Compare civil service salary

Hi all,

This may sound like a stupid question but between MOE and MINDEF, which pays better? Also, which organisation will provide better opportunities eg promotions etc? Thanks!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi all,

This may sound like a stupid question but between MOE and MINDEF, which pays better? Also, which organisation will provide better opportunities eg promotions etc? Thanks!

There are different schemes of service within MOE and MINDEF so you need to be a bit more specific. There are the niche schemes such as MOE's General Education Officer (GEO) and MINDEF's SAF Uniformed Officers Schemes, and there are generalist schemes such as the Management Executive (MX) Scheme and MINDEF's Defence Executive Schemes.

Niche schemes are hard to compare as by nature they are unique so the comparisons are not apple to apple. For generalist schemes such as MX and DXO, generally DXO pays better but that is due to the more restrictive criteria (need to be Singaporeans and clean records) and lack of transferable skills. Promotion-wise, I think depends on the individual's academic grades, work experience, and capabilities. DXO can only move within MINDEF. MX is more general and applies across various Ministries.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There are different schemes of service within MOE and MINDEF so you need to be a bit more specific. There are the niche schemes such as MOE's General Education Officer (GEO) and MINDEF's SAF Uniformed Officers Schemes, and there are generalist schemes such as the Management Executive (MX) Scheme and MINDEF's Defence Executive Schemes.

Niche schemes are hard to compare as by nature they are unique so the comparisons are not apple to apple. For generalist schemes such as MX and DXO, generally DXO pays better but that is due to the more restrictive criteria (need to be Singaporeans and clean records) and lack of transferable skills. Promotion-wise, I think depends on the individual's academic grades, work experience, and capabilities. DXO can only move within MINDEF. MX is more general and applies across various Ministries.

If join MOE, opt for teaching, that's 35000 critical mass and stronger bargaining power and only exclusive to MOE. (So you hear regularly about increment and salary reviews plus lds and edu bonuses after 5 years

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There are different schemes of service within MOE and MINDEF so you need to be a bit more specific. There are the niche schemes such as MOE's General Education Officer (GEO) and MINDEF's SAF Uniformed Officers Schemes, and there are generalist schemes such as the Management Executive (MX) Scheme and MINDEF's Defence Executive Schemes.

Niche schemes are hard to compare as by nature they are unique so the comparisons are not apple to apple. For generalist schemes such as MX and DXO, generally DXO pays better but that is due to the more restrictive criteria (need to be Singaporeans and clean records) and lack of transferable skills. Promotion-wise, I think depends on the individual's academic grades, work experience, and capabilities. DXO can only move within MINDEF. MX is more general and applies across various Ministries.

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. Haha. I should've been clear. What I meant to compare was between MINDEF DXO and Teaching as GEO1. Currently a Fresh Grad from NUS with 2nd upp!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. Haha. I should've been clear. What I meant to compare was between MINDEF DXO and Teaching as GEO1. Currently a Fresh Grad from NUS with 2nd upp!

Abit hard to compare GEO to DXO. GEO is a specialist scheme aka you must be a teacher to be in the scheme iirc. DXO is considered a generalist scheme aka you could be doing corp comms, research, logistics, HR, etc. in MINDEF but they all fall under DXO scheme.

If you have what it takes to be a teacher, then sure, go for GEO. DXO if you are unsure of what you want to do, provided you want to restrict yourself to the MINDEF environment. Otherwise, why not try the civil service-wide MX Scheme? More room to try different Ministries.

There are also more specialist schemes (Foreign Service, Legal, Economist, Home Team Specialist, Intelligence, etc) in the civil service that pays very well but that's another discussion for another thread...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Abit hard to compare GEO to DXO. GEO is a specialist scheme aka you must be a teacher to be in the scheme iirc. DXO is considered a generalist scheme aka you could be doing corp comms, research, logistics, HR, etc. in MINDEF but they all fall under DXO scheme.

If you have what it takes to be a teacher, then sure, go for GEO. DXO if you are unsure of what you want to do, provided you want to restrict yourself to the MINDEF environment. Otherwise, why not try the civil service-wide MX Scheme? More room to try different Ministries.

There are also more specialist schemes (Foreign Service, Legal, Economist, Home Team Specialist, Intelligence, etc) in the civil service that pays very well but that's another discussion for another thread...

i see.. because from what I know so far, starting salary for DXO is a few hundreds higher than what MOE provides. What I considered was also the 'mobility' I'll get if I were to resign from either ministry. For MOE, it seems like only jobs like HR (more general ones) will be available. For MINDEF, if i have a position specialised in a certain field, it seems like I can move to another ministry or stat board to work in a similar field. Not sure if such thoughts is true. Any advice?

I see you are "going back" to generic MX scheme in your comparison. You have to be sure you are going to the GEO scheme to compare salary range, less the MOE MX scheme. It's just a generic scheme, and earns lesser in comparison to specialist teachers in our elite educational landscape.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I see you are "going back" to generic MX scheme in your comparison. You have to be sure you are going to the GEO scheme to compare salary range, less the MOE MX scheme. It's just a generic scheme, and earns lesser in comparison to specialist teachers in our elite educational landscape.

Lol forgive the fresh grad for his ignorance la. GEO, whether is elite or not depends on opinion. But it's considered a specialist scheme nevertheless...

Fresh grad: What this person is trying to say is that MOE HR falls under the generic MX scheme, not GEO. Only teachers are in the GEO scheme. So if you want to compare DXO, you need to compare with MX, not GEO. MX pays lesser than DXO, but DXO is more restrictive. You can move from MOE to MOM to MHA to whatever ministry as an MX. But as a DXO, you cannot, even if you are doing the same thing in another ministry i.e. HR in MINDEF is under DXO, but if move to MOE to do HR, you are now under MX so you have to resign from DXO to join MX. But if you move from MOE HR to MOM HR, you are still under MX so it's just a transfer of service and you get to keep all the benefits.

Grrreat, now we are communicating.... Fresh grad: my advice, first get your passion/calling right (not everyone has passion to teach, even if pay and benefits are v appealing, even more so in long term(if you are cut out for teaching career) important thing is to reflect prudently what you desire for a career. Then you can think about which cs scheme to focus on-whether to consider the less-specialist scheme types. All the best

Hi all im currently a civil servant in a ministry. Im a MX13 due to be emplaced in June. however i wish to transfer to another ministry. May i ask if it would be better for me to reject the emplacement and start all over in the next ministry or should i accept the emplacement and than quit maybe 1-2 months later?

Also, will doing any of the above cause me to be "blacklisted" in any way? My reason is poor job fit and i think it would not serve the org or me well if i were to stay on.