(5 July 2008 – See the 2008 edition of this list.)
(8 August – Updated with ranking of 3rd-quartile gross wages.)
This is the 2007 edition of my annual list of 100 best-paying jobs in Singapore. It is compiled based on data from MOM Occupational Wages Survey, which is published as part of the Report on Wages in Singapore 2006.
The 2006 edition of this post.
The survey covered more than 180,000 individuals, and their wage information is collected from CPF.
But note that the wage data do not include performance bonuses, profit sharing and stock options.
Without further ado, here’s the list of the top 100 jobs based on the 75th-percentile gross basic monthly income (I don’t use the mean or median income as I want my list to better reflect the higher earners in the top jobs):
- Managing director – $20,000
- Commodities futures broker – $17,084
- Financial futures dealer and broker – $16,667
- General Manager – $15,417
- Foreign exchange dealer and broker – $13,024
- Company director – $12,680
- Securities dealer and broker – $12,500
- Specialised surgeon – $12,000
- Risk management manager – $10,800
- Creative director (Advertising) – $10,800
- Legal service manager – $9,592
- Treasury manager – $9,050
- Operations manager (Finance) – $9,000
- Legal officer – $8,975
- Research and development manager – $7,696
- Engineering manager – $7,543
- Budgeting and financial accounting manager – $7,525
- Training manager – $7,502
- Business development manager – $7,500
- Computer and information systems manager – $7,473
- Technical manager – $7,400
- Corporate planning manager – $7,350
- Advocate and solicitor – $7,300
- Quality assurance manager – $7,210
- Personnel / Human resource manager – $7,205
- Computer operations and network manager – $7,200
- Marketing manager – $7,004
- Business management consultant – $6,933
- Advertising and public relations manager – $6,876
- Procurement manager – $6,833
- Editor (Newspapers and periodicals) – $6,798
- Editor (Radio, television and video) – $6,776
- Biologist – $6,710
- Chemical engineer (Petroleum) – $6,708
- Credit analyst – $6,667
- Customer service manager – $6,662
- Logistics manager – $6,558
- Manufacturing plant and production manager – $6,513
- Advertising copywriter – $6,500
- Marine superintendent engineer – $6,480
- Building architect – $6,400
- Lawyer (except advocate and solicitor) – $6,300
- Sales manager – $6,248
- Premises maintenance manager – $6,220
- Business analyst – $6,192
- Flight operations officer – $6,003
- Operations manager – $6,000
- Transport operations manager – $6,000
- Administration manager – $5,967
- Hydrographic surveyor – $5,819
- Shipping manager – $5,750
- Industrial health, safety and environment engineer – $5,700
- Property / Estate manager – $5,300
- Building and construction project manager – $5,270
- Financial analyst – $5,210
- Clearing and forwarding agent – $5,200
- Telecommunications engineer – $5,185
- Instrumentation engineer – $5,136
- Treasury officer – $5,100
- Aeronautical engineer – $5,063
- Information technology auditor – $5,047
- Database administrator – $4,985
- Warehousing manager – $4,900
- Electronics engineer – $4,759
- Medical pathologist – $4,738
- Information technology security specialist – $4,635
- Chemist – $4,605
- Systems designer and analyst – $4,600
- Network systems and data communication analyst – $4,415
- Materials engineer – $4,414
- Accountant – $4,380
- Production engineer – $4,370
- Biomedical engineer – $4,361
- Structural engineer – $4,350
- Civil engineer – $4,350
- Journalist – $4,350
- General physician – $4,344
- Research officer – $4,309
- Mechanical engineer – $4,279
- Executive secretary – $4,254
- Assistant civil and structural engineer – $4,244
- Chemical engineer – $4,235
- Translator – $4,205
- Software engineer – $4,200
- Application programmer – $4,175
- Power generation and distribution engineer – $4,170
- QC engineer – $4,150
- Chemical engineer (Petrochemicals) – $4,146
- Automotive engineer – $4,139
- Electrical engineer – $4,126
- Semi-conductor engineer – $4,100
- Statistical officer – $4,063
- Market research analyst – $4,057
- Computer engineer – $4,040
- CAD CAM engineer – $4,038
- Manufacturing engineer – $4,028
- Naval architect – $4,000
- Librarian – $4,000
- Specialised nurse – $4,000
- Medical diagnostic radiographer – $3,993
This is the ranking table based on 75th-percentile gross monthly income (as opposed to basic monthly income):
- Financial futures dealer and broker – $23,517
- Managing director – $20,775
- Specialised surgeon – $19,100
- Commodities futures broker – $17,084
- General Manager – $17,000
- Company director – $13,490
- Foreign exchange dealer and broker – $13,334
- Securities dealer and broker – $13,000
- Creative director (Advertising) – $10,800
