I felt lonely’
Euan first considered moving to Dubai in March 2016, when he was working at Audi.
He was the company’s star salesman and had just broken the record for selling the most cars in East Anglia in 2015, flogging 281 luxury motors in just 12 months.
Impressed with his sales prowess, Audi sent Euan to Germany as a reward.
He says: “That’s where I met a salesman from another car brand who said, ‘You’re hungry, you’re great at sales, go to Dubai, earn amazing tax-free money‘.”
Dubai is a notoriously difficult place to succeed, as many workers around the world move there to take advantage of its tax-free system.
But Euan was convinced he could break through and earn a six-figure salary. A month later, he decided to risk it all and move to the city.
It was odd timing – Euan, then 22, had just bought his dream home in Norwich for £375,000, putting “every single penny I’d ever earned” towards the £82,000 deposit.
He says: “I was so nervous about leaving it all behind for Dubai.
“I was leaving behind my girlfriend, my new house, and my friends thought I was mad – especially as I was selling so many cars, why would I leave all that behind? I didn’t even know if I could sell a house as I’d never done that before.
“But while I had a steady base in the UK, I wanted more.”
I hated the hustle culture, and it was really lonely
Euan Craigie
After Euan landed in Dubai, he applied for a job as an estate agent after seeing the role advertised with a £200k tax-free salary on LinkedIn – and was hired on the spot.
But as soon as Euan started his new role, he began to have second thoughts about his big gamble.
He was paid a “zero salary”, which means he was on commission-only, taking home money only if he struck a deal, and he had to work a gruelling schedule.
In his first year, he made £60,000 – less than when he was in the UK selling cars.
“I’d left the house of my dreams in the UK to live in what’s called a ‘maids room’ in Dubai,” he said.
“It was a mattress on the floor, and a tiny standing shower in the corner – that was it. I shared a kitchen and toilet with four other people.
“A single mattress didn’t fit on the floor, so I slept on it with the corners bent in, but the rent was still £800 a month.”
Euan found the constant grind of work exhausting.
He says: “It was the job – it was insane. It was the 18-hour days, and people would pull out of deals last minute.
“Dubai is the most competitive place in the world. There were thousands of estate agents fighting over the same crumbs – and it’s even worse now, so many more are out there.
“I didn’t see any of the big Dubai sights everyone’s posting on social media; it was just work, work, work. I hated the hustle culture, and it was really lonely.
“In the first year, my girlfriend flew out every month, but I was working so much I barely had time to miss her – it was so difficult.”
How he ditched his ‘golden handcuffs’ for £12k income in UK
As Euan began to settle into Dubai life and build up his contacts, he started earning more money.
By 2018 – two years later – he was earning a whopping £200,000 a year. He was flying back and forth between Dubai and the UK to visit his family and girlfriend, Hollie, who he married later that year.
Although Hollie moved over to be with Euan, they decided to plot their return to their hometown in Norwich.
He says: “Although I was earning a lot, I was in golden handcuffs – you needed the cash to pay for the expensive food and rent, and you had no life.
“I was working every hour of every day. Hollie had joined me, and we’d left the maid’s room for a small apartment.
“But I couldn’t sustain Dubai working life – it was just too stressful and relentless.”
Euan decided to put his newfound knowledge of property to good use and started to research how to invest in the property market in the UK.
Now that Hollie was no longer living in their Norwich house, he decided to rent it out to boost his income and made £1,500 a month, which covered the mortgage.
Dubai is the most competitive place in the world. There were thousands of estate agents fighting over the same crumbs
Euan Craigie
Thanks to the money he had saved from his high-paid job, as well as the rental income he was making from his Norwich home, Euan saved enough to buy his first property in Norwich – a six-bed student house – for £210,000, while he was still living in Dubai.
He rented it out to students and made £2,000 a month.
“When the rent started coming in, I thought, ‘This is it, my plan is working’,” he said.
He used the rental income to save up for a deposit for another home, and then another, as he built up his property portfolio.
By the time Euan returned to the UK in 2021, with Hollie and their newborn Grayson, now 5, he owned six rental homes and made £12,000 in rental income, before bills, insurance and expenses.
He says: “I couldn’t keep working at that rate, and wanted to bring our son to the UK.
“The Dubai dream looks fantastic when you hear about huge salaries, but many of my friends who are still there now would give it up in a heartbeat because it’s so stressful.
“Every month you start on zero again – thousands of British property agents are now out there fighting for scraps. They’re making enough to survive but not much else.”
