SINGAPORE - Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) graduates commanded higher pay than their predecessors last year, the university's latest graduate employment survey has shown.

They took home a median gross monthly salary of $3,300 in 2018, up from $3,200 the previous year.

Graduates from the information and digital technologies and engineering programmes also reported higher pay last year. Those in information technology fields had a median gross monthly salary of $4,000, up from $3,600 in the previous year, and fresh engineering graduates earned $3,400, up from $3,200.

The proportion of SIT graduates who found full-time work six months after completing their final examinations was 82.9 per cent, just like in 2017, and this was up from 77.1 per cent in 2016.

Overall, 92.5 per cent of SIT graduates found jobs, 0.2 per cent more than in 2017.

SIT said in a statement on Tuesday (Sept 17) that more than 70 per cent of its graduates from its own degree programmes in last year's batch received job offers from companies through the university's integrated work study programme, which is longer than typical internships.

Associate Professor Ivan Lee, SIT's vice-president for industry and community, said the university was heartened that its students continued to enjoy "high employability and competitive salaries".

He said that its signature integrated work study programme (IWSP), which takes the form of eight-month to year-long internships, is valued by employers and designed to meet the needs of industry partners.

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"IWSP allows undergraduates to work on real-world projects that enable them to integrate their studies with workplace learning, and this has reaped positive results," he said.

This is the fifth time SIT has taken part in the annual graduate employment survey. About 85 per cent of its cohort of 1,707 graduates responded to the survey, which was conducted from March 1 to May 14 this year.

Due to different academic calendars, the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU) and Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) conduct their surveys in November each year, while the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and SIT conduct theirs in February and March respectively.

The latest graduate employment survey for NUS, NTU, SMU and SUSS shows that 81 per cent of graduates were in full-time permanent work last year, and the figure was 86 per cent for SUTD graduates.