Singapore Salary Guide by Industry

How Singapore pay is put together

A useful Singapore salary guide does not begin with a colourful industry table that nobody can source. It begins with the parts of a package, the official medians that exist, and a method for reading a range on a public job board. Industry still matters — a bank, a hospital, a plant, and a hotel do not use money in the same way — but the honest unit of comparison is the fixed monthly salary plus the written rules for everything else.

This article stays inside official figures. The Ministry of Manpower’s Labour Force in Singapore 2025 findings report a median gross monthly income of $5,775 for full-time employed residents, and $9,038 for degree holders in that group. SingStat’s 2025 median household market income of $12,446 is a household figure, not individual pay. We will not invent a median for “manufacturing”, “hospitality”, or any other industry to fill a grid. When you need an industry picture, read MOM’s latest tables yourself and treat a job advertisement’s range as that employer’s current band.

Check the official source: the Labour Force in Singapore 2025 findings (PDF) and SingStat. If a newer year is out, use the newer year.

If you arrived here from a “highest paying jobs” search, read highest paying jobs in Singapore next. That article explains why unofficial title lists fail. If you want demand rather than pay structure, use most in-demand jobs in Singapore.

Fixed monthly salary is the number that does the most work

In Singapore, the figure you should get in writing first is the fixed monthly salary. It is the base the employer commits to pay each month for the job, before discretionary bonus and usually before overtime (if overtime applies to you at all). It is also the figure that matters for Employment Pass and S Pass qualifying-salary tests. When a recruiter says “package”, ask them to split it. A package can be honest and still be mostly hope.

Job advertisements on MyCareersFuture often show a monthly range. Read that range as the employer’s advertised band for this vacancy, not as a national industry median. A wide band (for example a junior and a senior number in one posting) usually means the employer has not decided level yet, or is trying to catch more applicants. A narrow band is easier to compare with your last fixed monthly salary.

On JobVacancySG, start from all jobs or jobs in Singapore and open the listing rather than trusting a search-card summary. Filter by industry when you want to see how different sectors describe money, not when you want a fake average. Use full-time, contract, and part-time filters so you do not mix unlike pay designs in one notebook.

Fixed monthly salary is also what you should use when you compare two offers. Convert nothing into an hourly rate unless the contract is actually hourly. Do not annualise a monthly figure by multiplying by twelve and then adding a bonus you have not been promised. That is how unofficial tables get written.

What “gross monthly income” in MOM reports is not

MOM’s labour-force income figures follow the definition in the report. They are a statistical concept for employed residents. They are not automatically identical to the fixed monthly salary on your letter, they are not take-home pay, and they are not a Work Pass field. Use them as a national resident benchmark. Do not paste $5,775 or $9,038 onto a resignation letter as “the market rate for my title”.

The degree-holder median includes people at many career stages. It is not a starting salary and it is not an industry rate. Fresh graduates should read jobs for fresh graduates for process, not for an invented starting-salary-by-degree grid.

Bonus, AWS, and other variable language

Singapore packages often include a variable layer. The words are not interchangeable.

Annual Wage Supplement (AWS), sometimes called a thirteenth-month payment, is a contractual or customary extra month that some employers pay. It is not a legal requirement for every job in Singapore. If the letter says you will receive AWS, ask when it is paid and what happens if you resign before payment date. If the letter is silent, do not assume a thirteenth month.

Performance bonus is usually discretionary unless the contract states a formula. “Target bonus of X months” is a planning number, not a debt. Ask how the bonus was determined last year for this team, and whether it is pro-rated in the first year. Write down the answer. If nobody will talk about last year, treat the target as marketing.

Sales commission and other incentives belong in a written plan. Ask for the plan, the clawback rules, and whether the advertised monthly range already includes a notional commission. Mixing guaranteed and unguaranteed money is the most common way a hospitality or business-development role looks richer than it is.

