Alert 1: This post does not tell you how much an assistant/associate professor or full professor in NTU makes a year.

Alert 2: “Paying the Professoriate” is a book comparing compensation and contracts but Singapore is not included in the comparison.

If you are interested in pursuing a career in academia, you may be interested in this book titled “Paying the Professoriate: a Global Comparison of Compensation and Contracts” edited by Altbach et al. It offers an international comparison of academic salaries in 28 countries across public, private, research, and non-research universities, shedding light on the conditions and expectations that shape the modern academic position. The analysis revolves around the questions “whether academic salaries provided middle-class income” and “whether the academic profession remains attractive enough to entice and retain talent within different countries”.

Here are some UK and US specific findings:

UK: “… A number of higher education institutions have recently taken measures, such as early retirement and voluntary severance schemes, in order to make a saving on annual operating costs. Several departments have been closed down and, as a result, redundancies cannot be avoided. Academic staff face growing pressure in order to retain their positions and to accept the increased workload to combat job security…”
US: “… academic salaries in the United States in 2010 barely afford incumbents a middle-class lifestyle, especially for those working in expensive urban centers with high housing costs. Indeed, half of all U.S. faculty seek supplemental compensation from the home institution, and one-third work outside their primary employing institution…”

Part 3 of the book is a chapter titled ‘Reflections’. Like every industry, the Ivory Tower is not immune to what is happening in the employment market, due mainly to the Internet revolution. Present-day universities experience serious competition in the race for the best young professionals. The book ends with the following words:

“The time when universities had a monopoly on freedom and creativity is now gone. We believe that this contributes to why academicians in many countries feel dissatisfied with the current level of their salaries and benefits, as shown in many parts of this book.”

A note on the book is that it was published in 2012; interestingly or sadly, I am not able to find newer books written on the topic.

So coming back to faculty salary in NTU/Singapore, what other sources are there? Glassdoor.com provides information provided anonymously by employees, so it may give some indication but it is certainly not considered authoritative. Another possible source is JobStreet.  The table below shows the salaries of sample positions titles that contain ‘lecturer’, with either a master or bachelor degree qualification. However, this does not tell us how much are faculty members (who have PhDs) in Singapore paid.

Screen capture from JobStreet with ‘Position Title’ containing ‘lecturer’:

Another source to look for is Ministry of Manpower (MOM)’s published statistics. According to the June 2017 occupational wages statistics, the median monthly gross wage of a University Lecturer is S$12,142.

See screen capture of the table downloaded from MOM website below: