Software developers used to be among the highest paid IT workers, but in Singapore, those in cyber security and artificial intelligence (AI) are starting to overtake them.
According to digital talent marketplace NodeFlair, the salary of software engineers decreased by 0.99 percent in 2023 while that of data scientists increased by 11.3 percent and cyber-security engineers by 8.24 percent.
A cold spell over the IT industry has been brought on by a frost in the metaverse world, a crypto winter, and tech companies cutting hires enrolled amid the Covid-19 pandemic. This has been made worse by a lack of start-up funding in South-east Asia.
For example, the collapse of cryptocurrency exchanges FTX and Binance caused blockchain engineers’ pay to plummet 5.41 percent in 2023, according to the company’s annual Asia Tech Salary Report, which was made public on April 8.
“There is currently an overall decrease in salaries for various tech positions, in contrast to the preceding two years, during which technology salaries experienced substantial growth,” the firm stated.
However, it did point out that wages had increased since 2021.
According to NodeFlair’s count, software engineers that work in front-end, back-end, and full-stack engineering earned a median base salary of $5,000 per month as juniors and $11,000 per month as managers in 2023.
Their pay seems to indicate that they are earning more than their counterparts in other fields.
Local graduates in the information and digital technology sectors had the highest gross monthly salary, according to a poll published in February. However, that pay was down from $5,625 in 2022.
Graduates in the arts, design, and media made $3,740, engineers made $4,500, and business graduates made $4,150.
However, in the future, generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) will develop code more quickly and accurately than software engineers, who were in high demand during the epidemic as digital services took off.
However, experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber security are highly sought after due to the increasing significance of threats generated by machines.
In NodeFlair’s analysis, data scientists surpassed software engineers in terms of income growth. These professionals hold roles such as computer vision specialists, AI engineers, machine learning specialists, deep learning experts, and practitioners of natural language processing.
Co-founder of NodeFlair Adrian Goh believes that data engineering and cloud computing, which are both necessary for AI to function, will be in high demand in the near future.
