IT pay rises as talent shortage continues in Singapore
There is a shortage of workers in the IT industry who hold both technical and business skills, a ZW HR Consulting report finds out. In a candidate favoured market, largely driven by the over saturation of IT firms and positions this has posed many new challenges in attracting the best talent for the right position.
The report highlights that employers now scramble to find top talent who meet their ever increasing requirements—again searching for those professionals with specific technical and business capabilities.
Singapore remains the gateway to businesses in Southeast Asia due to its sound infrastructure, continuing to attract multinational corporations in the Commerce and IT industries. The IT sector is considered one of the most competitive arenas in the Singapore marketplace. Salary ranges in this function are constantly changing, which is why staying ahead of the curve and knowing what is coming next is critical to career success. With more companies looking towards increasing business efficiencies, technology is earmarked for additional growth causing an influx in IT job openings.
“The year 2015 is likely to turn out to be a reasonably good period for IT professionals. The average salary ranges for professionals are up by 10 per cent – 15 per cent for 2015/16 as compared to the 2014/15 figures; hiring is still strong in many areas such as mobile applications, data analytics, business intelligence and cloud computing.Cyber Security professionals and Application Developers are in demand due to increasing regulations and customers concern for data protection,” says Mervin Chui, Managing Director of ZW HR Consulting Singapore.
Yvonne Tang, Director for IT Practice at ZW HR Consulting believes IT professionals have a huge advantage right now. She said, “Against the backdrop of a talent scarcity across Singapore, experienced skilled professionals can expect to see salary hikes. Technology drives so many aspects of a modern business – from sales growth to productivity improvements—employers will need to consider increasing salaries to keep pace with inflation in order to retain their high-calibre workforce.”
Companies in Singapore will have to look at options besides simply increasing remuneration if they wish to attract and retain the best talent, the report finds. Work-life balance and employee engagement policies are equally important and will need to be leveraged effectively in order to keep Singapore-based organisations competitive on a global scale.
According to the report, the IT professionals/skills who are likely to be in demand in 2015/16 include software developers, mobile application developers, database administrators, cloud computing, information security/ cyber security, network engineers, helpdesk/ technical support, project managers, web designers/developers and Big Data.
