You need to think in terms of the labour market and pay realities instead of approaching it from an angle of study this study that etc. First, let’s take a look at your situation and expectations.

By the time you finish your HK online PHD, you will be 35 years old with zero experience working in either Singapore or an “office based job”, so in a sense you are like a fresh graduate. Your expectations of 3-5k is approximately the equivalent starting pay of either an entry associate level job in a MNC/public sector or at the higher end, a management program of a foreign bank/mnc or reputable management consultancy.

Who are your competitors in these jobs? Generally 21-24 year old fresh graduates from NUS/SMU/NTU who have various industrial internships and usually 2nd upper or 1st class honours. Some might even be Masters from good universities. You will neither be competitive in academics nor age nor experience. Public sector and MNC is a dead end for you if you ask me.

What about SME? Maybe, but I seriously doubt they will bother with paying anything more than 3k for an executive Private university students who upgraded from diploma and usually have some years of relevant work experience are usually being offered anywhere from 2.4-3k now, it is doubtful that you will be able to go above that. My best guess your online PhD is going to get you ~2.5k at best and even then your chances are not very high considering your age and lack of experience.

What should you do? My advice is stop wasting time and money on generic online degrees, they are not worth anything especially considering your age and lack of experience. What you need is proper relevant skillsets and experience. Go and look for local reputable polytechnic diplomas that are more targeted on a particular skillset. Study them either part time or full time and in the mean time try to get a local based job (even if it is clerical level) to gain some experience and additional income.

After that, you can better reset your career on that skill path and upgrade with relevant certs and degree as you go along. This will mean studying, starting from diploma (1.8-2.2k starting) and working you way up. Stop fantasizing on shortcuts hoping to grab online degrees to slingshot your way past local degree grads, it doesn’t work this way. If it’s that easy everyone would have done it. Why bother to cramp your studies in poly/JC/uni if an online degree gets you there as well?