Nairobi ranked best city to work in Africa, here's why

Kenya capital Nairobi has been ranked as the best city to work in, beating all other African cities.

According to data from the Expat City Ranking 2021, Nairobi ranked 50 positions better than last year.

Some of the reasons given by the respondents of the survey included the ease of settling and finding houses.

On the global stage, Nairobi was ranked the 12th best city out of the 57 captured in the survey. In 2020, Nairobi was ranked 62 out of 66 global cities.

Cape Town was ranked 41, Cairo 52 and Johannesburg was position 55 in this year’s report.

“All three African cities featured rank among the bottom 10 in the quality of urban living and urban work life indices — except for Nairobi, which lands in 34th place in the latter index.

“Nairobi also outperforms the other cities when it comes to the ease of getting settled, as well as finances and housing,” an excerpt of the report stated.

The most recent survey looked at five aspects of expatriate life: quality of urban cities, settling in, work-life balance, finance, housing, and cost of living — to determine the most likely place for expats to relocate to in 2022.

“Expats in Nairobi agree. 74 percent are happy with their social life, 17 percentage points more than the global average 57 percent,” the report documented.

This year's ranking is a 180-degree swing from a previous one in November 2020, when Nairobi was criticized for the city's poor condition and absence of adequate transportation infrastructure despite the pleasant local environment and weather.