In the media industry, quite a niche role, so hoping to get out asap to something more employable. I'm 25, with NS. Almost as good as a fresh grad, working exp slightly less than a year.

That's why a lot of people want to move into civil service.

These are some patterns which I observed. Not sure if they are accurate.

Actually pace of promotions will be rather fast in your first 5-10 years in civil service. But pace of promotions will start to slow down in your 30s. A lot depends on CEP.

AD CEP (MX11A)
Default CEP for most people. Worst case plateau at MX11A (plateau at 8.5K) by mid 40s. Not difficult to upgrade to SAD/DD CEP.

SAD/DD CEP (MX10)
Majority will reach MX11A by late 30s and hit MX10 (plateau at 11K) by mid/late 40s. This is easier said than done. You need to not screw up for 20 years to achieve this. Any screw-up goes back to AD CEP.

Director CEP (MX9-level 1)
A few exceptions will reach MX10 by mid-30s (plateau at 11K) then hit MX9 (plateau at 12K) by early or mid-40s

Senior Director CEP (MX9-level 2)
Very very few people make it this far. You must have a string of AO bosses (non-AO bosses harder, usually they will be demolished by AO bosses during ranking unless super senior) who loves you to get here. The problem is AO bosses are very very demanding as well. So far only seen one chap made it. Same as director CEP. but you will cross the MX9 bar in your late 40s and plateau at 16K instead ;)

From my observation, I think there are two or three levels of CEP for MX9.

Let me know if my observations wrong. Help me by affirming/refuting my observations.

Monthly salary.

If one uses annual wage divided by 12, it would be >$10k per month.

That may be so, but salary in banking, finance and O&G, the salary continues to climb way beyond CS scales.

Whereas in CS, salary starts higher than usual to attract quality grads, but then plateaus 10-15 yrs down the road for an average performer, who will then probably retire at the ceiling of his grade. A higher than usual plateau, but still a flat-line.

Unless they are one of those superstars that are lucky enough to be noticed and moved up quickly.

seriously, people in the CS think they are under paid but in fact many in pte sector are worse off.. do you think there is no "plateau" in the pte sector too? at least CS is more or less guaranteed of your high ceiling.....

lol. no guarantee wor. You need to develop very strong mental resilience to survive the idiotic bureaucracy which gets worse over the years. Many, many left after 5-12 years of de-skilling. (You only know how to write papers after a while.) In my opinion, these are brave souls. They may be paid lower. But they are so much happier picking up new skills.

Those who remain are heroes in their own right - you really need a lot of mental strength to repeat almost the same things over and over again, just that for every cycle you went thr, the level of bureaucracy increases.

Quite accurate. Coming from the Poly, we have some similar observation too.

PAX Salary Range (effective 1 Sep 2012)

PAX 2
$10,920 - 14,910 /16,900

PAX 3
$ 7,060 - 9,670 /10,980

PAX 4A/4E
$ 5,120 - 7,690 / 8,980

AD CEP (MX11A) is the equivalent of our PAX 4 (quite close the our ceiling of $8.9). This is where most will end up and retire, as senior lecturer.

SAD/DD CEP (MX10) is the equivalent of our PAX 3 where our ceiling is about $11k. This is where the management staff are placed at usually, from managers (possible to start from Pax 4 too) onwards. At this PAX, there could be AD, DD too.

Some more fortunate DD will move on to PAX 2, equivalent to MX9. Here are the lao jiaos DD, Directors onwards.

Yup, so quite matching.

Your observations are those who realize their CEP. Many have AD or DD CEP but don't move up for various reasons (e.g. openings available, others with same CEP etc). Just cos you have CEP doesn't mean you will reach there.

no doubt CS has its challenges, but my point is how come people in the CS always complain they are underpaid?

for eg, a typical mid career graduate in early 30s in a GLC would struggle to make $90k pa. the money only increases when you get to HOD level, of which there are very few positions.