Singapore Tops 2025 Global Talent Index as AI, Adaptability and Worker Wellbeing Reshape Competition

A first place finish built on skills and stronger retention

Singapore has taken first place in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index, leading 135 economies for the first time since the ranking began in 2013. It moved ahead of Switzerland, the longtime leader, with Denmark finishing third as artificial intelligence, soft skills and employee wellbeing gained greater attention in the assessment.

The index, produced by INSEAD in partnership with the Portulans Institute, measures how countries create the conditions for people to develop skills, find opportunities and build careers. Singapore's result combines established strengths in education and regulation with an improvement in its ability to keep talent.

Singapore ranked first worldwide in generalist adaptive skills, which cover digital literacy, social and collaborative abilities, thinking across disciplines and the capacity to innovate under pressure. Its retention ranking rose seven places to 31st, helped by higher scores for personal rights, physician density and personal safety.

The 2025 edition uses 77 indicators across six pillars. Its coverage represents more than 97 percent of global economic output and 93 percent of the world's population. Independent testing by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre supports the statistical soundness of the model.

European economies still hold seven of the first ten positions, while the United States ranks ninth and China 53rd. Australia and New Zealand perform better than Singapore on retention, but trail it on adaptive skills. Together, those results show how a country can lead in preparing people for changing work while still having room to improve the conditions that encourage them to stay.

What the index measures

The GTCI examines six connected parts of a talent system. Four concern the conditions that help people develop and use their abilities: enabling, attracting, growing and retaining talent. Two assess the skills available in the workforce: vocational and technical skills, and generalist adaptive skills.

The enabling pillar covers the policy and regulatory environment. Attracting talent concerns a country's ability to draw people and investment. Growing talent examines education and training, while retaining talent looks at the conditions that encourage people to remain.

Vocational and technical skills are the practical abilities needed to carry out particular kinds of work. Generalist adaptive skills help people apply their knowledge when tasks, technologies or circumstances change. Digital confidence, communication and working with people from different fields belong to this second group.

The index combines international datasets with survey results. Its model undergoes independent statistical checks each year, providing a common framework for comparing national systems and tracking change over time.

INSEAD's GTCI 2025 overview provides access to the full data and methodology. The ranking is a diagnostic tool: its purpose is to identify strengths and weaknesses in talent systems, rather than predict exactly how a country's labor market will develop.

Why the 2025 model gives adaptation more attention

INSEAD began a formal partnership with the Portulans Institute for the 2025 edition. Portulans brings experience in developing global policy benchmarks on innovation and connectivity. The edition's theme is resilience in the age of disruption, covering pressures that range from AI to geopolitics.

New variables address AI adoption, soft skills and employee wellbeing. The AI measures examine the presence of AI skills, patterns of adoption and the spread of related technologies. Soft skills include communication, teamwork, problem solving and critical thinking. Wellbeing measures cover areas such as access to health care, safety and job quality.

The model gives greater visibility to the abilities that help people absorb change: learning across fields, collaborating, using digital tools thoughtfully and remaining creative under stress. It also examines the conditions that allow workers to develop those abilities.

Felipe Monteiro, the GTCI Academic Director, described resilience as an active response to disruption, with countries and companies learning from difficult conditions:

True resilience in talent is turning adversity into a catalyst for innovation, adaptability and renewed purpose. Resilience means learning how to bounce forward, not just bounce back from inevitable shocks and crises.

Technical training remains part of that approach. Apprenticeships and vocational education give people specific capabilities, while digital literacy and collaborative skills help them use those capabilities in new settings. Countries combining both tend to recover faster from shocks and turn disruption into new products, services and jobs.

The countries at the top

Singapore, Switzerland and Denmark lead the 2025 ranking, followed by Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, the United States and Australia. Seven of those ten economies are European, showing the region's continuing strength despite the change at the top.

Ireland, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, France and the Czech Republic occupy positions 11 through 20, in that order. Europe holds 18 of the first 25 places, supported by established institutions, high living standards and sustained investment in education and skills.

The Nordic economies perform strongly on active labor market policies, social protection and education systems that help people retrain. Such policies connect the development of skills with support for workers moving between jobs or learning new tasks.

The ranking's history and recent movements put Singapore's result in context:

• 2013: The Global Talent Competitiveness Index began.
• 2023: The United States ranked third and China ranked 40th.
• 2025: Singapore reached first place for the first time, ahead of Switzerland and Denmark. The United States ranked ninth and China 53rd.

The United States continues to score well in growing talent and vocational skills. Its decline to ninth accompanies slight decreases in openness and lifelong learning, bringing attention to the need to widen access to learning throughout a career.

How Singapore built its lead

Singapore ranks first in formal education and in regulatory landscape measures, alongside its leading position in generalist adaptive skills. Those strengths connect the rules governing work and investment with the education and capabilities available to employers.

The city state's seven place improvement to 31st on retention adds another part to that picture. Higher scores for personal rights, physician density and safety contributed to the gain. Physician density measures the availability of doctors relative to the population, linking health capacity with the conditions that support workers.

SkillsFuture gives people opportunities to refresh their abilities as technology advances. Targeted plans for different sectors and cooperation between public institutions and businesses help connect education and training with employer demand.

