Singapore's digital economy grows by S$12 billion, as tech jobs climb to 214,000

SINGAPORE: Singapore's digital economy contributed close to 20 per cent, or around S$128 billion, to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and provided 214,000 tech jobs in 2024, the latest data showed.

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said in this year’s edition of the Singapore Digital Economy Report released on Monday (Oct 6) that the digital economy grew by S$12 billion (US$9.3 billion) last year, accounting for S$128.1 billion – or 18.6 per cent – of the country’s GDP. 

This was an increase from $116.1 billion in 2023, which was changed from its previously reported S$113 billion due to an annual revision by the Singapore Department of Statistics, IMDA added.

In essence, more than S$1 in every S$6 of Singapore's GDP came from the digital economy in 2024.

Similar to 2023, about two-thirds of Singapore's digital economy in 2024 came from digitalisation across other sectors, mainly finance and insurance, wholesale trade, as well as manufacturing. The remaining one-third was contributed by the information and communications sector. 

On these segments showing continued growth last year, IMDA said: “This shows that Singapore's digital growth is not just driven by tech companies, but by digitalisation across all industries.” 

As with its past two reports, IMDA used the same components to determine Singapore's digital economy size:

• The sum of value added or economic contribution of the information and communications sector
• The value added arising from digitalisation in the rest of the economy, where non-digital sectors take up digital technology or solutions

It said that the digital economy grew at a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent between 2019 and 2024, outpacing the nominal GDP growth rate of 7.3 per cent. Nominal GDP measures the total value of goods and services produced in a country's economy without accounting for inflation.

INCREASE IN TECH JOBS AND WAGES

Despite the cautious hiring outlook in the technology sector both globally and domestically last year, the number of tech professionals in Singapore continued to grow – rising from 208,300 in 2023 to 214,000 in 2024.

Job roles related to artificial intelligence (AI) and data, as well as cybersecurity, were among the tech jobs with the fastest growth in 2024.

The growth in the number of tech professionals was driven mainly by sectors outside of information and communications, which saw a 3.9 per cent increase in tech jobs that outpaced the 1.1 per cent growth within the information and communications sector.

Overall, tech jobs accounted for 5.3 per cent of total employment in 2024, up slightly from 5.2 per cent in 2023.

Greater AI adoption by firms has driven up demand for AI skills, IMDA said. 
 
Tech job postings requiring AI skills climbed from 11 per cent in 2019 to 14 per cent in 2024.

This growth was driven by increases in demand across all sectors, including information and communications, finance and insurance, manufacturing, as well as professional services.

Specifically, the information and communications sector, which accounted for the bulk of tech job postings requiring AI skills, recorded a nearly fourfold increase in such postings, from 1,020 in 2019 to more than 4,030 in 2024.

Wages for tech professionals also continued to rise last year, IMDA added.

The median monthly wages for Singaporean and permanent resident tech workers grew 13.6 per cent year-on-year, nearly doubling the 6.8 per cent year-on-year growth for overall resident workers.

The median monthly wages for resident tech workers also remained much higher at S$7,950 compared to S$4,860 for overall resident workers in 2024. In 2023, it was S$7,000 against S$4,550.

GROWING DEMAND FOR AI AND OTHER TECH SKILLS

Last year, all sectors saw higher AI adoption rates compared to the year before, with the information and communications and the professional services sectors leading the advancement, IMDA said.

These two sectors recorded the highest AI adoption rates of 36 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively, while the finance and insurance sector followed with a 23 per cent adoption rate.

AI adoption among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore tripled in one year, with 14.5 per cent of these enterprises adopting AI last year, up from 4.2 per cent in 2023.

This increase was mainly driven by micro and small businesses, the majority of which are adopting off-the-shelf generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Midjourney and Copilot, IMDA added.

The AI adoption rate also jumped among non-SMEs, from 44 per cent to 62.5 per cent.

Firms adopting AI are also seeing tangible gains.

IMDA's findings showed that last year, SMEs that rolled out AI-enabled solutions under the Productivity Solutions Grant achieved an average cost savings of 52 per cent. The grant helps Singapore companies improve their productivity and automate existing processes through IT solutions and equipment.

Those that adopted AI-powered cybersecurity solutions saw greater savings of 71 per cent.

Separately, the demand for specific tech skills has also shifted.

Between 2019 and 2024, programming languages such as Python and Structured Query Language (SQL) were among the more highly sought-after tech skills, and there was an increase in demand for skills associated with cloud platforms and the scalable digital infrastructure they support, IMDA said.

In 2024, knowledge of Python was a required skill in 24 per cent of all tech job postings, a 9 percentage point increase from 2019, while that for SQL was needed in 20 per cent of tech job postings, up 5 percentage points over the same period.

Conversely, tech skills associated with web development became relatively less prominent.

For instance, the share of tech job postings that required skills in JavaScript declined from 21 per cent in 2019 to 12 per cent in 2024, with similar trends observed for related skills such as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

“While still important in web development, these tools are now often embedded within broader development environments that automate much of the manual scripting. As a result, they are less frequently cited as distinct, standalone skills,” IMDA said.