Mining & metals practice
From greenfield exploration camps in the Arabian Shield to fully ramped processing operations, we place the geologists, mining engineers, metallurgists, operators and site leadership that mining projects in Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf actually run on.
Source: Ministry of Industry & Mineral Resources and Vision 2030 programme targets. Figures are sector-wide, not company performance.
The operating context we recruit into
Why a specialist desk
Mining hiring fails in predictable ways, and almost all of them come back to a shortlist assembled by someone who could not assess the work.
Sector
Consultants assigned to mining alone — not a generalist desk covering mining between construction and logistics. They know what a Competent Person sign-off means and why a flotation commissioning window cannot slip.
Region
Fluent in Saudi labour law, Saudization and Emiratisation rules, visa realities and remote-site logistics — with reach into the established mining markets of Australia, South Africa, Canada, Chile and the Nordics.
Method
Every shortlist is assessed against the commodity, the mining method and the operating stage, with technical interviews and reference checks that go to site performance rather than years served.
Safety
A hire who will not hold a standard at 3am is a liability regardless of their CV. We screen for safety leadership explicitly, and we say no when it is not there.
The mandate
Saudi Arabia has the geology, the capital and the licensing regime. What it is short of — and what every operator, contractor and investor in the sector is competing for — is proven mining talent on the ground.
Your competitors are mobilising right now. The question is whether the people who know how to run the plant are joining their roster or yours.
senior mining roles in the Gulf are filled by people who were not looking when they were approached. They are employed, on a roster they know, and they will not answer an advert. That is a search problem, not an advertising problem — and it is the one we are built for.
Mining is now the third pillar of Saudi industry alongside oil and petrochemicals. Phosphate and bauxite at Waad al-Shamal and Al-Baitha, gold across the Arabian Shield, copper and zinc at Jabal Sayid, and a fast-growing downstream base in Ras al-Khair and Jubail have created demand for skills that simply did not exist at scale in the region ten years ago.
The shortage is specific, not general. There is no shortage of CVs. There is a shortage of resource geologists who have signed off a reportable estimate, of drill-and-blast engineers who have worked a hard-rock bench, of metallurgists who have commissioned a flotation circuit, and of shift supervisors who can hold a safety standard through a ramp-up.
We are built around that gap. Our mining practice recruits against technical competency and operating environment — not job titles — and we do it with the nationalisation and local-content obligations of Saudi projects designed into the plan from the start.
How we commit to work
Two things sit underneath every mandate we take. Neither is a differentiator we invented for a website — they are the conditions that make a search work in a market this small.
Replacing a General Manager mid-ramp-up, planning succession for a Registered Mine Manager, or building a team ahead of an acquisition that has not been announced — discretion is not a nice-to-have here.
No recycled shortlists and no database dump against a keyword. Each search is mapped against your ore body, your mining method, your operating stage and the way your site actually runs.
Capabilities
Engage us for a single hard-to-fill role or for a full operating roster. Each service runs to its own scope, timeline and commercial model.
Confidential, mapped search for the roles that set the operation's trajectory — and for the boards and investment committees behind them.
Discipline-led recruitment where the shortlist is built by someone who can read a block model, a mine plan or a metallurgical flowsheet.
Roster-scale recruitment against a production schedule: sourcing, assessment centres, medicals, visas and arrival on site, tracked to a single mobilisation plan.
Fixed-term and rotational resourcing for studies, shutdowns, commissioning windows and interim technical cover, with payroll and compliance handled end to end.
Org design, roster modelling, remuneration benchmarking and build-versus-buy analysis for the Saudi and wider GCC mining market.
Graduate and apprentice pipelines, operator upskilling, and structured knowledge transfer from expatriate specialists to Saudi national teams.
Commodity coverage
Mining skills are not transferable by default. A flotation metallurgist is not a leach metallurgist, and a soft-rock supervisor is not a hard-rock one. We recruit by commodity and mining method.
For employers
Send a position description, a manning schedule, or just the problem as you would describe it on site. We come back with a market view, an indicative timeline and the names we would go after — before any commitment.
Disciplines
Not an exhaustive list — but an honest one. These are the seats our consultants fill most often, grouped the way a mine site is actually organised.
Across the mine lifecycle
A project needs a different workforce at every stage of its life. We work with clients from first licence through to closure, and the brief changes each time.
