Median salary of fresh university graduates in 2022 increased; ranges from $3,500 to $5,625

The gross monthly median salary of fresh university graduates in 2022 saw an increase in most course clusters, revealed the 2022 Graduate Employment Survey (GES).

The GES was jointly conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU), and Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). A total of 15,984 fresh graduates from the universities were surveyed in November 2022.

The lowest median salary belongs to the course cluster of Arts, Design & Media at $3,500. It saw no change from the previous year’s median salary.

Fresh graduates of the Information & Digital Technologies course cluster have the highest median salary of $5,625. This is an increase of $625 from last year.

Dentistry saw no increase in median salary, remaining at $4,200, while graduates from Yale-NUS had the largest increase in median salary by $850 – from $4,150 to $5,000.

The gross monthly salary only considers those who hold full-time permanent employment. It comprises basic salary, overtime payments, commissions, fixed allowances and other regular cash payments, before deductions of the employee’s CPF contributions and personal income tax. Employer’s CPF contributions, bonuses, stock options, lump sum payments, and payments-in-kind are excluded.

The proportion of graduates in the labour force who were employed within six months of completing their final examinations saw a slight decrease from 94.4 per cent in 2021 to 93.8 per cent in 2022.

Of those who secured employment in 2022, 87.5 per cent found a full-time job. This is an increase from 84 per cent in 2021. The proportion of those freelancing also increased slightly from 1.7 per cent in 2021 to 1.8 per cent in 2022.

Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD) and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) will publish their survey results at a later date due to differences in academic calendars.