Originally Posted by Unregistered

Little bit of both, obviously bigger firms in the UK/US are willing to pay more for work and therefore law firms can charge higher rates (plus they have the benefit of higher exchange rates).

However, another point (the more important point) is that the benefits and compensation packages in the UK/US law firms are far flatter than SG. SG firms are stingy and therefore compensation is top-heavy. In the UK/US firms, the difference between an Assoc and EP is not as crazily high as in Singapore. For example, EPs in Singapore big4 may earn 100x-200x the compensation of an NQ/1PQE assoc, whereas that difference is far less in UK/US.