The way forward for finance is unfolding in highly effective waves, formed by the convergence of know-how, expertise, and creativeness. AI and different applied sciences drive choices at scale, digital ecosystems blur the strains between industries, and innovation more and more strikes with out borders.
But for all this acceleration, one actuality endures: human functionality is what turns know-how into actual affect.
Nowhere is that this extra evident than in Singapore, the place expertise has lengthy been handled as strategic infrastructure. The nation’s skill-first mindset recognises that human capital fuels every thing else: innovation, competitiveness, and the flexibility to construct world-class fintech merchandise that scale.
The most recent SFA Fintech Expertise Report captures this actuality with readability and depth. Drawing from a large base of real-world views, founders, hiring managers, educators, and job seekers, it distils at present’s expertise panorama into sharp insights and forward-looking methods.
The report displays what’s really occurring on the bottom: how firms are hiring, how candidates are shifting, and the way roles are evolving in a digital-first financial system.
Some findings are stunning, others deeply validating. As an example, 92% of employers say communication and teamwork matter greater than certifications (a mere 8%), underscoring a shift towards adaptable, people-centred expertise in a sector typically stereotyped as purely technical.
And that’s only the start. What else is reshaping the fintech expertise equation in Singapore, and what does it say about the place the trade is heading subsequent?
What’s the State of Fintech Expertise Like in Singapore?
Singapore stands among the many world’s 12 international tech powerhouses, an achievement that surprises nobody acquainted with its ecosystem. The nation’s mature digital infrastructure, deep expertise pool, and pro-innovation insurance policies have created an setting the place bold firms can scale with confidence.
Regardless of its compact footprint, Singapore competes head-to-head with giants like China and India, and is now actively shaping its future as an AI powerhouse by accelerating expertise growth and increasing international partnerships.
The purpose is obvious: to anchor itself firmly within the subsequent period of clever innovation. Tawishi Singh, Vice-President of the Singapore Fintech Affiliation, shared,
“Singapore has lengthy been a worldwide hub for fintech, with expertise on the coronary heart of its success. Future-proofing the sector means equipping staff with each arduous and mushy expertise to thrive alongside evolving applied sciences corresponding to AI.”
This power is mirrored in how fintech groups are constructed at present. Whereas Singapore stays the first hub, many organisations now function with expertise distributed throughout the broader APAC area, an indication of more and more hybrid, regionally built-in workforce fashions.
The survey additionally reveals what is going to drive fintech hiring within the yr forward. Enterprise progress priorities, value optimisation, and shifting geopolitical or macroeconomic situations prime the listing.
Virtually 70% of firms cite finances constraints as a key hurdle. But, a major 62% nonetheless plan to extend headcount to help enlargement, underscoring each cautious spending and sustained confidence within the sector’s potential.
Tech Corporations Now Rent With a Strategic, Focused Method
The largest query in expertise administration has all the time been this: the place do you discover, retain, and upskill expertise to match the trade? The present favoured method is to be each strategic and exact.
Whereas 54% of surveyed firms are nonetheless hiring considerably, fintechs are actually additionally going past tech, and more and more searching for out product managers, partnership leads, and senior regulatory consultants.
Nonetheless, probably the most in-demand roles stay anchored in software program engineering, knowledge science, cybersecurity, product administration, and compliance. Versatile fashions are additionally rising. Corporations are turning to contract specialists and project-based hires to remain agile whereas managing prices.
On the opposite facet of the equation, candidates are selective. Job seekers prioritise profession progress, publicity to superior applied sciences, and hybrid work preparations.
With 91% of fintech candidates in Singapore holding a bachelor’s or grasp’s diploma, robust tutorial credentials clearly give candidates a strong benefit when getting into this fast-moving trade.
The Three Expertise Pressures Reshaping The Fintech Workforce
Singapore’s fintech employers are navigating three urgent expertise challenges. First, the 2025 SFA survey highlights a rising problem in filling senior and C-suite roles.
These positions are the toughest to shut as a result of prime expertise is commonly pulled towards markets like India, the US, and China, the place compensation packages can run as much as 30% larger. This creates a smaller native expertise pool and intensifies competitors for skilled leaders.