- Risk management manager – $10,800
- Hydrographic surveyor – $10,522
- Legal service manager – $10,000
- Treasury manager – $9,724
- Operations manager (Finance) – $9,450
- Legal officer – $9,394
- Training manager – $8,240
- Business development manager – $8,000
- Research and development manager – $7,890
- Budgeting and financial accounting manager – $7,850
- Engineering manager – $7,762
- Technical manager – $7,706
- Corporate planning manager – $7,700
- Quality assurance manager – $7,700
- Computer and information systems manager – $7,626
- Advocate and solicitor – $7,590
- Computer operations and network manager – $7,577
- Personnel / Human resource manager – $7,534
- Logistics manager – $7,343
- Marketing manager – $7,315
- Customer service manager – $7,198
- Procurement manager – $7,190
- Business management consultant – $7,152
- Chemical engineer (Petroleum) – $7,095
- Sales manager – $7,050
- Advertising and public relations manager – $6,900
- Manufacturing plant and production manager – $6,894
- Aeronautical engineer – $6,876
- Editor (Newspapers and periodicals) – $6,798
- Editor (Radio, television and video) – $6,776
- Biologist – $6,752
- Credit analyst – $6,667
- Premises maintenance manager – $6,520
- Advertising copywriter – $6,500
- Building architect – $6,500
- Marine superintendent engineer – $6,480
- Lawyer (except advocate and solicitor) – $6,400
- Industrial health, safety and environment engineer – $6,362
- Operations manager – $6,340
- Business analyst – $6,206
- Transport operations manager – $6,174
- Shipping manager – $6,100
- Administration manager – $6,070
- Flight operations officer – $6,038
- Aeronautical engineering technician – $5,985
- Treasury officer – $5,904
- Marine engineer – $5,881
- Personal banker – $5,661
- Instrumentation engineer – $5,646
- Building and construction project manager – $5,600
- General physician – $5,579
- Property / Estate manager – $5,456
- Database administrator – $5,374
- Information technology auditor – $5,347
- Telecommunications engineer – $5,336
- Financial analyst – $5,333
- Clearing and forwarding agent – $5,200
- Warehousing manager – $5,000
- Chemist – $4,986
- Naval architect – $4,900
- Chemical engineer (Petrochemicals) – $4,896
- Chemical engineering technician – $4,884
- Materials engineer – $4,853
- Electronics engineer – $4,831
- Medical pathologist – $4,800
- Systems designer and analyst – $4,780
- Information technology security specialist – $4,735
- Chemical engineer – $4,726
- Civil engineer – $4,725
- Mechanical engineer – $4,682
- Production engineer – $4,680
- Real estate agent – $4,647
- Power generation and distribution engineer – $4,622
- Journalist – $4,606
- Structural engineer – $4,600
- After sales service adviser – $4,570
- Network systems and data communication analyst – $4,532
- Sales representative (Technical) – $4,520
- Biomedical engineer – $4,500
- Accountant – $4,499
- Semi-conductor engineer – $4,496
- Application programmer – $4,430
- Research officer – $4,400
- QC engineer – $4,396
- Executive secretary – $4,385
- Electrical engineer – $4,368
- Automotive engineer – $4,360
- Computer engineer – $4,357
- Market research analyst – $4,340
- Software engineer – $4,314
- Specialised nurse – $4,304
The differences between gross and basic wages can be noted from the following, which I quote from the report:
The spread between gross and basic wages was more pronounced among occupations which require payments for overtime, commissions and allowances (e.g. shift, food, housing and transport), such as sales & service workers and blue-collar workers where gross wages were about 15% to 40% higher than basic wages. On the other hand, there was little difference between the basic and gross wages among managers and professionals. Their variable pay usually takes the form of performance bonuses, profit sharing and stock options which are not captured in this survey.
536 Comments
Hi all,
For those of you have a job now, pls be grateful and stop comparing and complaining. It wont get u anywhere… :/
How much you get paid does not really matter.
Most importantly, you must love your job! (and enuff for u to make ends meet) =)
Btw, I’m a Logistic Exec drawing a meagre pay with a ton of workload. But I LOVE my job! Cheers!
Work Hard guys and thank god that you still have a job! 🙂
Hi Ronaldo,
I guess not alot of pple enjoy or have such good fortune to draw such a high paying salary at your age. You may argue that you deserve the amt of salary with your education. But still be grateful + senstive and spare a thought for those who are now jobless with family to fees due to retrenchment.
Time is bad and its going to turn worse. If you are still able now (finacially),
do consider making donation to charitable bodies and do your part for the society.
