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Occupational Wages
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Uses and Limitations

As occupational wage data are based on aggregates of similar jobs, they can only serve as a guide for expected wages of individuals, given that wages are determined by prevailing market conditions and no workers and jobs are totally alike. For example, jobs may differ in scope, responsibilities, requirements and working environment and not all workers have the same skills, productivity and innate ability.

Commonly used for salary benchmarking, data on occupational wages do not include bonuses, which are more closely linked to performance of the individual and establishment. Hence, the wages for occupations, where performance-based bonuses constitute a significant portion of total wages, would be lower than expected. Examples of such occupations are brokers, dealers and senior management staff.

As data are captured from a sample survey, year-on-year wage changes are prone to fluctuations and hence should always be interpreted with caution. Wage growth studied over longer periods (e.g. 5 or 10 years) smooths out these fluctuations and hence provide a more direct indication of wage growth.

The occupations of the CPF contributors were coded based on the job tit​les provided by their employers. This may result in lower wages for certain occupations, especially those requiring managerial or professional qualifications, when a significant number of contributors without the necessary qualifications (and earning less than their suitably qualified counterparts) were given such titles by their employers.

The occupational wage data presented are for full-time employees only. This provides a more meaningful basis for comparison of wages across occupations.​

Data on cluster occupations (at the 4-digit ​level) may not represent all occupations within the cluster, only occupations that were captured in the survey. For example, Management and Business Consultants (SSOC 2421) comprises Management Consultants (24211), Business Consultants (24212) and Business and Financial Project Management Professionals (24213). However, it is possible that the survey captured only Business Consultants. Cluster occupations should therefore be interpreted with caution.​