Allowances (transport, shift, housing, travel) can be regular or ad hoc. Ask whether they are part of fixed monthly salary for pass purposes. For Work Pass applications, MOM cares about qualifying salary as defined on the pass pages, not about a loose “package” slide.

Check the official source: if a pass is involved, read Employment Pass eligibility or S Pass eligibility for what counts toward qualifying salary. Do not let a recruiter redefine those fields.

Contract and freelance work can look high on a daily rate and still be lower once you remove paid leave, employer CPF (where it would have applied), and bonus. Compare contracts on total committed cash and on benefits you are giving up, not on the daily headline. Our part-time jobs article covers pro-rating conceptually for part-time employees; the same discipline helps with contract comparisons.

CPF is for citizens and PRs, and it changes the meaning of a headline

Central Provident Fund contributions are a core part of pay for Singapore citizens and permanent residents. They are not a bonus. They are mandatory contributions under CPF Board rules, split between employee and employer at rates that depend on age and other official criteria. Work Pass holders are generally outside that system in the way residents experience it. That is one reason two colleagues in the same team can have the same fixed monthly salary and different net pay and different retirement balances.

When you compare offers as a citizen or PR, look at employer CPF as part of total labour cost and as part of your long-term outcome, but do not invent a percentage if you have not opened the official rates. Rates change, and older blog posts are often wrong.

Check the official source: the CPF Board publishes current contribution rates. Use that page, not a memory of “20 percent”.

Do not ask a foreign candidate to “factor in CPF” as if they receive it. Do not tell a resident that CPF “does not count” when they compare a local offer with an offshore package. Those are different systems. ICA’s role is immigration status, not salary setting; if your question is about becoming a PR or remaining on a pass, start at ICA and MOM, not at a salary rumour.

Leave and other statutory pieces that belong in a salary conversation

Pay is not only cash. Employees covered by the Employment Act who have served at least three months are entitled to paid annual leave of at least 7 days in the first year, increasing by one day a year to 14 days from the eighth year of service. Many employers contract for more. If two offers have the same fixed monthly salary and different leave, they are not the same offer.

Check the official source: MOM annual leave. Confirm whether you are covered by the Act and whether your contract is more generous. Senior managers and some groups have different coverage rules; read MOM rather than assuming.

Sick leave, hospitalisation leave, and public holidays also have official rules for covered employees. This guide will not invent day counts beyond the annual-leave floor above. Open MOM’s employment-practices pages for the current entitlements. The same discipline applies to maternity, paternity, and childcare leave: official pages first, company handbook second, forum post last.

Flexible work is not extra salary, but it has a cash value in commuting time. The Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests took effect on 1 December 2024. Employers must consider formal requests and respond within 2 months. Approval is not automatic. Read MOM’s flexible work page and work-from-home and hybrid jobs before you treat “hybrid” as a pay substitute.

How to read a MyCareersFuture or JobVacancySG salary range

A published range is a claim about one vacancy. Read it with a short protocol.

1. Note the employment type. A part-time range is not a full-time range. A contract range may exclude AWS and bonus.
2. Note whether the figure is monthly. Singapore listings are usually monthly. If a range looks like an annual package, ask. Do not convert it yourself and then treat the conversion as official.
3. Compare the midpoint of the range only as a rough centre, not as a promise. Offers often land below midpoint for a first hire into the band.
4. Compare the bottom of the range with your walk-away number, defined as the lowest fixed monthly salary you will accept after rent, commute, and (if you are a citizen or PR) employee CPF.
5. If the role needs a Work Pass, compare the bottom of the range with the official qualifying floor for the intended pass, age, and sector. If the bottom sits below the floor, either the pass plan is unclear or the range is not the pass salary.
6. Ignore comments on the listing that quote other companies. Those are unofficial.

Fair Consideration Framework advertisements on MyCareersFuture exist because many employers who will apply for an EP or S Pass must advertise for 14 consecutive days and must not offer the job during that window, unless exempt. A salary of $22,500 or more is one exemption path. That exemption is not an industry median.

