Benchmark your pay by age group
August 20th, 2007
Comparing your income with all tax payers may not be ideal. Wouldn’t it be nice if you can benchmark your monthly salary against people in your age group? Aha, here’s the tool to do it:
Again, I took some data from MOM, this time from Report on Labour Force in Singapore 2006 which was released in January 2007.
What’s good about the aforementioned MOM report is that is that wage data is available in 2 dimensions – age group and wage level. What’s not so good is perhaps the wage data is compiled by a survey – the type which requires respondents to answer questionnaires (as opposed to just getting data from highly trusted sources like CPF and IRAS).
Here’s the graph of gross monthly income against percentile for each age group:
I am confused about MO, registrar, specialist/consultant. I read the...
Sarah Tan Says:
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I like this benchmarking tool. It’s interesting to see that my salary will drop by 20 percentile if I move into the next age group, so I guess I need to buck up and earn more.
Jan Goh Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Not sure if they considered the difference in education level in this survey. Blue collar worker and managers, for example, would have different expectation of pay.
There should be two sets of data – executives & non-executives.
Anthony Tay Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Engineers in MNC are paid more than Managers in local companies. Anyway, I normally ignore comparison with the top 10% as they are the income non-limiting professions, such as traders and brokers.
Tan Says:
January 11th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Hi, I think this graph is really great!!Appreciate the effort there!
Would it be possible if we can have a 2008 version of this? Given the recent salary hikes, would be good if we can have an up-to-date comparison. Hope you’re acceed to the request. Many thanks again for your time!
Junior Trader Makes 0k | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
January 25th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
[...] to the popular benchmarking tool in this website, if you make $200k a year or $16,666 a month, you beat 97.6% of your [...]
Keito Says:
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Not too sure how accurate this benchmark is but most of the people i know or worked with are already way up in the top 5% income earners going by this survey. Somehow i feel that in reality the income level should be higher. If not, how can there be so many people buying up all the private properties despite current price levels??
admin Says:
February 4th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Keito, funny that some people are commenting these official surveys are painting too rosy a picture (see: http://www.salary.sg/2008/degree-holder-is-your-income-above-the-median/#comments ), and yet some like yourself are saying the reported numbers seem low!
Well, to try to answer your question, maybe the people buying properties are wealthy foreigners, rich expats, or high-income couples earning >$10,000/mth who borrowed heavily (a loan of $1m repayable over 30 years at 5% pa requires a monthly installment of $5,400 which is not beyond their reach).
Kelvin Says:
February 10th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
useful tool. thanks.
Are You Paid Well Enough? (And Why Millionaire Next Door Sucks) « The Curious Schemer Says:
February 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
[...] Benchmark your income by age group. Ooooh, I love this one. I mean after all, if you don’t compare so well in the benchmark above, that may be because there are a lot of people in their forties make a lot more than you do, right? But this benchmark also serves a very important purpose: to track your progress as you grow older. For instance, if a girl makes 6k/month and she’s only 28, then she’s at the 98th percentile. That’s pretty damn good! But say she stays in the same company for 10 years, getting a 3% raise every year. By the 10th year, she’s making around $8000 per month. Is she still doing well? Not as much, because that drops her into the 90.9th percentile only, not considering inflation etc. She has to do something more to keep her at her original percentile. I absolutely love this benchmark. [...]
Security Guard Makes 4k | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
February 21st, 2008 at 11:28 pm
[...] And he’s only 28 years old. This puts him in the top 90% in his age group, according to Salary.sg’s benchmarking tool. [...]
Compare Your Income by Age & Gender | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
February 24th, 2008 at 12:50 am
[...] year’s version of the tool is here. See how much you’ve moved up (or down) in the [...]
winston Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
hi,
im 28 tis year, in media advertising as media director, earning $8,000 / month BASIC.
so in what projectile am i , admin? thks for replying..
admin Says:
February 26th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
winston, you can use the calculator above, or the latest one here:
http://www.salary.sg/2008/compare-your-income-by-age-gender/