Vision 2030’s first decade delivered where the state could act directly, through public investment and national mandates. The next phase of development depends on three levers: industries becoming more competitive and able to win on the global front, productive SMEs and sustained capital. Each of these depends on people with the right skills, which makes building capability the task of the next decade.
The Kingdom’s formal education, vocational training, employment and entrepreneurship programmes remain the backbone of this capability system. HRSD leads that agenda nationally, HRDF funds training and placement into work, and TVTC runs the technical and vocational institutions.
However, a person must come across a skill first, see someone like them doing it, and find a way to start that fits around work, study and family.
TikTok is where much of that now happens. Its role is complementary: connecting people into structured learning and certification.
The engines of the next phase of Vision 2030 growth
Winning demand at home and abroad
Growing employment and output
Attracted by capability and returns
Skills, confidence and pathways, built one person at a time
Vision 2030 Annual Report 2025; Redseer analysis.
of adults tried to build a skill outside formal school or university in the past 12 months.
There is a strong appetite to learn in the Kingdom. On learning pathways, a majority, 55%, say learning works best as a mix of formal education and ongoing self-learning through digital resources and practical experience. The route people describe runs through both institutions and everyday self-learning.
The gap between intent and a first lesson is access and orientation. More courses alone do not fix a discovery and navigation gap: a learner who cannot see the route, or picture the first step, is unlikely to take it. Among the youngest cohort, aged 16 to 23, not knowing where to learn is the single largest barrier of all, ahead of time and cost.
Barriers to building a skill outside formal education - share of respondents naming each.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026. Multi-select, share of respondents, N = 500.
of users who encounter upskilling content on TikTok say it often or very often feels relatable and doable.
When asked why they use TikTok, users in the Kingdom rank learning and upskilling second, named as a reason by 55% and trailing only entertainment. A learning audience already exists on the platform.
A feed can surface a skill before someone knows what to search for. When asked what makes skills content feel achievable, respondents point first to the person on screen: relatable role models, relevance to their own goals and clear practical explanation sit together at the top, ahead of the convenience of the format.
The content mix leans toward capabilities receiving strong policy and employer attention. Tech and AI reach 69% of the people who see upskilling material on TikTok, 20 points clear of the next category, while the mix stays wide enough that a learner is not funnelled into a single field.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026. Multi-select, share of those seeing upskilling content on TikTok, N = 241.
Share of people who encountered upskilling content on digital media in the past 12 months, by platform.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026. Multi-select, share of respondents finding upskilling content via digital media, N = 335.
Share of what makes upskilling content on TikTok feel relatable and doable.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026. Multi-select, share of those finding the content relatable and doable, N = 234.
reported joining a course, workshop or programme after seeing skills content.
Respondents describe concrete steps after that first encounter: exploring further, saving content, practising independently, using tools and entering structured learning.
The structured-learning step is the one that matters most for policy, because it is where everyday discovery meets the system that teaches, certifies and recognises. Users also report the platform helping with the barriers named under Learning appetite: among those who cited limited time, 72% say the platform helped them address it, with cost at 62% and motivation and confidence at 61%.
Actions taken after encountering upskilling content on TikTok - share of those who encountered it.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026. Multi-select, share of upskilling-content users, N = 241.
Where upskilling-content users say learning from TikTok helped, and how much they expect to use it over the next six months.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026. Base N = 241 upskilling-content users.
hours a year spent on learning content by adult TikTok users in Saudi Arabia.
Adult TikTok users in the Kingdom spend 345 Mn hours a year on learning content. Additionally, we estimate 13.6 Mn TikTok platform users to be upskillers: people who encountered upskilling content over the year.
At this scale, everyday learning becomes a meaningful complement to formal training: a way for working people to keep pace with fast-moving fields such as technology and AI without stepping away from their jobs. For an economy where productivity growth increasingly depends on the existing workforce continually adding skills, that informal layer is a national asset in its own right.
Annual hours of learning content and the number of adult upskillers on TikTok
Annual hours on learning content, recorded by TikTok across all adult users
Adult users who encountered upskilling content over the year
Hours. The platform records time spent on content it classifies as learning. The recorded series (302.93 Mn hours over 304 of 365 days) is scaled to a full year and adjusted to an adult basis by removing time attributable to users aged under 16, giving 345 Mn hours. Hours cover all adult users, not only upskillers.
