Global talent rankings 2025: Hong Kong and Singapore secure top 10 spots

Other APAC markets coming up include Taiwan, Australia, and Malaysia, which earned places within the top 30.

In Asia-Pacific, talent competitiveness is emerging as a critical driver of long-term economic growth, with access to skills, quality education, and cross-border talent mobility playing a pivotal role in shaping innovation and productivity.

IMD's World Talent Ranking 2025 assessed 69 economies across three dimensions – investment and development, appeal, and readiness – and evaluated their capacity to develop, attract, and retain the human capital required to sustain growth.

Hong Kong (fourth) and Singapore (seventh) clinched top 10 spots in the global rankings, with Hong Kong seeing an improvement from 2024. The full top 10 are as follows:

Hong Kong

In fourth position this year, Hong Kong SAR went up five positions from ninth last year. Its performance is driven by improvements across all talent competitiveness factors: from fourth to third in readiness, from 13^th to 12^th in investment and development, and most importantly, a significant improvement from 28^th to 20^th in appeal.

At the indicator level, Hong Kong’s strengths remain similar to 2024 and includes:

• graduates in sciences (first, 42.39%),
• female labour force participation (fifth, 50.79%),
• availability of finance skills (third), and
• the effectiveness of management education (fifth).

PISA assessment results (sixth) further underscore these strengths. Hong Kong is also becoming more attractive to foreign highly skilled talent (13^th, up from 26^th), and executives report greater availability of skilled labour (16^th, up from 26^th).

Weaknesses include:

• high exposure to particle pollution (37^th),
• negative labour force growth (62^nd, -0.39), and
• low public expenditure on education (49^th, 3.9%).

Hong Kong reached its lowest ranking position in the cost-of-living index (66^th). Further improvement could also be undertaken in the quality of primary and secondary education, as measured by the pupil-teacher ratio (both ranked 19^th, scoring 12.1 and 10.7, respectively).

Singapore

Singapore, on the backdrop of two successive years of improvement in the overall talent ranking, dropped five positions to seventh. This decline is due to weaker performance across all three talent factors, though the most notable fall is seen in investment and development (from 22^nd to 30^th).

Singapore remains strong in the readiness factor (declining slightly from first to second) and continues to be a strong performer in appeal (ninth). Singapore’s strengths at the indicator level include:

• good health infrastructure (fifth),
• high availability of foreign skilled personnel (third), and
• attractive remuneration of management (fourth, $298,777 annually).

The country also benefits from a fairly administered justice system (fifth) and relies on great education outcomes, including the satisfaction of executives with the level of primary and secondary education (third), the number of graduates in the sciences (fourth, 35.95%), as well as student mobility inbound (third) and PISA assessment scores (second).

Singapore’s lowest ranking indicators remain

• The cost-of-living index (65^th) and the
• Total public expenditure on education (63^rd).

Despite relatively low ranks, Singapore saw slight improvements in its pupil-teacher ratio in secondary education (from 36^th to 31^st) and its female labour force participation (from 20^th to 16^th). 

Neighbouring markets such as Taiwan, Australia, and Malaysia earned their place in the top 30: 

Taiwan

• In APAC, Taiwan landed in third place, with a score of 71.98%.
  • investment and development: 62.61% (21^st)
  • appeal: 58.96% (16^th)
  • readiness: 69.35% (11^th)
• In addition, Taiwan ranked 17^thwhen assessed for GDP per capita greater than $20,000.
• For population over 20mn, Taiwan ranked in third place.

Australia

• In APAC, Australia landed in fourth place, with a score of 70.80%.
  • investment and development: 60.99% (22^nd)
  • appeal: 62.09% (13^th)
  • readiness: 64.30% (16^th)
• In addition, Australia ranked 19^thwhen assessed for GDP per capita greater than $20,000.
• For population over 20mn, Australia ranked in fourth place.

Malaysia

• In APAC, Malaysia landed in 25^th place, with a score of 65.18%.
  • investment and development: 49.80% (39^th)
  • appeal: 56.51% (21^st)
  • readiness: 64.19% (17^th)
• In addition, Malaysia ranked first when assessed for GDP per capita less than $20,000.
• For population over 20mn, Malaysia ranked in sixth place.

Here are the rankings for the rest of the Asia-Pacific region:  

Key takeaways

The data and analysis presented in this report highlight several defining trends shaping global talent competitiveness in 2025. Most notably, talent competitiveness remains a highly dynamic and evolving field where sustained leadership demands continuous policy innovation, responsiveness to shifting workforce needs, and the ability to balance long-term investment with short-term adaptability.

The report revealed three key patterns that distinguish top-performing economies from those losing ground.

• First, the most competitive countries achieve a recognisable balance across all three pillars of investment and development, appeal, and readiness, avoiding overreliance on a single strength.
• Second, efficiency matters as much as investment: economies like Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Estonia demonstrate that strategic use of limited education budgets can outperform more generously funded but less effective systems.
• Third, international student mobility is the foundation of future talent strategies. Countries like Canada and Germany are not only attracting foreign students but also successfully integrating them into their labour markets, building long-term pipelines of skilled talent.

Looking forward, economies will need to address three overarching challenges to sustain or improve their competitiveness:

1. Bridging gender gaps in labor force participation,
2. Aligning educational outcomes with rapidly evolving workforce demands, and
3. Offering a compelling value proposition that combines quality of life with affordability.

Those that can innovate in these areas while preserving strong policy foundations will be best positioned to lead the next era of global talent competitiveness. Conversely, economies that remain static or fail to adapt risk falling behind in a world where talent is increasingly mobile, discerning, and in demand.

Methodology 

The IMD World Talent Ranking (WTR) assesses the status and the development of competencies necessary for enterprises and the economy to achieve long term value creation. It does so by using a set of indicators which measure the development, retention and attraction of a domestic and international highly-skilled workforce.

Three main factors were accounted for, comprising 31 criteria, although each factor does not necessarily have the same number of criteria (for example, it takes more criteria to assess readiness than to evaluate investment and development).

Full methodology here.

READ MORE: Labour markets strong but participation and skills gaps persist in 2025: WEF updates 

Infographics / IMD's World Talent Ranking 2025