I read the various responses with interest, and there have been fair points made on both ends of the spectrum i.e. pro-engineering and pro-finance.

At the end of the day, my view is that, for a graduate with 2nd upper and above, its a very simple question of stability + work life balance (enginneering) vs salary (finance).

There is no question that finance pays better for graduates with 2nd upper and above. And this is not only true for front office IB and Treasury functions, as is commonly mentioned.

Typical starting salaries for for higher potential graduates in banks are as follows:
- Management Associate (Local Bank) : S$3-4k
- Management Associate (Foreign Banks) : S$4 - 5k
- I-banking / Treasury Analyst (fresh grad) : S$8-10k
- I-banking / Treasury Associate (MBAs) : S$10-13k

Conversely, typical starting salaries for for higher potential graduates in engineering firms are as follows:

- Local Manufacturing Co : S$2.2-3k
- MNC Manufacturing : S$2.5 - 3.5k
- Oil Majors : S$3.2 - 4.5k
- Govt (DSTA etc) : S$3.2-4k

That's for starting salaries. What about going forward?

Well, people in the banking sector tend to enjoy quicker jumps in salaries for the following reasons:-
- Market pricing : As mentioned by others in this thread, for every role in banking, there are likely a few other banks out there doing exactly the same thing, and a strong performer can easily jump if the salaries are not market competitive. For engineering, that's very hard to get a big pay rise via a jump. In the banking world, I sometimes get a few calls from headhunters a month (or a week sometimes when the market is good). In 3 years as an engineer, I never received even 1 call.

- Dynamics of manufacturing industry is not conducive for pay raises: Most engineers in Singapore work in manufacturing companies. The plant manager is evaluated on how efficiently he runs the plant, and productivity is broadly defined as output divided by input. For most manufacturing plants, output is capped by plant capacity, hence effectively most plant managers are gauged by how well they keep costs down, and salary is usually a big component of cost. Hence, in other words, your big boss is indirectly incentivized by keeping your salaries down.

So what is the nett result? Lets just look at base case and optimistic scenarios 6-8 years after graduation (and ignore highly opimistic scenarios, which are possible but unlikely)

In engineering:
- Base case : Likely to be a senior engineer in MNC drawing S$500 to 1,500 more than starting salary i.e. about S$3.5 to 4.5k pm assuming a starting of S$3k
- Optimistic case : S$7-10k pm, assuming started at an oil major or 1st class honours at DSTA, and assuming a promotion

In finance:
- Base case : VP, which will draw about S$7 - 12k, depending on bank or dept
- Optimistic case : VP in i-bank/treasury, which is S$15 -22k (depending on bank), plus 6mths to 18 mths bonus

The above is based on my observations of hving been in both industries for sufficient time. In finance, I've seen folks make director in 8 yrs, which is abt $25 - 35k per mth excl bonus, but thats rare.

Other engineers or bankers, pls feel free to comment if the observations above do not tie in with what you have seen.