Dear Naz,
I just thought I would thank you for your suggestion, which worked a treat. I sent all my documents from another email address and received a reply in less than an hour. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the reply I was expecting. However, I think it might be useful to others if I mention what they said. It looked like a standard letter since it mentioned multiple applicants and other things that didn’t relate to my case. The one thing that did most definitely relate to my case was the fact that they said “Please note that this visa is not valid for Freelancers”. Now, without going into too much detail, I had assumed that, since I am registered as a sole trader/self-employed with the tax authorities in the UK, then I would be treated as owning my own company. I can now see that, for the Dubai authorities, they require an actual limited company or something similar. Obviously, if you have a year’s contract with an employer then you can also apply. I hope that this is helpful to others. If I had known it would have saved me a lot of time in preparing documents, etc.
Best wishes,
Rob