Small, mobile, highly technical teams. Camp-based geology, drilling supervision and data discipline from day one.
Project geologists · Drill supervisors · Camp & logistics
Staff this stageScoping through feasibility. Study managers and specialist consultants who can produce a bankable document and defend it.
Study managers · Competent Persons · Environmental & social
Staff this stageConstruction and pre-production. Owner's team, contract management and the first operating hires brought in ahead of handover.
Owner's team · Construction & contracts · Pre-production
Staff this stageThe volume stage. Full rosters mobilised against the production schedule, with commissioning specialists overlapping the operators.
Full rosters · Commissioning · Shift leadership
Staff this stageBrownfield growth, optimisation and eventual rehabilitation — including the redeployment of people the operation has trained.
Optimisation · Debottlenecking · Rehabilitation
Staff this stage
Saudization & local content
A Saudi mining operation is measured on more than production. Nationalisation rates, local content and in-Kingdom capability are licence conditions, tender criteria and board-level reporting lines. We plan for them in the same breath as the roster.
For candidates
Most of the mining roles we work on are never advertised. Register once and you are in front of the operators before the advert would have gone out.
Live mandates across exploration, technical services, open pit, underground and processing — residential, FIFO and rotational, in Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf.
View open rolesConfidential · no obligation
A short conversation with a consultant who actually knows the sites. We will tell you where your experience lands in this market, and we will tell you honestly if the move you are considering is a step sideways.
How an engagement runs
No black box. Every mandate runs to the same four stages, with the timings agreed up front and reported against.
A working session on the role, the site, the roster and the stage of the operation. You get back an honest read on availability and salary before any fee is discussed.
Response within 1 business dayTargeted approach against a mapped market — by commodity, method and operating stage — rather than an advert and a wait.
First longlist in 48 hoursCompetency interviews against the actual work, site-fit and safety screening, and references that go to performance on shift.
Shortlist inside 10 working daysOffer management, notice navigation, medicals, visa and iqama, travel and site arrival — tracked to your production schedule.
Tracked to your start dateStop advertising. Start searching.
They are on a roster they know, at an operation that is looking after them, and they will not answer your advert. Reaching them is a different job — and it is the one we do.
Brief our mining teamCommon questions
Saudi Arabia is where most of the current demand sits, and it is where our mining practice is deepest — but we work across the GCC, including industrial minerals and quarrying in the UAE and Oman, and downstream processing throughout the Gulf.
We source globally. A resource geologist for a Saudi gold operation is as likely to come from Perth, Johannesburg or Santiago as from the region itself.
It depends on the mandate. Retained search for leadership and scarce technical roles runs on a staged retainer. Volume mobilisation and contract staffing are priced per placement or on a margin against the contract rate.
Either way you see the commercial model in writing before work starts, and the market view that precedes it costs nothing.
Permanent placements carry a replacement guarantee, with the period set by the seniority of the role and agreed in the terms of business up front. If a hire leaves inside it, we run the search again at no additional fee.
That is the core of the problem, and it is why we treat it as workforce planning rather than a hiring quota. We build the national pipeline — graduates, apprentices, technical institutes and returning diaspora talent — alongside the expatriate hires, with knowledge transfer, named successors and a handover horizon written into the mandate.
It is usually too late rather than too early. Owner's team, technical services and the first operating hires need to be in place well ahead of handover, and the senior technical market moves slowly — a General Manager or Head of Technical Services can be a six-month search from first conversation to site.
Yes. Your CV is never sent to a client without your explicit permission for that specific role, and we do not approach your current employer. This is a small market and we work in it every day — discretion is self-interest as much as policy.
Start a conversation
Four fields. A consultant who knows the sector reads every one of them, and you get a market view back before there is any commercial conversation.
A position description, a manning schedule, or just the problem as you would describe it on site.
Need to give more detail — commodity, discipline, roster, timing? Use the detailed form instead.
Market intelligence
What we are seeing in the market — salaries, rosters, nationalisation and the disciplines that are about to get harder to hire.
Compensation
Market brief
Base, roster allowance and package structure across geology, mine technical services and processing — and where the gaps are widest.
Read more
Localisation
Market brief
How operators are structuring knowledge transfer so nationalisation rates and technical capability move in the same direction.
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Mobilisation
Market brief
The hiring decisions that determine whether a new operation reaches nameplate on schedule — most of them made before first blast.
Read more