How to become your own boss
Fancy ditching the 9-to-5 and becoming your own boss? First you need a plan.
Whether you want to open a nail bar or build an online brand, work out how your idea will stand out.
Does it have the makings of a viral hit? Fulfil a local need? Or is it something totally new?
Do your research: 42% of startups fail as lack of research means they launch products nobody wants or needs, according to CB Insights.
You’ll need a name that stands out and is easy to remember.
Check that it’s available to register as a domain online – rebranding later can cost a bomb.
You can build a site for free or low cost with Wix.com or GoDaddy.
Remember, there are restrictions on what you can choose as a company name: it can’t be too similar to others already out there.
The full rules are on the government website.
To get your business off the ground you will need to register it.
Most start-ups either opt to be a sole trader, or a limited company.
A sole trader is the easiest and cheapest option: it means you’re in charge of all business decisions and keep all the profits after paying tax.
A limited company is a private company, legally separate from its founders, so anyone who runs it is named as a director.
You’ll have to submit full accounts and pay corporate tax each year – but you are protected from going personally bankrupt if the business flops.
The BRRR method YOU can follow to get rich
Now settled in his £1.1 million six-bedroom Norwich mansion with Hollie and two kids – Grayson and Mila, 3 – Euan has built up his property portfolio to 34 homes, all within a mile of the University of East Anglia.
These homes are collectively worth over £14.2million.
The money he gets from rent is worth £1.3million a year. After his mortgage bills for each property and maintenance costs are paid – which costs around £51,000 a month, he makes a profit of £700,000 a year.
He pays himself a salary of £50,000 to keep himself in a lower tax band. For the rest of the money left over, he reinvests it in his business, or pays himself a certain level of dividends.
Dividends are a way for you to pay yourself from your own company’s profits. Many business owners pay themselves this way as it’s more tax-efficient than paying yourself through PAYE.
He followed a strategy called the BRRR Method – “Buy, Refurbish, Rent, Refinance, Repeat,” to build his property empire.
Euan explains: “I buy a property at a low price, renovate it, then remortgage based on its new, higher value.
“I then strip out most of my funds from that property to reinvest in a new one.”
This means that he withdraws most of the money from the property, known as “equity release”.
He then uses this money as a deposit to buy another property.
He manages the properties himself, with an on-call maintenance team and an assistant to reply to tenants’ WhatsApp messages.
He says: “It’s usually about leaks, or showers overflowing, or people not knowing how to change a light bulb or use an electric hob.”
Now, his ambition is to hit 50 properties by the time he’s 36 – in three years’ time.
He’s bought a £115,000 Range Rover HSE Dynamic, but says he’s not a big spender.
He adds: “I don’t go shopping – when I’ve had nice watches, I’ve just sold them for new property deals.
“I sacrificed my 20s for this life – working seven days a week from 16 to 28, even on Christmas Day. I didn’t party. I just worked.”
Despite the challenges of living in Dubai, Euan hasn’t ruled out moving back.
“Dubai changed my life – not just the money I earned out there, but also the education from the people I met.
“We might move out there again.
“But would I go back and do my old job again now? Probably not.”
How you can build a property empire of your own
FOLLOW our steps to be a landlord and make enough to ditch the 9-5.
First up, you’ll need cash. This is more than just a deposit for the property.
Budget for repairs, renovations, agent fees and those dreaded empty periods when no rent is coming in.
Most new landlords start with a buy-to-let mortgage, which usually means stumping up at least a 25% deposit.
The rent must cover your mortgage – plus a buffer – and interest rates are often higher than on standard mortgages.
You’ll also need to show lenders you can cover repayments even if interest rates rise. Some use savings, release equity from their own home, or team up with an investor.
Then there’s tax – which is more complicated – and expensive – than it used to be.
Landlords pay income tax on profits, and capital gains tax (CGT) when they sell a property. This is a tax on any profit you make when you sell certain assets.
You get a £3,000 annual tax-free allowance and the current rates are 24% for higher‑rate taxpayers and 18% for basic‑rate taxpayers.
Landlords also pay 5% extra in stamp duty tax when they buy a property.
That’s why some landlords set up limited companies, paying corporation tax instead – but it means more admin and extra costs.
Still keen? Then it’s time to go house-hunting. Focus on high-demand areas like uni towns or commuter hotspots where rent stays strong.
Landlords will often snap up tired or badly-maintained properties, give them a glow-up, then remortgage to free up cash for the next deal.