Singapore has placed 25 companies on the Best Workplaces in Asia 2026 list, the highest count in Southeast Asia, at a time when employers across the region are fighting harder to hold on to skilled workers.
The list, published by Great Place To Work, ranks 200 companies across Asia based on employee survey responses. Of the Singapore-linked companies recognised this year, 20 are in the large-employer category, covering firms with at least 500 staff in Asia, while five sit in the small and medium category, for companies with 50 to 499 employees.
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That makes Singapore the fifth-largest contributor to the Asia list by company count, behind the UAE with 42, India (40), Greater China (39), and Japan (34). Great Place To Work’s Asia region includes the Gulf, which explains the UAE’s position at the top.
Among Southeast Asian markets, Singapore narrowly led Vietnam, which had 24 companies on the list, followed by the Philippines with 20, Indonesia with 19, Thailand with 18, and Malaysia with 15. Together, the six Southeast Asian markets accounted for 121 of the 200 recognised workplaces.
The ranking arrives in a year when workplace culture is no longer a soft metric for companies in the region. Aon’s 2025 Salary Increase and Turnover Study, which surveyed more than 700 businesses across six Southeast Asian markets between July and September last year, projects that 19.3 per cent of skilled Singapore workers will change jobs during 2026. That is the second-highest expected skilled-worker turnover rate in the region, behind only the Philippines at 20 per cent.
The pressure is made sharper by salary expectations. Singapore employers are budgeting pay rises of 4.3 per cent, the lowest among the six Southeast Asian markets covered by Aon and below the regional average of 5.3 per cent. For founders, operators, and HR leaders, that raises a familiar problem: when companies cannot compete on pay alone, they have to compete on trust, fairness, flexibility, and the quality of day-to-day management.
Real estate makes a rare appearance
One of the more striking features of Singapore’s showing is the presence of two real estate companies, a sector that barely appears in Southeast Asia’s workplace rankings.
Co-working operator JustCo ranked fifth among small and medium workplaces in Asia, while Pontiac Land Group placed 97th in the same category. They were the only real estate entrants from Southeast Asia. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam had none.
Across the whole Asia list, real estate accounted for just 11 places, six of them held by UAE companies. Singapore was the only market outside the Gulf and Japan to have more than one real estate company recognised.
That matters because property has not typically been viewed as a talent magnet in the same way as technology, financial services, or consumer brands. In Singapore, however, the sector sits close to several major shifts: hybrid work, premium office demand, hospitality-linked real estate, and the changing use of commercial space after the pandemic. JustCo’s appearance also points to how flexible workspace operators are trying to position themselves not simply as landlords, but as workplace experience companies.
Biotechnology and pharmaceuticals formed another visible Singapore cluster. AbbVie ranked fourth in Asia, Merz Aesthetics ranked ninth among small and medium workplaces, and Amgen came in 50th. Thailand matched Singapore’s count in this sector, with the same three companies appearing on its national list.
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IT remained the largest single group in Singapore’s tally, with six companies. These included Cisco, which ranked third in Asia, Visa at 39th, and Mastercard at 65th. Manufacturing and production followed with four Singapore entrants, while hospitality and biotechnology had three each.
Overall, Singapore’s 25 companies covered 10 industries, slightly less broad than Vietnam’s 14 industries from a similar total.
The companies that climbed
Several Singapore entrants improved their regional positions from last year.
Visa posted the largest gain among Singapore companies, rising 19 places from 58th in 2025 to 39th in 2026. Micron Technology climbed 12 places, from 19th to seventh, entering Asia’s top 10. Amgen also gained 12 spots, moving from 62nd to 50th.
Other climbers included AbbVie, which rose from seventh to fourth; Cisco, which moved from fifth to third; Capella Hotels and Resorts, which went from 12th to 10th; and Marriott International, which edged up from third to second.
Hilton held first place in Asia for the second consecutive year and also appears on Singapore’s list. It was followed regionally by Marriott International, Cisco, AbbVie, and DHL. All five have Singapore operations recognised in the 2026 ranking, reflecting the Republic’s role as a regional base for many multinational groups.
At the same time, Singapore’s list was not only a story of established global names. Ten of its 25 companies were new to the Asia ranking: Allianz, Experian, Zim Integrated Shipping Services, Mastercard, Jebsen & Jessen, Heineken, JustCo, TC Acoustic, Home Nursing Foundation, and Pontiac Land Group.
Four of the five small and medium entrants were new, with Merz Aesthetics the only carry-over in that category. JustCo, TC Acoustic, Home Nursing Foundation, and Pontiac Land Group appeared on the Asia list through Singapore alone, rather than through multiple national markets. That makes their inclusion more locally specific than the listings of large multinationals that qualify through operations across several countries.
Why the ranking matters
Workplace lists can be easy to dismiss as employer branding exercises, especially in a region where companies often use awards to signal stability to customers, partners, and prospective hires. The Great Place To Work methodology, however, is built around employee responses rather than a judging panel.
Employees answer 60 statements on a five-point scale, along with two open-ended questions. The survey covers issues such as whether leaders are accessible and honest, whether pay and promotion are seen as fair, and whether employees feel their work has meaning.
A key part of the ranking is consistency. Great Place To Work measures how much responses vary within the same organisation. A company where one department is highly engaged but another is disengaged will be marked down compared with one that produces more even scores across teams and job functions.
This is particularly relevant in Southeast Asia, where companies often manage large differences between headquarters staff, frontline workers, technical teams, regional offices, and outsourced functions. A polished culture at the management level does not necessarily translate into trust across the organisation.
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This year’s Asia list drew on surveys of companies employing more than 8.9 million people, with more than 3.8 million individual employee responses across 36 countries and territories.
For Singapore, the result reinforces its position as a regional hub for talent-intensive industries, from enterprise technology and payments to biotech, hospitality, real estate, and manufacturing. But the wider labour market signals are less comfortable. With skilled-worker turnover projected to remain high and pay increases trailing the regional average, employers will need more than brand recognition to keep people.
In a market where employees have options, the companies that stand out may be those that can make fairness and trust feel consistent, not occasional.
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