Upskillers. The survey-measured share of adult TikTok users encountering upskilling content (Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026, N = 500) is applied to Redseer’s estimate of the adult TikTok user base in the Kingdom, giving 13.6 Mn upskillers.
Because the two figures describe different populations, they are not divided to produce an average per upskiller. Neither is a measure of training delivered, skills mastered or extra learning caused by the platform. Full assumptions and definitions appear in the methodology note.
The groups central to the next phase of Vision 2030 show distinctive patterns on the informal route, which is what makes the step from a video into a recognised course worth designing carefully.
Women found upskilling content on TikTok against 42% of men, similarly 81% tried to build a skill against 72% among men, and 34% practised a discovered skill against 24% among men. Among women who learn on the platform, 84% report help in their job, studies or career.
Not knowing where to learn is this cohort’s largest barrier, ahead of time and cost. Orientation is the youth constraint: discovery is happening, while the step into structured pathways is where support is thinnest.
Saudi respondents tried to build a skill outside formal education against 66% among expatriate residents, and 75% of Saudi digital-media discoverers named TikTok against 65%. The pattern holds across every measure taken.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026.
The long-term value of everyday discovery depends on how carefully it connects to the institutions that teach, certify, employ and finance. The TikTok and INJAZ Al-Arab entrepreneurship training programme is one such structured pathway that has seen success.
INJAZ Al-Arab delivers employability and entrepreneurship education across the Arab world. Its Saudi programme with TikTok ran from October 2024 to July 2026, pairing in-person and virtual training with career sessions led by TikTok employees and a national Company of the Year award that sends the winning team to INJAZ Al-Arab’s regional final across 13 countries.
In its second year, the partnership took 517 university students through the Company Programme and 2,551 school students through It’s My Business: supervised practice in forming ventures, pitching them and working with volunteer mentors drawn from industry. Venture ideas cluster in AI and smart technology, clean energy, digital platforms, financial technology, and health and safety.
Source: INJAZ Al-Arab x TikTok in Saudi Arabia, FY 2025-26 programme report. Cumulative across Years 1 and 2: 1,077 university students recruited and 5,548 school students engaged.
TikTok also contributes a platform module to the GSMA Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit, the train-the-trainer curriculum used by digital-inclusion programmes worldwide: an example of the platform integrating into established skills infrastructure rather than operating beside it.
Trackable paths from a video to a TVTC course, a Doroob module or a university short programme.
Creator-led guidance on where to start, mapped to real Saudi pathways.
Discovery paired with courses that stay flexible through to a recognised outcome.
Saudi practitioners teaching Saudi contexts, in the fields employers are hiring for.
Work with training providers and employers so skills discovered on the platform can lead to a certificate, micro-credential or badge that counts in the job market.
TikTok is where learning starts for millions of Saudis.
Saudi Arabia’s education and training institutions provide the depth, quality and recognised outcomes required to build capability. TikTok can complement them earlier in the journey, helping a skill become visible, relatable and worth pursuing. The opportunity is to make that passage deliberate, measurable and useful: from everyday discovery into courses, tools, employers and entrepreneurship support.
Every figure in this chapter is documented in the methodology for the series, covering the survey, the bases, the model and what is excluded. Read the method
The TikTok Effect is Redseer’s series on TikTok’s contribution across Saudi Arabia, spanning economy, upskilling, retail, and sports and tourism. This edition examines everyday learning and skills discovery, and how it connects to the Kingdom’s education and training system.
Redseer Upskilling Survey, February 2026 · Vision 2030 Annual Report 2025 · GASTAT Population Estimates 2024; GASTAT and GOSI Q1 2026 · UN World Population Prospects · INJAZ Al-Arab x TikTok FY 2025-26 programme report · GSMA Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit · Public First, TikTok and Economic Growth in the EU.
Sandeep is the Partner with 20+ years of experience in consulting and technology. He has expertise in multiple sectors including ecommerce, technology, telecom and private equity.
Akshay brings over a decade of experience across consulting and technology, with deep exposure to India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He has delivered multiple keynotes, served on industry panels, and is frequently quoted by leading Middle East media on the digital economy.
Prepared by Redseer Strategy Consultants for TikTok · Kingdom of Saudi Arabia · 2026
© 2026 Redseer Strategy Consultants. All data are Redseer’s own except where cited.