Cheers!
hey, i am 16 this year. will be taking my “O” levels in a few months time. i was thinking if anyone here in this forum is a shipbroker/charterer? Or is able to tell me info shipbroking/chartering? Like for example experiences, salary(both basic and how much bonus you earned), workload.. etc. also, the route taken to this career, what qualifications you possess.
thank you!
Hi, I’m a registered/staff nurse, i’ve been working for 3 years and my pay is $2k. To earn $4k/ mth,you have to work for around 40 plus years to get this pay, and I’m sure all the nurses will agree with me. Starting pay was $1.5k. Every increment was around $17 to 50.
So, I do believe this website need to do surveys before misleading people that nurses earned a lot.
I think nurses with degrees are getting paid more doing admin work so the website may not be wrong.
Occupation: Nurse
Position Wage
1 ENROLLED / ASSISTANT NURSE 1,820
2 INDUSTRIAL NURSE 3,490
3 PROFESSIONAL NURSE 2,564
4 SPECIALISED NURSE 3,285
All data pertain to private sector establishments with at least 25 employees
Dear all,
Accidentally stumbled into this site, as trying to find out some market salary benchmarks for my new staffs.
FYI, a software engineer with 2-3 years of experience ( C++, C#, .net, java, SQL…) in my engineering solutions company gets about SGD 4-5k per month (basic) excluding bonuses.
Currently the economy everywhere is doing badly. I sincerely hope that for those who earn a lot of money, so much that they find difficulties in spending it, please donate some to charities. I am a volunteer in a couple of charitable organisations and I understand the difficulty to raise money at present times.
Chong
It’s quite sad if you think about it. When I started more than a decade ago I was paid about that much too.
10 years later, after all the inflation, they are still paid around the same amount…
Goodie.. > it’s not sad because whatever inflation there was in the last few years or the past decade has been brought tumbling down by this current global market down turn.
Most of the inflation like COLA has been re-adjusted back to historical rates of 8 to 10 years ago.
Thus its not much the inflation as you mentioned that is mainly bringing down people’s disposable income and propensity to spend but instead the large amount of retrenchments & pay cut exercise being carried out by companies now.
Honestly though my pay is still intact with no cuts yet or indication of any cuts, i can see that my workload has doubled compared from last year.
I have no problem with that.
Quite frankly if my company do well and generate profitability and my performance is good, I can and will expect another round of increment again this year.
Cheers!
Ron
Hi all…
Some of this info is quite confusing. I am interested in knowing the salary range for academic positions – so, assist. prof., assoc. prof and prof. I did read those links and threads which refer to ranges like 72K – 100K for assist. prof; 110K-150K for assoc. prof and above (max 200K) for full profs. But here is the question: are these all gross salaries? Do they include rent etc? Do these salaries also reflect adjustment for taxes that may be due in the US – in other words, are the salaries tax-adjusted? I am assuming that the junior positions require a PhD, some good publications, and at least 4 years of teaching and research background.
I am asking this because there was one site (I think it was a Times Online site) where an individual from the Personnel office of NTU wrote back to say that the pay for an assoc. prof at the lowest level in SG (in 2008) was around 100K (but this was in US$), which is about 130K in S$.
Thanks in advance for any info that you may be able to share on this matter.
Cheers!
Y pilots are not considered?
Pilots at SQ earn 120K per year right
120k only? are you sure? i think they make alot more than 120k if you include allowances and bonuses
A friend of mine is a pilot with SQ, been working for about 3 yrs, annual salary of 120K not sure if theres any additional payouts
Alex, 3 yrs? from what i know, they need to take 3 years to complete their training and become a 2nd officer. during these first 3 years of training, they only get allowances of ard 1-2k. unless you are saying that he has been a 2nd or 1st officer for 3 years since completing his training.
yes i mean 3 years after completing training, he is currently a 1st officer
your friend may be asked to go on no pay leave soon. his colleagues in cargo have already been asked to go on up to 30!! months of leave without salary.
hes still flying so far, i would doubt that sia is going to stop flying any routes so i guess the pilots will still be working
120k annually is not a difficult sum for 1st officers. Most of them earn that as long as they fly.
yeah it seems to be a pretty good life, and at age 28 that salary is pretty hard to beat in most other fields.
Alex, please read this link and this link
Who says SIA is not “going to stop flying any routes”? Before this story was run, it axed a few destinations as well, was it Russia?
Do take a read at the 2nd story. SIA sounds like it’s in trouble.
Hey, how come no mention about the Prime Minister position here. It’s one of the highest paid job here in Singapore. Seriously, politicians here earn alot.
