I just stumbled across this thread and put in my 2cts for the benefit of all...
Its been 12 years since I graduated for archi school, spent 9+ years in an archi firm, 2 years in a local listed developer, and last 2 years in a local listed construction firm. I graduated with honours and started with a measely $1.8k per month. It was unfortunate that I entered the industry during one of the big down cycles.
It is a fact that the profession pays poorly in comparision to others. If you wanna earn big bucks, go to the finance industry and do high level sales. Its an unfortunate combination of under cutting of architects fees, being squeezed by clients, increase in law suites, and just the large number of people needed to handle a project.
Imagine a $100 million project getting fees of 1.5% spread over 3 years. That'd work out to $500k a year, $40k a month per project to feed the team working on it. You take out rent, overheads,
CPF, taxes, reserves, you'd be lucky if you have half left. Divide that by your senior architect, achitect, senior draftsman, junior staff, you can imagine how small the pie gets.
The only way to maximize profit is to either squeeze everyone, or make the same people handle multiple projects which lead to poor work life balance. Go figure, there is no way out of this hole. Until the day professional fees can match what it is over in the US or Europe, this will continue. For the bosses, they only need to make sure they get a constant supply of work. If there is not enough profit, fire a couple of staff and make the rest work harder.
When I left the profession about 5 years back, my annual was $75k with bonus - it was considered above average back then. My annual now is between 120k to 140k depending on bonuses. Its not too bad but there are easier ways to earn that amount.
If you are starting out, the only way to keep you salary moving is to hop every couple of years. That way you make sure your pay is 'refreshed' to market rate regularly. If you stick to the same firm, you'd get a miserable $200 increment per year if you're lucky.