Singapore remains most expensive tech talent market in Southeast Asia

Engineers are paid three times more than in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Singapore is still the most expensive market for tech talent in Southeast Asia, a report found. 

In its Southeast Asia Startup Talent report, Monk’s Hill and Glints found that engineers and product managers in Singapore are paid 3 times more than those in Indonesia and Vietnam. 

“Singapore and Indonesia have the best engineering talent for us. Singapore is consistently good but expensive. Indonesia has very good candidates though they may need more filtering,” said Jeremy Hon, co-founder, and CTO of StaffAny, said. 

Tech and engineering roles continue to receive the highest salaries with VPs and Heads of Engineering earning the highest salaries with annual pay reaching up to $235,200. 

Read more: Three strategies for securing talents in the semiconductor industry amidst global chip shortage

The report also found that skill shortages and increased startups and funding are driving engineering salaries. 

This is also increasing as more crypto companies offer sharp salary raise to tech and non-tech talent as they search for talents with a deep understanding of the concepts behind a blockchain. 

The report noted candidates were offered 100-200% salary raises, compared to other startups. 

Moreover, Monk’s Hill and Glint linked the increase in salary to the return of engineers trained in the US. 

“These engineers, who have honed their skills in places like Silicon Valley, know how to 

build systems at scale and what it takes to build a product-led company,” the report read. 

“We’re starting to see this trend emerge in Vietnam, where talent is returning not just from the banking and finance sectors.”