In HSBC’s newest Expat Explorer Survey Singapore wins first place as the best place overall for expats to enjoy an excellent quality of life, financial wellbeing and improved career prospects. Expats highlight its safe environment, confidence in the local economy and the quality of life for their children as some of the best reasons to live there.
HSBC Expat Explorer survey is in its the eighth year, and uses a sample of 21,950 respondents from 39 countries with focus on three categories: economics, experience and family.
Singapore especially attracts expats looking to learn new skills and earn higher wages. 59% of the responding expats say, that the city-state is a good place for a career advancement, while 53% say that the chance to acquire new skills at work is better than at home. A third of the responding expats in Singapore work in banking, insurance or financial services, which determines the perception of Singapore as one of the major financial hubs in Asia.
Singapore is expensive to live in, but since expat earnings are high – with an average expat salary of USD 159,000 – it all but makes up for the costs. It also places the country’s average well above the global average of USD104,000. This also shows in the data, as 65% of the expats has a higher disposable income than at home, and 60% are able to save more, compared to 16% who say they save less.
Besides the financial gains, Singapore is – according to the surveys’ results – also one of the best destinations for quality of life. 67% of the expats say they have had a increase in their quality of life since moving to Singapore. Exercise is one reason for this improvement, as 55% of expats have become more physically active since living in Singapore.
Expat parents say there are clear benefits for their families, with 65% stating, that their children’s health and wellbeing has improved since moving to Singapore. The global average is 48%. Furthermore, the majority seen as 87% of the expats praises Singapore’s level of safety.
New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany are the other countries ranked by expats in the top five overall destinations. Although Singapore topped the overall ranking, Switzerland took the top spot in the economics league table, New Zealand ranked highest for experience and came second overall and Sweden topped the poll for family life, coming third overall.
Overall ranking (position in Economics – Experience – Family)
- Singapore (2 – 3 – 3)
- New Zealand (16 – 1 – 2)
- Sweden (6 – 15 – 1)
- Bahrain (8 – 7 – 6)
- Germany (3 – 12 – 5)
- Canada (11 – 6 – 8)
- Australia (15 – 4 – 12)
- Taiwan (18 – 5 – 15)
- United Arab Emirates (4 – 18 – 16)
- Switzerland (1 – 26 – 25)
- Hong Kong (10 – 11 –20)
- Netherlands (14 – 29 – 7)
- Spain (36 – 2 – 4)
- Oman (9– 10 – 27)
- Russia (23 – 16 – 11)
- United States (13 – 23 – 19)
- India (17– 30 – 10)
- Czech Republic (20 – 20 – 17)
- Mexico (26 – 9 – 18)
- Malaysia (25 – 17 – 23)
- Thailand (30 – 8 – 14)
- Qatar (5 – 34 – 34)
- United Kingdom (19 – 24 – 28)
- Japan (27 – 13 – 24)
- Vietnam (21 – 22 – 31)
- Saudi Arabia (7 – 35 – 36)
- China (12 – 36 – 30)
- Philippines (31 – 27 – 9)
- France (32 – 14 – 13)
- Belgium (24 – 33 – 22)
- Ireland (29 – 28 – 26)
- South Africa (34 – 25 – 21)
- Indonesia (28 – 32 – 33)
- Kuwait (22 – 39 – 39)
- Argentina (38 – 31 – 29)
- Turkey (35 – 21 – 38)
- Egypt (33 – 38 – 35)
- Italy (39 – 19 – 32)
- Brazil (37 – 37 – 37)
Source: https://expatexplorer.hsbc.com/
