5,500 new jobs to be added in professional services sector by 2020

SINGAPORE — About 5,500 new jobs would be generated in the professional services sector each year between 2015 and 2020, under its industry transformation map (ITM) launched on Wednesday (Jan 24).

Among the new types of jobs created include artificial intelligence (AI) applications developers, marketing data scientists, and legal technology specialists.

The ITM has identified high growth areas such as data science, analytics and AI within the sector which is expected to post an average growth rate of 4.6 per cent from 2015 to reach a value-add of S$31 billion by 2020, the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore said.

The sector consist of companies in architecture and engineering, consulting, accounting, legal and advertising.

Unveiling the ITM at the official opening of digital marketing firm Dentsu Aegis Network’s Asia Pacific headquarters, Senior Minister of State for Law and Finance Ms Indranee Rajah noted that the sector’s growth will be driven by digitalisation and specialised solutions. “Analytics and artificial intelligence are examples of digital capabilities that feature strongly in advertising, consulting and engineering services. There will also be opportunities for strategy and operations consulting as clients embark on digital transformation with urgency.”

She stressed that there is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to helping the sector transform. “The roadmap for legal will be different from the roadmap for accounting, and that too will be different from the roadmap for engineering, advertising,” she said. “So each industry will have its own specific roadmap. But there are a couple of important anchors – making sure that professionals have the right skillsets… and innovation capability, supporting the employers to be able to innovate and grow.”

The ITM will support companies to build their capabilities in the high growth areas by coming up with innovative solutions and equipping workers with related specialised skill sets, among other things.

For example, the Government will facilitate collaboration among companies through what it called innovation platforms — such as the data sharing consortium that it is working on, which will bring together firms such as tech giant Google, ride hailing app Grab and software company Adobe. The consortium will promote data sharing to help companies gain more market and consumer insights, to develop new solutions.

A data innovation centre is also being set up by Dentsu Aegis here, which will focus on research and development in data. Solutions produced in Singapore will be deployed to the company’s worldwide operations and used to solve clients’ marketing data challenges.

Ms Indranee reiterated that the transformation of the sector will bring about new job opportunities. “Many roles which did not even exist until a few years ago are now fast becoming jobs in high demand. However, in order for our professionals to get these jobs, they need to have the right skills.”

To do so, new Professional Conversion Programmes will be launched this year in four areas: Programmatic advertising, internet audit, user experience and user interface, and building information modelling.

Skills frameworks for relevant sectors will also be developed. Last October, for instance, a skills framework was developed for the accountancy sector which identified emerging skillsets such as data analytics and valuation research. Subsequently, career tracks and job roles were mapped out accordingly.