Are you wondering if you’re in the right career? What are your odds of levelling your salary up to at least twice the median of S$5,000 per month? Which jobs is it the easiest to hope for S$10,000 or more?
Help is at hand, thanks to Ministry of Manpower occupational wage data, which provides a breakdown of professions where median salaries are at least that — or more.
This means that you have at least a 50 per cent chance of making as much on the job.
Job Hall of Fame
In total there were twenty-three such professions in 2023, from a blend of industries:
| Job Title | Median Gross Salary in 2024 | |
| 1 | Oil and bunker trader | $14,911 |
| 2 | Chief Information Officer/Chief Technology Officer/Chief Security Officer | $13,840 |
| 3 | Chief Operating Officer/General Manager | $13,682 |
| 4 | Business valuer | $13,649 |
| 5 | University lecturer | $13,108 |
| 6 | Insurance services manager | $12,407 |
| 7 | Strategic planning manager | $12,312 |
| 8 | Chief operating officer/General Manager | $12,137 |
| 9 | Risk management manager | $11,558 |
| 10 | Digital forensics specialist | $11,298 |
| 11 | Director (stage, film, television, game, commercial, video and radio) | $11,252 |
| 12 | ICT sales and services professional | $11,250 |
| 13 | Financial/Investment adviser (e.g. relationship manager) | $11,129 |
| 14 | Financial risk manager | $10,817 |
| 15 | Specialist medical practitioner (medical) | $10,693 |
| 16 | Regional sales manager | $10,597 |
| 17 | Financial services manager | $10,580 |
| 18 | Editor (news and periodicals) | $10,577 |
| 19 | Marine superintendent (engineer) | $10,310 |
| 20 | Research and development manager | $10,262 |
| 21 | Ship charterer | $10,202 |
| 22 | Managing director/Chief executive officer | $10,200 |
| 23 | Policy manager | $10,000 |
As you can see, the industries offering such pay are quite diverse. For a harbour city like Singapore, there are a number of jobs in the marine business. There’s IT, of course, finance, upper business management, but also healthcare, academia, and even media.
In other words, there are quite a few opportunities to make good money for people with backgrounds in creative jobs, perhaps contrary to popular belief that only science, finance, medicine or engineering can provide the best pay.
How many Singaporeans make that much?
Quite a few, as it turns out. Out of 2.312 million employed residents, around 404,000 (or 17 per cent) are paid S$10,000 or more per month for their work—and that is excluding the employer’s CPF.
The proportion increases to 20 per cent if we consider only the full-time employed 2.061 million residents.
Yes, one in five makes S$10,000 or more before taxes, not including employer’s share of CPF.
Your odds improve if you’re a man, with 23 per cent of full-time male employees collecting a five-figure monthly pay, compared to around 15 per cent of women.
That is unlikely to be a result of sexism, however, given that men generally choose the professions that tend to pay better, especially in the fields of logistics, IT, or engineering (as you can see in the list above).
Predictably, your chances also rise with age, peaking in your 40s, when about 30 per cent of men take home S$120,000 per year or more, before the share tapers off in mid to late 50s and 60s, dropping to 20 and then just over 10 per cent.
And where do you fall on the spectrum?