Salaries of software engineers in Singapore hit record high; demand for AI skills to rise in tech sector

SINGAPORE – The guys often depicted as gawky geeks in movies got the last laugh in recent years – and probably all the way to the bank.

Competition for tech talent drove up salaries in the sector in Singapore last year, though the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) may reshape the types of skills in demand.

In 2022, salaries of software engineers in Singapore surged 7.6 per cent to an all-time high, according to an annual tech salary report released on Tuesday.

Median base salaries were $5,000 for junior engineers, $8,000 for senior engineers and $13,750 for engineering managers, according to the report by tech talent platform NodeFlair and technology accelerator Iterative.

At the 90th percentile, pay cheques reached $8,500, $12,000 and $19,000, respectively – triple the earnings of those in the bottom 10 per cent.

Other tech jobs that saw significant pay bumps in Singapore in 2022 include mobile engineers, blockchain engineers and data engineers.

Six out of the top 15 most-searched companies – topped by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance – paid employees at least 20 per cent more than the market median, said NodeFlair.

Most of the rest pay at least 10 per cent more, it added.

Mr Ethan Ang, chief executive and co-founder of NodeFlair, said the unprecedented demand for highly skilled tech professionals is “driving up salaries to record highs”.

“As companies across various industries increasingly rely on technology to drive growth, the value of tech talent has never been higher.”

But the “jaw-dropping salary offers” thrown at tech workers in previous years are likely to taper off, said NodeFlair.

Since November, more than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off globally amid concerns about an economic slowdown.

Mr Ang said the tech industry will continue to face challenges in attracting, compensating and retaining top talent.

The hiring landscape is also set to shift, as employers deal with the latest technological disruption of generative AI tools sparked by the public release of ChatGPT in November.

Since ChatGPT’s launch, companies including Tesla, Meta and TikTok have set up high-level AI teams to compete with the Microsoft-linked bot, which can automate tasks from filling spreadsheets to preparing e-mails, itineraries and CEO speeches. It even writes code.

With not enough AI experts to go round, “we will see companies being open to hiring software engineers with an interest in AI, similar to what we observed in previous years during the cryptocurrencies and Web 3.0 boom”, said NodeFlair co-founder Adrian Goh.