Check the official source: Fair Consideration Framework.

When a listing shows no range, that is allowed on many boards. Your move is to ask for the fixed monthly salary at the recruiter screen. It is a normal question in Singapore. Practise the sentence: “Could you share the fixed monthly salary band for this role?” If they will only quote a package, ask them to subtract bonus and allowances.

Industry context without an invented table

Industries differ in how they mix the parts above. The differences are structural. They do not require us to invent a median for each column.

Accounting and finance. Fixed monthly salary plus a bonus conversation is common. AWS appears in some firms and not others. Financial-services Work Pass floors are higher than general-sector floors, which is a policy fact, not a personal entitlement. Read listings on accounting and finance jobs and the qualitative paths in accounting and finance jobs in Singapore. Professional qualifications can change your band inside a firm; they do not create an official national median we can quote here.

Information technology. Bands are wide because “engineer” covers many scopes. Equity and joining bonuses appear in some product firms and almost never in unofficial industry averages that pretend to be official. Use IT jobs and IT jobs in Singapore. Tech.Pass’s $22,500 last-drawn criterion is a scheme rule on the EDB Tech.Pass page, not typical tech pay, and new applications stop from 28 January 2027.

Healthcare. Public clusters and private providers use different frameworks. Licensed roles have gates that sit before pay. Do not use a social-media “nurse salary” screenshot. Use healthcare jobs, the healthcare article, and the Singapore Nursing Board or Singapore Medical Council as relevant.

Engineering, construction, and manufacturing. Shift allowances, site allowances, and overtime (where the Act applies) can be a real part of monthly cash. They are easy to omit from a blog table and easy to overstate in a forum. Browse engineering, construction, and manufacturing listings, and read engineering and construction and M&E for the work. The Professional Engineers Board and BCA are the official bodies for registration and built-environment standards, not for a pay table.

Hospitality, education, and other services. Service-charge language, term-time contracts, and academic grades make unofficial averages especially weak. Use hospitality and education listings and ask what is guaranteed. SkillsFuture can fund a switch; it does not publish your new salary. Start at SkillsFuture and WSG for resident career-conversion support.

Across all of these, the only official individual-income anchors in this article remain $5,775 and $9,038 in the 2025 resident full-time series. If MOM publishes occupation or industry income tables in a form you can open, use those tables. Do not let a blog invent a substitute grid “for convenience”.

Work Pass floors, again, as floors

Foreign professionals should keep pass qualifying salaries in a separate column labelled “policy floor”. Current EP new applications before 1 January 2027 use $5,600 to $10,700 in most sectors (age 23 or below up to age 45 and above) and $6,200 to $11,800 in financial services. COMPASS needs 40 points unless exempt; a fixed monthly salary of $22,500 or more is one exemption. Current S Pass new applications from 1 September 2025 use $3,300 to $4,800 in most sectors and $3,800 to $5,650 in financial services, with a $650 monthly levy from 1 September 2025. S Pass dependants generally need a sponsor salary of at least $6,000. From 1 January 2027, new-application floors rise; read MOM for the live numbers.

Check the official source: MOM’s EP and S Pass eligibility pages linked above. Our Employment Pass and S Pass articles walk through process. A floor is not a guide to what a local candidate “should” earn.

How to talk about money without breaking fair-hiring rules

Salary conversations should stay on the work. Employers should select on merit. TAFEP’s tripartite guidelines tell employers not to request nationality, age, race, religion, marital status, or a photograph on application forms. Those fields are not a required part of a “Singapore-style” resume, and they are not a required part of a salary discussion. If a form asks, that is the employer’s issue.

Write your resume around evidence of scope: budget, team size, systems, patients, assets, or service levels. Use the resume tools on this site and the resume article if you need structure. In interviews, answer with the fixed monthly salary you want and the evidence that supports it. Do not volunteer a nationality-based discount or premium. See interview preparation.

