This wage information will help you make sure you’re incomes sufficient in 2026

After a troublesome job market in 2025, right here’s how one can benchmark yourselves in 2026

The job market wasn’t frozen in 2025: it was risk-averse.

With international uncertainty lingering and margins underneath strain, firms are holding again on hiring, creating fewer roles and scrutinising every another carefully. Growth has additionally taken a again seat, changed by necessity-driven roles that shield productiveness, management prices, or hold vital capabilities working.

This method has additionally reshaped how employers assess expertise. In sectors like know-how, healthcare, and engineering, confirmed expertise and adaptableness matter greater than formal {qualifications}, as companies prioritise speedy affect over long-term potential.

As companies plan their 2026 budgets and employees search for practical benchmarks forward of their subsequent appraisal or job transfer, HR options agency PERSOL has launched its 2025/2026 Singapore Wage Information. Right here’s what you’ll want to know.

Salaries by business

1. Banking & Finance

Establishments are specializing in capital self-discipline and recurring payment earnings, with digital transformation now serving because the working baseline. The shift towards sustainable finance has additionally turn out to be a core focus for the business, driving demand for expertise expert in ESG reporting and carbon accounting.

2. Engineering & Technical

As Singapore works in direction of changing into a wise nation with its Business 4.0 ambition, conventional plant roles are evolving into profiles that mix mechatronics with knowledge analytics and IoT. Vital progress has additionally been seen within the semiconductor business, underpinned by over S$18 billion in latest investments.

3. Data Know-how (IT)

The IT sector is evolving quickly, with using massive language fashions (LLMs) anticipated to extend by 89% over the following three years. Gen AI has turn out to be the first ability driver, with a 240% surge in AI course enrollments in 2024.

Professionals with robust AI competencies at present command a big wage premium of as much as 56%.

4. Healthcare & Life Sciences

Singapore has an ageing inhabitants, with 20.7% of residents aged 65 or older as of mid-2025, driving vital demand. To spice up retention and appeal to expertise to the business, Singapore’s Ministry of Well being has introduced that 63,000 public healthcare employees can anticipate wage will increase of as much as 7% beginning Jul 2025.

5. FMCG & Retail

Retailers are more and more leveraging AI for hyper-personalisation, with 69% reporting that AI brokers at the moment are vital to sustaining a aggressive edge. Concurrently, the Progressive Wage Mannequin (PWM) is uplifting frontline wages, with retail assistant pay set to achieve a baseline of S$2,435 in 2026.

6. Authorized

The authorized business is addressing important attrition amongst youthful legal professionals, with over 40% at present accepting excessive stress and overwork as a each day actuality. To enhance effectivity, extra companies have adopted AI analysis instruments, which have shortened contract-law analysis time for greater than 75% of Singapore legal professionals.

7. Schooling

The sector is specializing in manpower stability, with a deliberate improve in annual educator hiring from 700 to 1,000. Wage increments of as much as 12% are additionally being carried out for particular training lecturers to strengthen inclusivity and sector resilience.

8. Hospitality & Tourism

Regardless of a looming expertise scarcity, search exercise for business jobs has elevated by 130.3% between 2021 and 2025. To handle labour dependency, main gamers like Marina Bay Sands are deploying autonomous cell robots (AMRs) to scale back handbook back-of-house workload by as much as 30%.

Overview of Singapore’s labour market

Primarily based on the report, Singapore’s labour market in 2025 has remained resilient however more and more cautious. Whereas employment progress continues throughout each resident and non-resident segments, and the unemployment price stays low at 2%, hiring sentiment varies throughout sectors.

Outward-oriented industries confronted subdued demand and weaker hiring intentions, and wage improve plans have softened, with solely 19.3% of companies anticipating to boost salaries, down from 22.4% in Q2.

For enterprise leaders, this meant navigating a market the place hiring was selective, cost-conscious, and skills-driven; significantly in sectors like know-how, healthcare, life sciences, and superior manufacturing, requiring aggressive pay, upskilling initiatives, and worker well-being programmes to draw and retain expertise.

As for job seekers, the emphasis on adaptability and confirmed expertise has created alternatives to pivot into high-demand roles. Versatile work preparations, a need to construct portfolio careers, and shorter job tenures have additionally inspired extra proactive profession planning, steady studying, and agility to remain aggressive amid a unstable international panorama.

• Learn the total report right here.
• Learn extra articles we’ve written on Singapore’s job market right here.

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