Use these 2026 salary benchmarks to ensure you’re earning enough this year

After a tough job market in 2025, here’s how you can benchmark yourselves in 2026

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

With global uncertainty lingering and margins under pressure, companies are holding back on hiring, creating fewer roles and scrutinising each one more closely. Expansion has also taken a back seat, replaced by necessity-driven roles that protect productivity, control costs, or keep critical functions running.

This approach has also reshaped how employers assess talent. In sectors like technology, healthcare, and engineering, proven skills and adaptability matter more than formal qualifications, as businesses prioritise immediate impact over long-term potential.

As businesses plan their 2026 budgets and workers look for realistic benchmarks ahead of their next appraisal or job move, HR solutions firm PERSOL has released its 2025/2026 Singapore Salary Guide. Here’s what you need to know.

Salaries by industry

1. Banking & Finance

Institutions are focusing on capital discipline and recurring fee income, with digital transformation now serving as the operating baseline. The shift toward sustainable finance has also become a core focus for the industry, driving demand for talent skilled in ESG reporting and carbon accounting.

2. Engineering & Technical

As Singapore works towards becoming a smart nation with its Industry 4.0 ambition, traditional plant roles are evolving into profiles that combine mechatronics with data analytics and IoT. Significant growth has also been seen in the semiconductor industry, underpinned by over S$18 billion in recent investments.

3. Information Technology (IT)

The IT sector is evolving rapidly, with the use of large language models (LLMs) expected to increase by 89% over the next three years. Gen AI has become the primary skill driver, with a 240% surge in AI course enrollments in 2024.

Professionals with strong AI competencies currently command a significant salary premium of up to 56%.

4. Healthcare & Life Sciences

Singapore has an ageing population, with 20.7% of citizens aged 65 or older as of mid-2025, driving critical demand. To boost retention and attract talent to the industry, Singapore’s Ministry of Health has announced that 63,000 public healthcare workers can expect salary increases of up to 7% starting Jul 2025.

5. FMCG & Retail

Retailers are increasingly leveraging AI for hyper-personalisation, with 69% reporting that AI agents are now critical to maintaining a competitive edge. Simultaneously, the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) is uplifting frontline wages, with retail assistant pay set to reach a baseline of S$2,435 in 2026.

6. Legal

The legal industry is addressing significant attrition among younger lawyers, with over 40% currently accepting high stress and overwork as a daily reality. To improve efficiency, more firms have adopted AI research tools, which have shortened contract-law research time for more than 75% of Singapore lawyers.

Image Credit: PERSOL

7. Education

The sector is focusing on manpower stability, with a planned increase in annual educator hiring from 700 to 1,000. Salary increments of up to 12% are also being implemented for special education teachers to strengthen inclusivity and sector resilience.

Image Credit: PERSOL

8. Hospitality & Tourism

Despite a looming talent shortage, search activity for industry jobs has increased by 130.3% between 2021 and 2025. To manage labour dependency, major players like Marina Bay Sands are deploying autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to reduce manual back-of-house workload by up to 30%.

Overview of Singapore’s labour market

Based on the report, Singapore’s labour market in 2025 has remained resilient but increasingly cautious. While employment growth continues across both resident and non-resident segments, and the unemployment rate remains low at 2%, hiring sentiment varies across sectors.

Outward-oriented industries faced subdued demand and weaker hiring intentions, and wage increase plans have softened, with only 19.3% of firms expecting to raise salaries, down from 22.4% in Q2.

For business leaders, this meant navigating a market where hiring was selective, cost-conscious, and skills-driven; particularly in sectors like technology, healthcare, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing, requiring competitive pay, upskilling initiatives, and employee well-being programmes to attract and retain talent.

As for job seekers, the emphasis on adaptability and proven skills has created opportunities to pivot into high-demand roles. Flexible work arrangements, a desire to build portfolio careers, and shorter job tenures have also encouraged more proactive career planning, continuous learning, and agility to stay competitive amid a volatile global landscape.

Featured Image Credit: 2p2play/ Shutterstock