Make the offer in a band you can defend
You are closing a candidate for a senior role and the offer has to land. Too low and they walk; too high and finance pushes back on the band ceiling. The right number sits between the range you have seen recently and what the candidate is asking, and you have about 24 hours to decide. The fast option today is to ask the recruiter what they are hearing, useful but from someone whose incentives differ from yours. The slower option is an annual survey or salary guide, neither refreshed this month, so the figure is one to eighteen months stale. The fallback is to anchor on your last similar offer and pad it ten percent, then hope the candidate does not push. You need a market reference more current and more credible than any of those.
How Tenure solves it
Tenure turns the offer decision from a 24-hour conversation into a 15-minute lookup, with the evidence attached.
The published Pay Index bands give the P25, median, and P75 in total monthly cash for the exact role, level, country, and city you are hiring for, across UAE and Saudi. You place the offer inside a range built from verified primary sources, not a single anchor point.
Every band shows its source count, so you know how much evidence stands behind the number before you commit to it. Five or more verified sources is enough to anchor an offer; below the three-source floor, Tenure does not publish a band rather than show you a thin guess.
The city cut matters here. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh bands differ, and the Pay Index keeps them separate so you are not averaging two markets into one offer.
When finance asks why the number, the answer is on the band: Tenure shows n verified data points, median in dirhams or riyals, refreshed this quarter. The offer-justification doc writes itself.
The workflow, step by step
Before extending an offer, find the role, level, and city in the published Pay Index bands. Check the P25 to P75 range and the source count on the band. Decide where in the band the offer sits: anchor at median to leave room for performance increases, at P75 if the candidate is weighing competing offers. Note the source count in your offer-justification doc so finance has the evidence with the number. Make the offer inside the band. When a counter-offer comes back, check where it lands against the same band and defend your position with the source count rather than a gut call. The decision that used to take a day of back-and-forth becomes a lookup you can finish before the next meeting.
Sample bands
The table at the foot of this page shows representative Strategy Consulting bands, pulled live from the same Pay Index the dashboard serves, so the offer you anchor matches what the candidate's recruiter is seeing. The full view covers all 12 sectors across UAE and Saudi, broken out by level and city, with the source count on every row. See the published Pay Index bands for the exact role, level, and city before you send the offer.
FAQs
Find the role, level, country, and city you are hiring for in the published Pay Index bands and read the P25, median, and P75 in total monthly cash. Place the offer inside that band: anchor at median when you want room for performance increases, at P75 when the candidate has competing offers. Check the source count first; five or more verified sources is enough to set the number. A band sourced and dated beats anchoring on your last similar offer plus ten percent.
The published UAE Strategy Consulting Manager band runs roughly AED 56,600 to 76,600 in total monthly cash, with a median near AED 66,600, as of the May 2026 refresh. The Pay Index publishes the band by city with the source count behind it, so Riyadh and Dubai stay separate and you are not averaging two markets into one number.
When a counter-offer lands, check where it sits against the band. If the counter pushes above P75, you are no longer competing on market rate; you are in a retention bidding decision, and the source count tells you how firm the ceiling is. If it sits inside the band, you can match it with a sourced justification rather than a gut call. Either way, you answer finance with Tenure shows n verified sources, median X, not with a number you cannot defend.
Pull the band before you send the offer
Find the role and city in the published Pay Index bands and anchor the offer inside the published range with its source count. The methodology behind every band is public at the methodology page.
Sample bands
The Pay Index is still building depth for Strategy & Consulting. Talk to us about your specific role mix and we will tell you what we have today and when we expect to publish the bands you need.