This is the 2010 edition of our very popular list of 100 best-paying jobs in Singapore.
As with previous editions, this list is based on income data from the recently released MOM Report on Wages in Singapore 2009.
MOM uses actual CPF data, but only the base monthly wage data are published. This means bonuses and shared profits are excluded.
The following is the list of top 100 best-paying jobs (extracted from what are published by MOM). The wage numbers are the third-quartile monthly gross wages.
- Managing director – $25,886
- Foreign exchange dealer and broker – $17,434
- General manager – $16,616
- Company director – $15,570
- Hydrographic surveyor – $12,100
- Legal service manager – $11,417
- Lawyer (except advocate and solicitor) – $11,050
- General physician – $10,979
- Business management consultant – $10,634
- Commodities futures broker – $10,352
- Training manager – $10,080
- Information technology auditor – $9,800
- Computer and information systems manager – $9,751
- Operations manager (Finance) – $9,528
- Business development manager – $9,489
- Legal officer – $9,415
- Risk management manager – $9,279
- Corporate planning manager – $8,815
- Engineering manager – $8,700
- Marketing manager – $8,697
- Personnel / Human resource manager – $8,650
- Technical manager – $8,641
- Budgeting and financial accounting manager – $8,600
- Research and development manager – $8,576
- Computer operations and network manager – $8,550
- Marine superintendent (Deck) – $8,245
- Quality assurance manager – $8,200
- Creative director (Advertising) – $8,000
- Sales manager – $7,960
- Customer service manager – $7,957
- Industrial health, safety and environment engineer – $7,945
- Fund manager – $7,892
- Chemical engineer (Petrochemicals) – $7,874
- Advertising and public relations manager – $7,847
- Manufacturing plant and production manager – $7,845
- Treasury manager – $7,780
- Logistics manager – $7,777
- Shipping manager – $7,715
- Chemical engineer (Petroleum) – $7,670
- Structural engineer – $7,600
- Building architect – $7,403
- Advocate and solicitor – $7,400
- Procurement manager – $7,358
- Administration manager – $7,350
- Property / Estate manager – $7,000
- Producer (Stage, film, television and radio) – $6,924
- Materials engineer – $6,815
- Business analyst – $6,760
- Biologist – $6,745
- Industrial relations manager – $6,689
- Operations manager – $6,648
- Building and construction project manager – $6,600
- Editor (Radio, television and video) – $6,592
- Civil engineer – $6,558
- Ship-master – $6,545
- Instrumentation engineer – $6,538
- Medical scientist – $6,531
- Premises maintenance manager – $6,503
- Flight operations officer – $6,403
- Transport operations manager – $6,355
- Audio and video equipment engineer – $6,250
- Chemical engineering technician (Petrochemicals) – $6,206
- Computer engineer – $6,006
- Finance sales associate professional – $5,944
- Information technology security specialist – $5,939
- Biomedical engineer – $5,892
- Aeronautical engineer – $5,873
- Biochemist – $5,865
- Sales representative (Technical) – $5,788
- Financial analyst – $5,670
- Telecommunications engineer – $5,630
- Automotive engineer – $5,625
- Industrial machinery and tools engineer – $5,532
- Warehousing manager – $5,500
- Food and drink technologist – $5,436
- Soil mechanic and piling engineer – $5,427
- Network systems and data communication analyst – $5,425
- Database administrator – $5,375
- Application programmer – $5,328
- Marine engineer – $5,250
- Credit analyst – $5,240
- Chemical engineer – $5,194
- Chief / executive cook – $5,192
- Production engineer – $5,163
- School counsellor – $5,161
- Sales representative (Medical and pharmaceutical products) – $5,150
- Building construction engineer – $5,125
- Lift engineer – $5,100
- Manufacturing engineer – $5,092
- QC engineer – $5,037
- Market research analyst – $5,000
- Semi-conductor engineer – $5,000
- Systems designer and analyst – $5,000
- Electronics engineer – $4,990
- Electronics and electrical engineer – $4,965
- Automation engineer – $4,916
- Systems programmer – $4,907
- Software engineer – $4,900
- Specialised nurse – $4,893
- Surveyor – $4,882
Compare this with our 100 Best Jobs List 2009.
