Singapore's Salary Guides Don't Agree With Each Other. Here's Why.
This week, The Straits Times rounded up five different ways to check if you're paid enough in Singapore — its own MOM-based guide plus four recruiter guides. None of them count "salary" the same way, and that gap alone can look like a real pay difference when it isn't.
Singapore's Salary Guides Don't Agree With Each Other. Here's Why.
This week, The Straits Times updated its Singapore Salary Guide. It covers more than 500 jobs, using real government wage data. Type in your age, job title and monthly pay, and it shows you where you land compared to others doing the same job.
The same article also names four other places that do this. Adecco, Michael Page, Robert Walters and Hays each publish their own salary guide. So now there are five different guides, all trying to answer one question: am I paid enough? Check two of them for the same job, and don't be surprised if the numbers don't match.
What the numbers actually say
The MOM-based numbers are detailed enough to be useful on their own. At the very top: diagnostic radiologists, financial derivatives dealers and flying instructors each earn a median of $20,000 a month — the highest of any job tracked. Just behind them: chief information and technology officers at $17,812, risk management managers at $17,077, and commercial airline pilots at $17,053.
Break it down by age and the picture changes. Among workers aged 25 to 29, AI and machine learning engineers earn the most — a median of $8,970 a month. In their 30s and 40s, it's financial derivatives dealers, economists and tech sales professionals out front. By the 50s, it's flying instructors, in-house legal counsel and fund managers.
One more finding worth mentioning, even though it's not the main point of this piece: men earn more than women in 251 of the 365 jobs where a comparison was possible. The biggest gaps are among fund managers, trade brokers and sales professionals.
Same question, five different rulers
Here's the part the article mentions almost in passing — and it matters more than any single salary number above. The Straits Times guide is based on a nationwide government survey. It covers every employer, not just the ones that happen to hire through one recruiter. The four recruitment-firm guides don't work that way. Adecco's guide comes from its own clients and candidates, across 10 job types, including education — a sector the other guides rarely cover. Michael Page uses its own data, across 13 job types. Robert Walters covers six. Hays covers 15 industries across five countries. Each one is a real, useful look at its own slice of the market. But it's only that firm's slice — not the whole of Singapore's workforce.
Then there's the question of what actually counts as "salary." Adecco and Robert Walters report base pay only. Michael Page's numbers include bonuses. Hays reports the full yearly package. Put two of these numbers side by side for the same job, and you can see a gap of 15 to 20 percent — not because the market changed, but because one number counts a bonus and the other doesn't. That's not a real pay gap. It's like comparing two rulers with different markings and thinking one of them is broken.
Try the free Salary Check — it uses the same government wage data as the ST guide, matched to your job and industry. It's free, and you don't need to log in. Before you trust any single number from any guide — including this one — check two things: who it's based on, and whether it counts base pay or the full package.
The one thing worth doing differently
Use the government-wide number first — from MOM, either through the ST guide or the free tool above — as your baseline. That tells you if you're in the right range at all. Then treat a recruiter's guide as a second, narrower check on demand in your specific field, not as a rival answer to the same question. The two were never meant to match down to the dollar. They're measuring different things, on purpose.
Five guides now exist to answer one question. None of them disagree that you should check. They just quietly disagree about what "paid enough" is actually made of.
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References
The Straits Times. (2026, August 22). Want to know if you are paid enough? Start with these salary guides. straitstimes.com
Note. Every fact above about the ST/MOM Salary Guide and the four recruitment-firm guides (Adecco, Michael Page, Robert Walters, Hays) — including every salary figure — comes directly from The Straits Times' own August 22, 2026 article. TalentReady has not independently checked each recruiter firm's own guide, or MOM's underlying data, for this piece. Treat the recruiter-guide descriptions as reported by The Straits Times, not separately verified.