2023 Design Pay Asia Report

A young, diverse workforce concentrated in Singapore, with near-equal gender representation and a strong urban skew.

Product design dominates, individual contributors are the norm, and many designers are career switchers with more total work experience than design-specific experience.

Local currency dominates, median compensation varies across markets, and annual bonuses remain a significant part of total pay packages.

• Medical leave, paid time off, and health insurance are the most widely held benefits; equipment or home-office budget access sits at 21.1%.

Large enterprises and startups are the top employers, hybrid work is the new norm, and remote roles command a significant compensation premium.

• Singapore designers work primarily in large enterprises (32.2%), startups (28.5%), and agencies or consulting firms (20.4%) (N=223).

Negotiation is common but unevenly practised. Pay fairness perceptions are moderate, and most designers lack the resources to actively benchmark their own market value.

Designers are overwhelmingly comfortable with their current working arrangement. Hybrid and remote models, once adopted, have become a stable part of the design work experience.

• Hybrid (71.8%) is the established norm. Remote accounts for 16.7%, in-office 11.5%.

Most designers have made career progress, but employer support is mixed. Over half are open to new opportunities.

• Over 50% are open to switching jobs or companies. 21.7% are actively looking.

Reported median total compensation for the gender cohorts among Singapore survey respondents that meet the publication threshold, including a per-level pay gap breakdown and the experience mix behind the headline figure.

• Per-level gaps range from 11% to 21% against women at Mid-level IC, Senior IC, and People Manager. The gap reverses at Junior IC, where men earned 11.85% less.

Reported median total compensation among Singapore survey respondents, grouped by seniority, years of design experience, international work experience, and negotiation response.

• A negotiation premium shows up from 7 years of design experience onward, not before.

Reported median total compensation among Singapore survey respondents, grouped by company type, industry, company size, design team size, headquarters location, work arrangement, and weekly extra hours.

• Remote respondents recorded S$143,336, Hybrid respondents S$81,900, and In-office respondents S$52,000; the report puts Remote pay at roughly 2.7 times the In-office median and 1.8 times the Hybrid median.

Reported median total compensation among Singapore survey respondents by design-education pathway, including a matched-cohort comparison by formal design education and a profile of respondents without formal design education.

• 90.2% of the no-formal-design-education cohort hold tertiary education in another field, and 85% work as individual contributors, consistent with career switchers rather than unqualified entrants.