NUS, NTU, and SMU graduates earn an average salary of S$3,917/month

Fresh graduates from Singapore's four autonomous universities earned a median gross monthly salary of S$3,600 in 2019, a slight increase from the S$3,500 earned in 2018.

This was revealed in the Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey released on Friday (28 February), which surveyed 11,400 fresh graduates from Singapore Management University (SMU), the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), National University of Singapore (NUS), and Nanyang Technological University (NTU)'s full-time programmes.

The survey also highlighted the employment rates across each university, which, together with the individual starting salaries, is broken down below.

NUS: Mean gross monthly salary of fresh graduates increased by 4.2%

In 2019, fresh graduates from the National University of Singapore who were in full-time permanent employment, earned a mean gross monthly salary of S$3,939, about 4.2% higher than what was earned in 2018 (S$3,779).

At the same time, their median gross monthly salary also saw a slight increase from 2018 (S$3,500) to 2019 (S$3,600).

Those from 23 courses across disciplines -  arts and social sciences, business, computing, business analytics, industrial design, project and facilities management, real estate, engineering, nursing, music, science, pharmacy, dental surgery as well as those offered by Yale-NUS College - saw an improvement in starting salaries.

Of the graduates who were in the labour force, 90.9% were employed in 2019, versus 90% the previous year. A further 2.8% had either accepted a job offer pending commencement of duty, or are actively starting a business venture.

SMU: 92.3% of fresh graduates were employed within six months

According to the survey, 92.3% of Singapore Management University graduates in the labour force had gained employment within six months of completing their final examinations. Out of these graduates, 69.2% were offered full-time permanent jobs before graduation, up from 66.6% in the 2018 cohort.

Among those who had found full-time permanent employment, about half (50.8%) were offered employment through internships, of which 27.6% had accepted the offers.

On the pay front, SMU fresh graduates earned a mean gross monthly salary of S$4,121 in 2019, a jump from what was earned in 2018 (S$3,977); the median gross monthly salary also increased, up from S$3,600 in 2018 to S$3,800 in 2019.

The university also revealed the top three industries of employment for its graduates - these were financial & insurance, information & communication, and legal, accounting and auditing, with financial & insurance being the highest paid with an average gross monthly pay of S$4,940.

Snapshot of graduates' salaries across all six SMU schools

Information systems graduates earned the highest salary with a mean monthly salary of S$4,549, a 9% increase over the 2018 cohort (S$4,160). The median gross monthly salary is S$4,300, up from S$4,000 in 2018.  At the same time, Business management graduates earned a mean gross monthly salary of S$4,181, similar to S$4,133 earned in 2018. The median gross monthly salary earned in 2019 was also similar to that of 2018 (S$3,750 vs S$3,700).

Economics graduates earned a mean monthly salary of S$4,159, similar to that in 2018 (S$4,140) with a median gross monthly salary of S$3,900, up from S$3,700 in 2018. On the other hand, accountancy graduates earned a mean monthly salary of S$3,802, up from S$3,607 in 2018, with a median gross monthly salary of S$S3,050 (2018: S$3,000)

Social sciences graduates earned a mean monthly salary of S$3,629, up from S$3,409 in 2018. They also saw an increase in median gross monthly salary (S$3,500 in 2019 vs S$3,210 in 2018).

NTU: Graduates earned a mean gross monthly salary of S$3,693

While Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) graduates' median gross monthly salaries remained the same as in 2018 (S$3,500), an increase in the mean gross monthly salary was observed - from S$3,634 in 2018, to S$3,693 in 2019.

Graduates from information and digital technologies courses continue to be in demand, with graduates from computer engineering and computer science courses recording full-time permanent employment of 90% or more amongst those in the labour force.

Additionally, business and computing (double degree) graduates are one of the highest-paid among their peers, with a median gross monthly salary of S$4,833. This falls just behind medicine graduates, who top the list with a median gross monthly salary of S$5,700 after completing their one-year housemanship or first-year residency. Computer science graduates draw the next highest median starting salary at S$4,200.

SUSS: 93.6% of fresh graduates had received job offers upon graduation

About nine in 10 graduates from the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS)'s 2019 cohort had secured a job within six months of completing their final examination, with 93.6% having received at least one job offer; close to half (46.8%) had received more than two offers.

Among the university's pioneer batch of human resource management graduates who are fully employed now, more than eight in 10 (87.1%) had gained employment within six months, while the same was so for 91.1% of its full-time accountancy graduates.

For SUSS, median and mean salary data was not provided in the media release.

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Lead image / 123RFGraphics / SMU and NTU