69 Comments
I would like to know for the position of risk management manager. Is is finance related? What are the course available for such a position.
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the word “engineer” appears 29 times in the list, whereas “finance” + “financial” + “broker” + “business” only appear a combined 9 times. the word “bank” doesn’t even feature once!
who says engineering is dead end? 🙂
Where is the position for a badminton player? 🙂
how come, permanent secretaries, admin service officers are not in the list?
What about teachers and careers in field of education?
cos the people who approved the MOM reports are so highly paid they are either too ashamed to include themselves or silently laughing at how lowly the mere mortals are paid and don’t want to stir up sentiments like what tys did.
the MOM report only surveys the private sector. the $25k salary of a managing director in the private sector is less than the salary of an admin service officer in the civil service.
yes, a young punk in the elite admin service can earn more than 350k pa, more than the no1 in this list. someone said a perm sec earns more than the total of what this list’s top 10 earn, and a minister earns more than the top 20 combined.
we need more elites.
they should just publish a list of top 100 jobs in private and public jobs. I won’t be surprised that the top 10 jobs are all public servant positions.
salary.sg is mentioned once again in omy.sg and the evening daily shin min:
http://news.omy.sg/News/Local+News/Story/OMYStory201008091516-175096.html
may i know the market rate for Quantity surveyors?
junior & senior.
Would really appreciate feedback
One should refer to the sampling size for each occupation to decide if it’s representative enough. For eg. last year “personal banker” at 75th percentile was making about 20k/mth but the sampling size was only 43. Suggesting that perhaps the respondent banks only included their top performers in the survey.(Strangely they are not found in this year’s results)
“Finance sales associate professionals”, of which the top 75th percentile was making 15k/mth last year, interestingly, made only 5.9k/mth this year. Very big swing here..
Think people can share their thoughts on the accuracy of the survey results.
Also, it’s stated clearly in the methodology section of the cpf survery that only private sector is covered.
it’s still a list nonetheless and provides some form of benchmarking for comparison’s sake. are the numbers over inflated? i don’t think so, considering that fresh grads nowadays command some 4k pm as starting pay. GPs earning 10k is perhaps Under inflated!
may i know the market rate for Quantity surveyors?
junior & senior.
Would really appreciate feedback. thanks
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i am looking the oil field and drilling company.
what are the career prospects of a teacher in singapore??
Iam a B.Ed with Masters degree in Social work too with over 2 yrs of teaching experience in a school in india…
mu husband is gng to mov to sngapore in a few months time so i just wanna know abt how to apply thr in a school and salary of teachers thr too..
plzz help me if anyone knows abt it..
thanks in advance 🙂
Look for openings in one of the Indian international schools in Singapore. I heard they are short of staff.
that’s very likely due to the huge influx of white collared workers from India in recent years. if you ask your friends who work in some of the big banks here, you’ll know that there are many Indians in the banks. while we appreciate their contributions, we should also ask if local citizens are able to fill those positions. if not, why not? is it because we can’t do the jobs? or is it because the policies on hiring foreigners are so lax that hiring managers can’t be bothered to search locally and instead take the easy way out to hire from India? true story: a fellow Singaporean got removed and his Indian manager hired an Indian to take over the job. let’s hope this is not a widespread practice.
Singaporeans are great people…we really admire Singaporeans coz they are an open society…they have created an open society where people with talent can work and contribute freely without any discrimination unlike many other countries where expats are always discriminated and kept under the less talented local residents. I have personal experience while in countries like Saudi Arabia, Australia etc. All credit goes to local Singaporeans and we all really appreciate that.But there is another interesting side to this topic, many people in India believe that Indian Gov. spend millions of Rupees to produce 1 talented doctor or engineer but when it comes to serve Indian nation he leaves or is picked by other countries and make use of their talent which contribute to their prosperity and growth instead of their very own country.But I can tell u all Indians have very high regards for the local singaporeans and the singapore gov. who have given ideal social system and governess and rights.
cheers for singaporeans!!!
iwant high salary jos in usa
there are so many engineering jobs that are top 100. and only one health science(nursing). well, as they so, if u want a lucrative profession, engineering is the way to go. if not in sg, in other countries.
banking and civil service are the way to go in singapore, mate. engineering is in 3rd tier in terms of pay. if you are talking about IT, then it’s in the upper end of the 3rd tier, but still below banking and civil service in my opinion.
