A couple months after LinkedIn entered the Middle East market and opened an office in Dubai, it has released numbers demonstrating its growth, illustrated in the infographic below by social4ce (and also shared on its Ad platform).

 

The data indicates that LinkedIn use in the Middle East has grown 123% over the past year, between October 2011 and October 2012, with the current population of 5.8 million users in the Middle East representing 3.8% of total LinkedIn members.

 

It's no surprise that their first office is in Dubai; the UAE has the highest number of members among the Middle East countries, at 1.1 million, followed by Saudi Arabia with 0.8 million users.

 

One interesting point is a large gender gap in the region: 67% of users are male and 33% female, which is skewed compared to a global tally of 57.9% male and 42.1% female.

As for the industries mostly mentioned, high-tech (17%) and manufacturing (16.7%) have the highest numbers, and engineering (11.7%) and operations (9.5%) are the most featured jobs.

 

Click on the infographic below for a larger version.