Are you after a back-office operations job at a bank in Singapore that is both well paid and secure? Good luck at a junior level – operations pay isn’t going up by much as some jobs are offshored to lower cost locations like India, the Philippines and China.
If you can manage to reach the middle ranks, however, banks are more likely to keep you based in Singapore because they still need experienced operations staff to provide on-the-ground support to the local front office. And banks are more likely to pay you (fairly) well.
But exactly which operations jobs should you be working in if you want a decent pay packet in Singapore?
To find out, we’ve looked at salary surveys from six recruitment companies and averaged out base pay at VP level (at least six years’ experience) to produce the table below.
Singapore is Asia’s trade finance and commodities hub, so it’s no surprise that the most well paid VP-level operations jobs in the city state can be found supporting those two sectors.
The third most lucrative back-office role in Singapore is project management, which pays S$166k (US$121k) a year. As in Hong Kong, banks in Singapore are having to hire more project managers in their back offices – particularly to manage offshoring – which is pushing up pay.
Client services and client onboarding are the next best remunerated operations jobs, with banks prepared to pay a premium for people who deal directly with their customers.
Client onboarding has also suffered from a skills shortage for several years in Singapore as banks try to recruit more staff to deal with more vigorous know-your-customer (KYC) regulations. Salary inflation has ensued in the function.
Towards the bottom of our chart salaries start to plunge as the jobs become more administrative. Documentation specialists in Singapore, for example, ‘only’ earn S$130k (US$95k) on average by the time they become VPs.
Related articles:
The best paid banking operations jobs in Hong KongWhich operations jobs offer the best salaries in Hong Kong banking?
The only seven finance jobs where VPs in Singapore are still getting pay risesIf you think reaching VP rank in Singapore will bring you regular bumper pay rises, you might want to reset your expectations.
Singapore banks boost headcount by over 1,200 as pay risesWhile foreign firms in Singapore have been culling jobs, Singapore banks DBS, OCBC and UOB have been boosting their ranks.
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