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SIT graduates earn an average monthly salary of S$3,675, median is S$3,500

SIT graduates earn an average monthly salary of S$3,675, median is S$3,500

Graduates from the 2020 cohort fared better than those from the 2019 cohort - with 95% employed over the 2020 survey period compared to 90.7% overall employment figure in the previous year.

Based on the 2020 Joint Autonomous University Graduate Employment Survey (JAUGES), 95% of Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) graduates (2,172)—who completed their studies between October 2019 and September 2020—are employed in 2020. Their mean gross monthly salary is at S$3,675; while median gross monthly salary is at S$3,500. These figures are higher than those in the previous year, as well as the year before.

For comparison, the following are the numbers for 2019 and 2018:

  • 2019 - Percentage of employment: 90.7% of 1,809 graduates
  • 2018 - Percentage of employment: 92.5% of 1,707 graduates

Further, it was reported that SIT saw 100% overall employment across several degree programmes, including Information & Communications Technology (Information Security), Game Design, Marine Engineering, Aerospace Systems, as well as the pioneer batch of graduates from three SIT-conferred degree programmes in allied health: Diagnostic Radiography, Occupational Therapy, and Radiation Therapy.

"The inaugural batch of graduates from the joint SIT-University of Glasgow Civil Engineering programme achieved 97.9% overall employment," revealed in the report.

Chua Kee Chaing, SIT President-designate, commented on this trend: "It is encouraging that SIT graduates remain sought after by the industry and enjoy competitive salaries despite current economic conditions."

The JAUGES is conducted by the six Autonomous Universities (NTU, NUS, SIT, SMU, SUSS and SUTD) every year. Due to their different academic calendars, NUS, NTU, SMU and SUSS conduct their surveys in November each year, while SUTD and SIT conduct their surveys in February and March, respectively

Starting salaries for graduates

Looking at the salaries of graduates, in 2019, the mean gross monthly salary for the university graduates is at S$3,598, while the median is at S$3,500. For 2018, it is at S$3,437 and S$3,300 respectively. Moving to 2020, the mean gross monthly salary among SIT graduates employed in full-time permanent employment increased to S$3,675. The median gross monthly salary, however, remained the same at S$3,500.

The report also uncovered that graduates in the Computing Science programme earned the most among their 2020 graduate peers with a median gross monthly salary of S$5,000, compared to S$4,200 in 2019. This was followed by Information and Communications Technology (Information Security) graduates, who earned a median salary of S$4,300, up from S$4,100 the year before.

Graduates with comparatively similar salaries were those from the Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation, Telematics (Intelligent Transportation Systems Engineering), Systems Engineering (ElectroMechanical Systems) and Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Land) programmes.

For clarity, 'mean' is an average of the salaries of the full-time permanently employed graduates. 'Median', on the other hand, is the salary of the 'central' (i.e. 50th Percentile) graduate amongst the full-time permanently employed graduates when they are arranged by salary. In this instance, these terminologies could be explained in this manner:

"The median gross monthly salary for Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in Information & Communications Technology (Software Engineering) offered shows that 50% of the graduates are earning more than $4,000, and the mean gross monthly salary is $4,366. This indicates that there are some high earners who have raised the mean salary. In contrast, the mean gross monthly salary of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Art and Animation graduates is relatively similar to the median gross monthly salary. This indicates that the salaries are more evenly distributed on both sides of the median for this group of graduates."

According to the report, putting these two indicators together is useful for analysis. This is because the median is a useful reference when the salaries are not symmetrically distributed (e.g. when the group contains graduates with exceptionally low or high salaries, especially when the number of respondents is relatively small).


ALSO READWhat 2020's fresh grads from NUS, NTU, SMU, and SUSS are earning


Image / SIT 

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