What about those who graduate from life science?
The prospects in sg seems to be very limit, it goes the same for the salary too. 🙁
Is the amount quoted in USD or SGD?
All in sgd unless stated otherwise. This is salary.SG so naturally things are about Singapore.
Hmm, although engineers appear 27% in this list, the total salary is only 21% of the total of this list. Comparing to managers, 33 occurrence, 37% of total salary.
Btw, anyone know why public sector was not included? Are there any released numbers from public sector?
I very curious where do biologists earn 6.7k in singapore lol. I think a post doc must struggle to get 5k
how about planning positions – in fmcg or apparel companies – but they handle asia-pacific regional roles – do you have these surveys too?
ex: production planning and supply planning regional roles.
hope to hear from you.
thank you.
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The salary data from MOM is way out. My job as a Flight Operations Officer(dispatcher) can only fetch $2300 a month. How the hell can we earn $6k plus per month? So I think this is very inaccurate.
Could ve your seniors or superiors.. Try asking around u and u gotta mix ard more
read more of psychology in conducting survey. you will know more if this piece of article is accurate. laughing my jaws away when i see so many people debating about how much a “specific job” earn. i’m a psychologist so to speak, and i conduct big or small survey/trial, may or may not including this piece. and no such job with 350K pa, do some homework before posting guys. and psychologist/general physician/medical practioner earn $10,979 plus or minus a $2000. so make it simple its a $2000 off or add in your basic salary posted above
If you don’t earn 350k pa, it doesn’t mean no one else earns that amount. Obviously you aren’t a top psychologist. Maybe a survey “conductor” or a survey “compiler”. I’m laughing my jaw off at your naïveté.
GPs can make 10k. Surgeons more. Yes.
Psychologists make no where near 10k. Most people know that. Unless RJ is an “expert” conducting some psycho analysis in his “private clinic”.
Any job that pays 350k p.a. or more? RJ u should read more newspapers to get yourself updated on current affairs.
I agree with banking. If you wanna go for IT jobs, at least go for Financial IT services. In my opinion Financial IT services salaries are pushing most of the IT salaries up into top 100.
Hi everyone,
Can anyone plz help me regarding the primary level teacher’s salary in Indian International Schools???
I moved here with my husband some time back so thinking to apply in one of the indian school as I am B.Ed…and have teaching experience as well.
thanks in advance
About 10k if u r good.
$10k for pri sch teacher? If thats any true, then i wonder how many pple will send their kids to the school, they must charge a bomb for the sch fees. some of these salaries obviously are skewed , definitely do not apply to individual contributors. I know people with years in their jobs don’t earn these salaries and they still stayed on because other companies out there pay even less.
Operations manager finance $7k? Last time I checked, wasn’t even $6k!
Opps not $7k, my mistake, but $9.5k. Highly intriguing.
Sorry but I asked abt the “Indian International Schools”…I dont think that primary teachers there might be getting this much salary..!!!
everyone knows that managing directors earn a lot of money and will be the highest paid category.
To make sense out of these kind of stats is to elaborate on the industry.
Dear Teacher,
Refer to this:
http://moe.edu.sg/careers/teach/career-info/salary/geo1/
Hope it helps with your question about the salary of a teacher.
From the comprehensive listing, it seems that the financial related positions are the higher paying ones. However, it would be easy to hit such high salary scales.
i am a civil engineer want to do Msc in civil oriented course in sg… whether TOFEL or GRE is necessary???
To all foreigners in SG, start applying for your PR now before tightening begins. The window of opportunity is small, based on my expert analysis. It’s now after the general election, so the government has nothing to lose in this short period of time (sentiment is already quite bad). But after parliament starts sitting and in preparation for the next general election, there will definitely be tightening, so as to win the popular vote.
Don’t count on it! According to an insider friend, the ruling party is seriously spooked by the election result. The only foreigners who can certainly get PR are the ones earning more than 8k so they don’t qualify for HDB grants…
PM Lee just said this today:
“Next, it will attract investments and talents into Singapore and also encourage Singapore enterprises to diversify, expand and move abroad.”
If you’re a foreign talent, you are welcome any time.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1127674/1/.html