Planning for Your Children's Education and Future
Two things decide how an internationally mobile childhood actually turns out, and neither of them is an investment return.
The first is whether the fees keep being paid — through a job change, an illness, a move, a bad year. The second is whether anyone has written down who looks after the children if you cannot.
Both are unglamorous. Both are usually assumed rather than arranged.
School fees are the commitment, and they are the inflexible one
For most expatriate families here, private schooling is not a choice between options; it is the arrangement, and frequently the household’s largest recurring outgoing after housing. It is also the least compressible — you cannot economise on a term the way you can on a holiday, and a mid-year change of school has costs that are not financial.
Two features of how fees work are worth knowing precisely.
Increases are capped by a published mechanism. In Dubai the regulator sets a maximum permitted annual increase through an Education Cost Index — 2.6% for 2024–25 and 2.35% for 2025–26 — and for 2026–27 fee increases have been frozen entirely as part of a wider economic support package. Useful protection, with a caveat that matters for budgeting: the freeze applies to tuition. Transport, uniforms, trips and activity charges are not covered, and those are the lines that quietly grow.
Fees are billed in advance, by term, with a registration deposit capped at a proportion of annual tuition and set against the term’s fees. A family is therefore committed a term ahead — precisely the interval over which an income shock does its damage.
There are also rules about what a school may do if fees go unpaid: it may withhold reports, transfer certificates and a place for the following year, but may not prevent a child sitting examinations, and must give notice before re-enrolment is at risk. Nobody plans for this, and knowing its shape is part of understanding what the commitment is.
University: the fact worth knowing five years early
For British families, the largest single variable in the cost of a child’s degree is not the university. It is whether the child qualifies for home fees or international fees — and for a family living abroad, that is not automatic.
The general rule in England is that a student must have been ordinarily resident in the UK for the three years immediately before the course starts, and not resident mainly for the purpose of full-time education. A child educated in Dubai does not meet that on its face.
There is an exception, and it decides the outcome for this audience. A student can be treated as though ordinarily resident for a period during which a parent was temporarily employed outside the UK — provided they can show they would have been ordinarily resident there but for that employment.
The word doing the work is “temporarily”, and it has no fixed definition — no number of years is written into the rules. It is assessed on the facts: whether the posting was genuinely for a limited period, whether there was an intention to return, and evidence beyond simply holding a residence visa or a fixed-term contract. Reported cases give a sense of the range rather than a rule: an initial three-year contract has been treated as arguably temporary, a position accumulating to around eight years was regarded as problematic, and thirteen years abroad was not accepted as temporary at all. Every case is assessed individually, on documentary evidence.
Why this matters in money: maximum home-fee tuition in England is £9,790 a year for 2026–27, rising to £10,050 for 2027–28. International undergraduate fees are set by each university and commonly run from around £10,000 to upwards of £38,000 a year, with clinical and laboratory subjects and the most selective institutions materially higher.
Across a three- or four-year degree that is not a rounding difference. It is the difference between a cost most families can plan for and one that changes what is possible — and it turns on how long a parent’s employment abroad has lasted and how it can be evidenced. Which is a very good reason to look at it while the child is thirteen rather than seventeen.
Funding it: what actually determines the plan
Once the commitments are known, the funding question is more tractable than it feels.
Time horizon per child, per stage. School fees are a near-term liability paid termly; university is a lump-sum-shaped liability a decade or more out. Different problems, frequently funded as though they were one.
Currency. School fees are payable in dirhams, UK university fees in sterling. The currency you save in should follow the currency the bill arrives in.
Sequencing. Children rarely reach expensive stages simultaneously, and the overlaps and gaps are predictable years ahead — which is where the room in a plan usually is.
What happens if the income stops, which is why education funding cannot sensibly be discussed apart from protection.
The part that is a legal document, not a financial one
If both parents die, the question of who raises the children is answered by law and by whatever has been written down — not by what everyone assumed, and not by a note in a drawer.
For an internationally mobile family that question is genuinely complicated, because the answer can involve where the children live, what the courts there will do, whether a will has been registered in a form recognised there, and what the intended guardians’ own country would say. A will registered through the DIFC Courts Wills Service, for instance, is open to non-Muslims of any nationality including non-residents, and can appoint interim and permanent guardians — but only for children resident in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah, and residence is tested at probate rather than at signing. For a family living in Abu Dhabi or Sharjah, the guardianship appointment may not apply at all. For a family that registers in Dubai and later moves to another emirate, it can stop applying, with nothing in the will itself having changed.
What determines whether an arrangement works is the fit between the document, the jurisdiction and the family’s circumstances. What is certain is that with no registered instruction, the decision is made by a process rather than by you.
Whether you need a UAE will, and what it can cover, is set out properly in Do British Expats in Dubai Need a UAE Will? — worth reading before anything on this page is acted on. Alongside it sit the arrangements nobody thinks of as planning: whether a surviving partner could access money in the first week, whether the intended guardians know they are the intended guardians, and whether anyone could find the policies, the accounts and the school records.
Reviewing it as they grow
A plan made when children are small is answering questions that stop applying. It is worth revisiting when a child changes school or a curriculum choice narrows the university options; when your own employment or country changes, which per the section above may affect fee status; when a second child reaches an expensive stage; and when guardians move country or your relationship with them changes.
How Paul builds a family-future plan
Paul Butler has worked in finance and financial services for 30 years, including 15 years advising internationally mobile professionals. Based in Dubai since 2011, he is a Private Wealth Partner at Skybound Wealth Management.
The conversation covers the commitments in front of you and the ones coming, in the currencies they will actually be paid in; what is already set aside and whether it is in the right place for the horizon; what would happen to the plan if an income stopped; and which parts of this are financial questions and which are legal documents that need a specialist. It also covers the sequencing, which is usually where the room in a plan turns out to be.
The information here is general in nature and is not a personal recommendation. Personal financial advice is only given after a formal engagement with Skybound Wealth Management, following a full assessment of your circumstances, objectives and risk profile.
Find out where you stand
The Vulnerability Test covers fifteen areas where internationally mobile households are commonly exposed, including children’s protection and guardianship. It takes a few minutes and produces a scored view of the gaps.
Related reading
- Do British Expats in Dubai Need a UAE Will?wills, guardianship and what a registered instrument can do.
- Family Resiliencethe full hub on wills, liquidity and emergency planning for expat families.
- What Should Be in an Expat Family Emergency File?the documents someone else would need to find.
- Life Insurance and Protection Planning for Expatssizing cover against commitments that run for years.
Important information: General educational information only; not personal financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Treatment depends on individual circumstances and can change. Obtain jurisdiction-specific advice before acting. Planning on Purpose is Paul Butler’s educational platform; regulated financial advice is provided through the relevant Skybound Wealth entity.