Second, AI job demand surged by as much as 40% in 2025, with specialist roles commanding salaries of as much as S$200k yearly.
However automation brings a parallel problem: whereas it will increase effectivity, it additionally creates new demand for AI governance, ethics, and danger consultants. Corporations now must steadiness technological development with robust human oversight.
Third, the talents hole stays a structural situation. Whereas 41% of fintech roles require technical expertise, 36% demand non-tech practical experience, in keeping with MyCareersFuture. But many candidates lack regulatory and compliance data, pushing companies to take a position closely in upskilling.
Specialists in AI, cloud, and compliance now command wage premiums of 20% to 35%, including stress to hiring budgets.
In response, firms are prioritising senior hires and shifting towards cut up workforce fashions, anchoring management groups in Singapore whereas offshoring engineering expertise to Vietnam, Malaysia, and India.
However to actually win the expertise conflict, employers might want to rethink compensation, strengthen retention methods, and construct clear profession pathways that hold management rooted in Singapore whereas tapping wider regional expertise swimming pools for scale.
The Expectation Hole Between Employers and Workers
Regardless of the survey displaying that 84% of hiring wants are in business, technical, and product roles, energetic candidates solely meet 47% of market demand, with the most important gaps showing in business and tech capabilities.
What’s much more hanging is the mismatch in priorities. Business professionals place heavy emphasis on technical expertise corresponding to AI, machine studying, and cybersecurity for the yr forward.
Hiring managers, nevertheless, see issues in another way: 92% prioritise mushy expertise, and 85% spotlight adaptability and studying agility.
The takeaway is obvious: technical experience could get you seen, however mushy expertise decide how far you go.
A widening disconnect can also be rising between what expertise desires and what employers can realistically supply. 67% of execs cite wage as the highest motive for switching jobs, simply behind profession development.
But on the employer facet, 70% say finances constraints will form hiring methods within the coming yr, and solely 11% take into account providing aggressive pay a precedence.
Expertise, in the meantime, is taking possession of their growth. Professionals are actively upskilling or reskilling by on-line programs, mentorship programmes, and in-person workshops, signalling a workforce that’s hungry to remain related.
On the similar time, expectations round work have shifted. 62% rank distant or hybrid flexibility and work-life steadiness as prime pull elements, and 60% of hybrid staff would take into account leaving if workplace time will increase.
Collectively, these tendencies present that whereas candidates are prepared to spend money on themselves, they anticipate employers to fulfill them midway with fashionable, versatile work environments.
The Actual Differentiator? Alignment Between Employers and Expertise
The SFA Fintech Expertise Report makes one factor unmistakably clear: technological progress could set the tempo, however it’s human functionality that determines how far the sector can go. And at present, that functionality is formed by shifting expectations on each side of the expertise equation.
Employers should evolve. Corporations might want to refine how they assess potential, rethink pay constructions, and construct environments that reward adaptability, studying agility, and cross-functional collaboration.
Finances pressures could also be actual, however expertise will gravitate towards workplaces that supply significant progress, readability of development, and leaders who’re each tech-fluent and mentorship-driven. Retention now issues as a lot as recruitment.
Expertise, too, should adapt. Professionals who thrive will probably be those that repeatedly be taught, spend money on their craft, and construct genuine, intentional profession narratives.
Upskilling, reskilling, and contributing to tasks; these are the brand new alerts of readiness in a aggressive and more and more globalised fintech market.
Jon Goldstein, Managing Associate, Web page Govt Southeast Asia and India, added,
“The subsequent wave of success will belong to those that mix digital innovation with human perception, creating ecosystems that aren’t solely environment friendly however trusted.”
In the end, the way forward for fintech expertise in Singapore will hinge on alignment: between what firms want and what professionals aspire to; between technological progress and human judgment; between the ambition to scale and the flexibility to construct sustainable, expert groups.
Singapore’s power has all the time been its folks, and as fintech strikes into its subsequent period, that fact solely turns into extra vital.
Featured picture: Edited by Fintech Information Singapore, based mostly on picture by sumarnimurni on Freepik
