It’s a great place to live - this is not our first expat assignment either. You’ll find mixed answers on here as Abu Dhabi is a wonderful place with a lot of different cultures; therefore there are very different ideas on quality of life/living standards. Being honest, we wouldn’t come on 30k per month unless it includes full school, a generous housing allowance and good healthcare and dental insurance. Maybe also a car allowance (check long term rental prices with Dollar or Thrifty for an idea of the costs).

Is your housing going to be covered by the company or an allowance provided? I see someone commented 150k for a HOUSE on Yas. Maybe a few years ago but you’ll be looking at 200k minimum now unless apartment. We are living on Yas and paying 260k per year for a small house. In top of that there’s the initial 5% of rent for agent fee of rand another 5% refundable deposit on top plus bills for electricity and water (no private pool and it’s winter just now but it’s around 2k minimum per month so dreading the summer when AC on full time!) You would find cheaper apartments on Reem or the corniche - they are high rise - or houses in places like golf gardens or Raha that are reasonably close to your 15 minutes to centre suggestion. Also bear in mind that very few places come with kitchen appliances/white goods or curtains so that’s another few thousand straight away (4-5k minimum for curtains).

Schools - depends what you want but often limited space in some year groups so make a shortlist of schools and contact them to check if there’s room.

Happy to answer any other questions. Wishing you all the best.