Just look at our current PM Lee Hsien Loong. From the reports i gathered online it seems that he earn about S$3,870,000/yr or $322,500/mth.
So i guess a job to be considered for some. 😉
How much do a post-doctoral fellow will get per month.
I mean a research scientist from biomedical phd degree from a reputed German University.
http://www.payscale.com/…Biotechnology/Salary
Curious_scientist: Post-doctoral fellow and research scientist are quite different concepts at least at the place where I work 🙂 Post-doctoral fellow: from ~4.5-6.5SGD/month, research scientist: don’t know, but more.
Admin,
Would need a favor from you.
1] What would be basic package offered to a Senior Software Test Engineer(Working in one of top most reputed US Based Invest Bank having around 4 to 5 years of experience) by a market leaders like CreditSuisse or Barclays or any other?
2] What other perks they offer?
3] What is leaving expense in Singapore for a family of 3 people?
Regards,
Seema
Seema, not alot. Especially after you have shown your potential employers that you cannot even spell “living” and “investment”…
Admin,
This post is just the one that I have copied from above because I find it matching to my query.
Nevertheless I am still waiting for the answer.
Seema, should be around 15-18k/month. That should be just about enough for a family of 3. Anything below 13k and they’re probably trying to underpay you. Be careful and don’t give in too easily during negotiations.
Perks come with 48 days annual leave (including family care leave), 2 year hospitalization leave (only 16 months is paid leave), 3 years maternity leave, etc. You should re-confirm these numbers with the HR department before signing the contract.
Good luck!
dear barclays, got so much? maybe 10 years later?
buckey, think barclays is trying to tell Seema to dream on
Hey I have been offered S$4500 monthly. How much can i save monthly (I ma with my family of 3)
seema, if you are very careful and frugal, after paying for rent, etc., typically you’ll be able to save around SGD1000, assuming that your family of 3 are willing to live a very simple life (per year).
I wish to find out the standard pay for a senior nurse of 17 years experience, isn’t $3000 too low? Working in the same company for 14 years. Starting at $1500 being a registered nurse since 1992
Thanks
Hi Melissa, I feel for you. Please look at http://www.payscale.com/research/SG/Job=Registered_Nurse…Salary. I think nurses and caregivers should be given much higher pay. It’s around SGD 3k/month.
Hi nurses are well paid in Australia so come join the aussie experience!
Hi folks,
I am a Phd in physical chemistry from germany. Having 4 years of postdoctoral experience in europe. I am 35 yrs old and would like to know about the salary range at IMRE, singapore
(institute for materials research and engineering) for a research engineer position. Any information regarding whether I will apply for a rsearch engineer or senior research engineer position will be helpful.
Thanks
Junta
Hi everything, can someone shed somelights to a freshgradyate just started her career in banking.I m paid 3k+ for a trainee position in a foreign bank.It is supposed to be fast track career path and pretty premising future, but I m not exactly happy with where I am(huge organization+complex structure+long hours).I m thinking about something more of sales in nature(basic+commision) and flexible in working hours.Any recommendation? ( no MLM please) Many thanks!
Hello there,
can anybody tell me what is the average base salary for a Bsc (Hons) in biotechnology with 7 years of experience.
I feel that my salary is below the average, around 2.9k/mth
2.9k is too little for anyone with a degree and SEVEN years of experience. Are u working in a full time research position? Heck, even the allowance for full time PhD students is 2-3k. Buut if you’re stuck, you’re stuck. Get a better job when times are better.
To Seema: your offer is from ‘leading investment bank’? you sure 4500? x 12? sorry to probe, just want to feel the real market…
Now it’s employers’ market imagine a local listed firm thru CDC offering PMET with Pro Dip a basic pay of abt $700 to $800 max excl meagre comm of between .5-3% selling appliances.
Attn KS, even all of our MPs besides the MM, 2 SM, PM are all the Top 30 highest paid civil servants frm the world.
Hi researcher 2, thanks for your info
But do you know roughly what’s the salary range for my qualification? Or can anyone pls advice me on that?
I would say 4.5k is minimum and 5-6k is reasonable. You shoulld’ve taken advantage of the good job market 2 years ago.
Wow!! that’s a lot to me 🙂
Yea, I missed the good opportunity. Currently is quite difficult to search for a job, so I wouldn’t dare to think about high pay. I’ve been staying with the same company for 7 years and the increment is so low, I guess it would take me for about 15 years to reach that amount.
Have u been told what role u would play after your training period ends? ’cause there are various sales roles in banks..such as relationship managers, treasury sales..though the hours may not be as flexible as financial planners or property agents..
Hi all,
can someone tell me what is the average base salary for a Bsc in Electronic with 5 years of experience in PLC automation field?