Employers who want a clean process should advertise honestly, include a range when they can, and complete Fair Consideration Framework steps before a pass application. How employers can hire the right talent covers that sequence. Candidates can browse companies and recruiters but should still insist on a written split of fixed monthly salary and variable pay.

A one-page offer worksheet you can copy

• Fixed monthly salary (the only number you annualise by twelve if you need an annual view).
• AWS: yes/no, amount or months, payment month, resignation rule.
• Bonus: formula or “discretionary”, last two years’ actual language if the interviewer will share it, first-year pro-rating.
• Allowances: which ones, and whether they sit inside pass qualifying salary.
• CPF: applies / does not apply; if it applies, open the CPF Board rates rather than guessing.
• Leave: contractual days versus the Employment Act floor of 7 rising to 14.
• Hours and work arrangement: on-site, hybrid, or a formal flexible-work request later.
• Pass: none / EP / S Pass / other; floor for age and sector; FCF advertising status.
• Official context only: MOM 2025 resident full-time median $5,775; degree-holder median $9,038; household median $12,446 is not individual pay.

If a cell on that worksheet is empty, you do not have a complete offer. Fill the cell or walk away from the comparison.

What to do this week

1. Open the latest MOM labour-force findings and write the resident full-time median and the degree-holder median on your worksheet, with the year.
2. Pick one industry page on JobVacancySG that matches your search — for example finance or IT — and save five listings that publish a range.
3. For each listing, write employment type, monthly range, and whether bonus is mentioned. Do not invent a midpoint industry average from those five rows.
4. If you are a citizen or PR, open the CPF Board contribution-rate page and write the rates that apply to your age group.
5. If you need sponsorship, open MOM’s pass page and write the qualifying floor in a column labelled “floor”.
6. Practise asking for the fixed monthly salary in one sentence. Use it on the next recruiter call.

For a wider search process, use the 2026 job-search guide and best job search websites. For skills language that sometimes sits behind a higher band, use jobs by skill and SkillsFuture, not an invented premium percentage.

Read a salary range next to a real workplace

A $ range on a CBD seat is not the same conversation as the same title in Tampines. Compare listings in the Downtown Core and near Raffles Place with East-side pages such as Tampines, Tampines MRT, and Bedok MRT, and with one-north for tech campuses. Hybrid versus in-office also changes the net value of the same headline number.

Save the ranges you respect against your profile so you do not invent a new floor in every screen. A Career Passport helps when an agency asks for a link. Register if you are still collecting screenshots in a notes app. Use jobs by skill when the industry page is too wide.

FAQ

What official salary figures can I use in 2026?

Use MOM’s latest labour-force medians. For 2025, full-time employed residents had a median gross monthly income of $5,775, and degree holders in that group had a median of $9,038. Use SingStat for household income, and remember $12,446 (2025 median household market income) is not individual pay. Check the official publications for newer years.

Why is there no industry salary table in this guide?

Because we will not invent industry medians. If MOM or SingStat publish a table you can open, use that table. A blog grid without an official source is a guess. Listing ranges are employer-specific, not industry official medians.

Does every job in Singapore include AWS and bonus?

No. AWS is not a universal legal requirement. Bonus is often discretionary. Read the letter. If a component is not written, do not count it in a comparison.

Do foreign employees receive CPF?

CPF contributions apply to citizens and PRs under CPF Board rules. Do not assume a Work Pass holder is in the same system. Check the CPF Board and your contract. Do not use a forum’s percentage.

How do Employment Pass floors fit into a salary guide?

They are policy minimums for a pass application, age-based and higher in financial services. They are not typical pay and not a local candidate’s target. Current general EP floors run from $5,600 to $10,700 before the 1 January 2027 change for new applications. Confirm on MOM.

Where do I check a range that looks too low?

Re-read the listing’s employment type and hours, compare the fixed monthly salary (when you have it) with MOM’s resident medians as context, and if a pass is involved compare it with the official floor. Then ask the employer. Do not “correct” the range with an unofficial internet average.