Secondments also allow public servants to move into private sector roles, and private sector workers into public roles. These temporary placements help institutions share working practices and keep policy connected to the needs of industry.

Singapore has invested in digital infrastructure, maintained a predictable regulatory framework and supported an education system that evolves with industry. Global technology companies and local small enterprises draw on a multilingual workforce with strong digital fluency. Those conditions support the adoption of AI in everyday work while maintaining the country's appeal to international talent.

The result is a combination of foundations and flexibility. Education provides knowledge, regulation gives employers a predictable setting, and adaptive skills help workers respond when the tasks within a job change.

Why keeping talent is a separate challenge

Australia and New Zealand outperform Singapore on retention, supported by quality of life and lifestyle attractions. Singapore leads them in adaptive skills. Their different strengths help explain why a country's position in one pillar can differ from its total ranking.

Singapore's retention result, at 31st, leaves more room for improvement than its first place results in adaptive skills, formal education and regulatory landscape measures. Its recent gains show progress in the personal and social conditions that influence whether people remain.

Health services, personal rights and safety matter alongside professional opportunities. A worker deciding where to build a career also needs to consider access to care and the conditions of everyday life. The index includes those concerns alongside education, business conditions and skills.

Employers face a related task within their organizations. Investment in learning helps workers develop, while attention to wellbeing and job quality helps create conditions in which they can continue using those abilities. The 2025 model brings both sides into the assessment.

Asia's results and the efficiency question

China fell to 53rd from 40th, reflecting weaker business climate and labor market conditions, with gaps in data also affecting the assessment. Its movement contrasts with Singapore's rise and shows the range of results within Asia.

Israel leads North Africa and Western Asia, while Chile ranks first in Latin America and the Caribbean. Singapore, South Korea and Israel also stand out for efficiency: their ability to convert relatively modest inputs into strong talent outcomes.

Inputs are the resources and conditions devoted to developing talent. Outcomes are the skills and capabilities that result. Looking at their relationship helps identify countries that make effective use of what they have, alongside those that achieve the highest total scores.

Several economies in the lower middle income group show progress, including Tajikistan, Kenya, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Some countries in the low income group, including Rwanda, have established useful foundations for future skills development.

These findings broaden the picture beyond wealthy countries at the top of the table. The efficiency measure gives attention to how successfully a country turns its available resources into skills, even when its starting resources are limited.

What AI and human skills mean for work

Lily Fang, who leads research and innovation at INSEAD, has argued for thoughtful approaches to integrating powerful technologies such as AI with human progress. That means investing in people alongside tools so that the benefits of technology are widely shared.

For employers, the 2025 results point to the value of continuous learning and teams that combine technical knowledge with communication, collaboration and judgment. Using AI to support workers, rather than replace their work where possible, forms part of that approach.

Singapore's strengths could support wider use of microcredentials, closer relationships between firms and institutes of higher learning, and clearer career pathways that reward additional training. Microcredentials recognize smaller units of learning, giving workers a way to demonstrate particular skills as their roles change.

Workers face a practical set of priorities: digital fluency, communication, teamwork and critical thinking can improve employability across many roles. Even basic familiarity with AI tools is becoming a baseline capability. Lifelong learning and projects that involve different functions can help people move between roles and respond to change.

Policymakers have related responsibilities. Predictable regulation and personal safety attract skilled migrants. Health capacity supports wellbeing and retention. Education linked to industry demand, together with support for people moving to new tasks as technology changes jobs, helps connect training with actual opportunities.

The central lesson is that technical ability and human skills work together. A person needs the knowledge to complete a task, the judgment to choose an appropriate tool and the ability to communicate with others when a problem crosses professional boundaries.

How to understand different talent rankings

The GTCI's 77 indicators provide a broad comparison across 135 economies, but labor markets contain more detail than a single score can express. Its six pillars help readers see which parts of a national system contribute to the final position.

The IMD World Talent Ranking uses a different framework. It covers 69 economies and examines investment and development, appeal and readiness. Different methods, periods and indicator sets can produce different placements for particular countries and cities.

Policymakers and employers often consult several benchmarks to build a fuller picture. For the GTCI, Singapore's first place result sits alongside a more specific set of findings: leadership in adaptive skills, formal education and regulation, improving retention, and continuing competition from countries with stronger lifestyle appeal.

The 2025 edition places those strengths within a changing labor market. AI adoption, employee wellbeing and the ability to learn across disciplines now receive more attention, connecting technological change with the everyday conditions in which people work.

Key Points

• Singapore ranks first in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index for the first time since its launch in 2013, ahead of Switzerland and Denmark.
• INSEAD and the Portulans Institute assess 135 economies using 77 indicators across six pillars.
• The economies covered account for more than 97 percent of global output and 93 percent of the world's population.
• Singapore leads in generalist adaptive skills, formal education and regulatory landscape measures. Its retention ranking improved seven places to 31st.
• The refreshed model includes measures of AI adoption, soft skills and employee wellbeing.
• Europe holds seven of the top ten positions and 18 of the first 25. The United States ranks ninth, down from third in 2023.
• Australia and New Zealand outperform Singapore on retention but trail it on adaptive skills. China ranks 53rd, down from 40th.
• Israel leads North Africa and Western Asia, while Chile leads Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Singapore, South Korea and Israel stand out for converting relatively modest inputs into strong talent outcomes.