Losing high-level talent has become a serious concern for Egypt, so much so that House of Representatives members in April tasked the Defense and National Security Committee to “discuss the issue of brain drain and its implications for Egyptian national security, in light of the growing challenge posed by the migration of skilled scientific and professional talents abroad,” according to local media.
The committee found “significant migration of … young scientists, researchers, doctors and engineers amid the greater job opportunities and financial and research resources offered by [other] countries,” according to state-owned Ahram English.
However, TheGlobalEconomy.com, a research portal, paints a less pessimistic picture. It shows brain drain risk declined from 62% in 2007 to an all-time low of 44% in 2015. It spiked to 52% in 2018, then rose to 53% by 2020. Between 2021 and 2024, Egypt’s brain drain risk dropped to 47%.
A deeper look reveals brain-drain disparities across professions. Meanwhile, remote work is decoupling employment from geography, shaping how and where talent is lost or gained.
Drain reversal
Education in Egypt is seeing a decline in brain-drain risks, especially at top-tier universities. “Our strategy of increasing the number of international university branches in Egypt has led to a noticeable decline in student motivations to enroll in overseas branches,” then Minister of Higher Education Khaled Abdel Ghaffar told the media in 2022.
In January, six state-owned and two private universities ranked between the 405th and 917th positions out of more than 32,000 universities surveyed by the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities 2026. In total, 83 Egyptian higher education institutions ranked in the top 5,000.
These reputable rankings are enabling local institutions to compete and collaborate with international universities.
In August 2025, state-owned Ahram English reported that state-owned Cairo and Alexandria universities would open overseas branches that teach local curricula. The former will open in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, accepting students starting with the 2026/2027 academic year.
Alexandria University will have a UAE campus offering programs in health sciences, engineering, computer science, business, and the humanities. The university is also “preparing to launch interdisciplinary programs at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, in addition to dual-degree programs developed in cooperation with leading international universities,” reported Ahram English.
Meanwhile, nearly all local universities, whether state-owned or private, have active international partnerships, meaning graduates receive dual certification from local and overseas universities.
By 2030, the government aims to achieve an education brain gain by attracting 200,000 foreign students to study at Egyptian universities, up from 30,000 in 2024, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Higher Education. That jump would mean foreign students accounting for 6% of total higher education enrollments by 2030, up from 3% in 2024.
Work in progress
In Egypt, software development is a profession in transition. According to a 2024 paper from the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES), “The software industry in Egypt suffers from emigration of qualified experts to international markets.”
One reason for the drain is training is “not leveraged to acquire new skills [to] cope with rapid technological developments,” ECES noted.
The second reason is the country’s elevated piracy activity. “Piracy rates decreased from 61% in 2015 to about 59% [in 2023].” That is “higher than the global average (37%) and compared to a number of competing countries, led by Saudi Arabia [and] the UAE,” the paper stated.
Other drivers of brain drain in software development include “weak banking financing,” “weak use of venture capital by SMEs,” and “weak demand in the local market [for] the software industry,” said the ECES.
In its 2026 report, Portulans Institute ranked Egypt 88th out of 127 in its Network Readiness Index, which evaluates how well countries apply and leverage ICT. In the 2021 report, Egypt ranked 72nd out of 130 nations. The institute is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization based in Washington, D.C.
In the coming years, this brain drain could reverse as local software developers find it harder to secure jobs at overseas tech giants, which are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to replace humans. Crunchbase, a news curator, reported: “At least 127,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2025.” Companies involved included Intel, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, the ICT sector has been growing by about 15% annually since 2018 (over five times the GDP growth rate), according to government data. Then, ICT Minister Amr Talaat said the sector’s contribution to GDP rose from 3.2% to 6% between 2018 and 2025.
Also, the government’s AI Strategy, announced in 2021, helped the country move up the Government AI Readiness Index, from 111th to 51st out of 195 countries between 2019 and 2025.
This growth did not reduce local tech companies’ need for employees. According to the IT Industry Development Authority, the sector employed 350,000 workers as of November, with plans to add 75,000 jobs in 2026 (a 21. 4% increase).
Continued drain
The profession that continues to see rising brain drain is physicians. Of the 220,000 registered doctors as of April 2025, around 120,000 work abroad, according to data from the Doctors’ Syndicate.
Meanwhile, a 2024 survey by AUC Knowledge Fountain showed that 66.4% of physicians working in Egypt intended to leave. “The factor that had the highest impact on their decision was work satisfaction, where the less satisfied physicians were 20 times more likely to leave.”
The survey analysis classified Egypt’s doctor brain drain as driven by “push” or “pull” factors. “In general, it seems there are more push considerations for leaving Egypt than pull factors for moving to a specific country.”
Push factors include “poor healthcare facilities, unfavorable working conditions, low-quality training and limited educational opportunities, low remuneration [and] sociopolitical and economic issues,” the AUC survey noted.
Pull factors include “high-quality training and educational opportunities, and well-developed health systems, in addition to fair and rewarding systems in the destination country. [They] are the main factors that pull Egyptian physicians to different high-income countries,” the survey explained.
Brain-drain influencer
Remote work also affects brain drain. According to a July 2025 paper by African Liberty, a non-profit advocacy group, the continent’s continued brain drain is partially due to its “failure to adapt to remote work. In an era where people can work from anywhere in the world, African countries are missing the chance to retain their talents.”
Egypt modified its labor law in 2025 to “formally recognize remote work and other non-traditional employment formats as legitimate and regulated forms of employment,” said Frédéric Soliman, of Soliman, Hashish & Partners Law Firm. “[It] focuses on cross-border employment.”
The law includes “equal access to minimum wage guarantees, vocational training, skill development programs, and collective bargaining rights.” It offers no incentives to work or hire remotely.
However, cross-border regulatory alignment is crucial for domestic employees and employers to maximize the role of remote work in reducing brain drain. “Addressing the problem of brain drain in a remote work era requires bold, continent-wide policies such as those provided in the African Continental Free Trade Area,” noted the African Liberty paper. “Countries should establish a harmonized tax incentive scheme coordinated through the AfCFTA framework.”
Such coordination means “countries can reward companies for hiring remote African talent, regardless of where that talent resides.”
