Singapore Takes First Place in Global Talent Competitiveness Index for First Time

Singapore overtakes Switzerland in the global talent race

Singapore has taken first place in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index, ending Switzerland's decade at the top and becoming the first country to displace it since the index began in 2013. Switzerland ranks second, followed by Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Produced by business school INSEAD with the Portulans Institute, the index ranks 135 economies using 77 indicators. Together, those economies represent more than 97 percent of global gross domestic product, the value of goods and services produced, and 93 percent of the world's population.

Singapore's strongest result is in generalist adaptive skills, where it ranks first. This measure covers abilities such as communication, collaboration, problem solving and digital literacy that help people adjust when technology or job requirements change. Its talent retention ranking also improved by seven places to 31st, supported by gains in personal rights and physician density, alongside its continuing leadership in personal safety.

The 2025 edition focuses on resilience in an age of disruption. Artificial intelligence, geopolitical developments and social change are reshaping work and learning, making the ability to adapt a larger part of national talent competitiveness.

Singapore's result combines strong education, a supportive regulatory environment and improvements in the conditions that help people stay. Its position also comes with a visible gap: Australia and New Zealand rank ahead of it for talent retention, even though both trail Singapore in adaptive skills.

Europe remains the dominant region near the top of the table, occupying 18 of the first 25 places. Singapore's rise changes the leader, while the wider ranking continues to reward countries with strong institutions, education systems and conditions for developing talent.

What the index measures

The Global Talent Competitiveness Index examines the journey from the conditions that allow people to develop their abilities to the skills they bring into workplaces. It brings together statistics and surveys to help leaders understand how their talent systems perform and where investment can have the greatest effect.

The framework has six pillars. Four examine how economies enable, attract, grow and retain talent. Two assess the resulting strength of vocational and technical skills and generalist adaptive skills. This gives the index a wider view than a measure focused only on education or the number of highly qualified workers.

• Enable assesses institutions, regulation, market openness and infrastructure.
• Attract examines a country's appeal to both local and foreign talent.
• Grow covers education, training and lifelong learning.
• Retain assesses quality of life, rights, social protection and health services.
• Vocational and technical skills measure practical capabilities that prepare people for jobs.
• Generalist adaptive skills cover broad abilities, including communication, collaboration, problem solving and digital fluency.

Singapore's first place therefore reflects several parts of its talent system working together. Education helps people acquire skills, employers and institutions provide opportunities to use them, and living conditions influence whether those people remain.

The retention pillar also explains why a country can lead the complete ranking without leading every category. Singapore's position of 31st in retention sits alongside its first place in adaptive skills and strengths in education and regulation.

A refreshed model for the AI era

The index paused publication in 2024 to strengthen its methods, then returned in 2025 with a deeper model. New variables cover soft skills, AI capability and adoption, employee well being and workforce resilience. Each edition is audited by the European Commission Joint Research Centre.

The refreshed framework, developed with the Portulans Institute, aims to preserve continuity while providing greater analytical depth. Its new measures examine how countries prepare people to work with intelligent tools and cope with changing workplace demands.

AI capability and adoption concern the ability to develop or use artificial intelligence and put it into practice. Soft skills cover human abilities such as communicating and working with others. Workforce resilience concerns people's capacity to respond to disruption and changing roles.

The 2025 theme brings those elements together. Technical knowledge remains valuable, while workers also need the judgment, flexibility and broad skills to use new tools effectively. Employee well being adds another dimension by bringing working conditions into the assessment.

INSEAD provides the full methodology and results through its Global Talent Competitiveness Index page. The six pillars remain the organising framework for understanding how enabling conditions and investment translate into skills.

Education and adaptable skills drive Singapore's rise

Singapore's talent model combines sustained investment in education with responsive policy and cooperation among government, industry and schools. It sets clear goals for skills development and updates curricula and programmes to follow changing demand.

The approach aims to give workers both depth and breadth. Depth means having strong knowledge in a particular field. Breadth means having abilities that travel across roles, helping people work with new technology or move into different jobs when circumstances change.

Singapore ranks first globally in generalist adaptive skills. Communication, teamwork, problem solving and digital literacy are central to this category, alongside thinking that supports innovation. Those abilities help workers apply their specialist knowledge in unfamiliar situations.

Formal education is another strength. Singapore's rank is among the best, reflecting strong outcomes in basic education, a high share of graduates in science and technology, and polytechnics and universities with close industry connections.

Adult learning is a central part of the system. SkillsFuture credits support continued training, while programmes based in workplaces help workers in the middle of their careers move into growing roles in data, software, advanced manufacturing and healthcare.

Singapore's combination of formal education and continued learning supports an adaptable workforce. Its schools and institutions build initial capabilities, while adult training gives people opportunities to update those capabilities as employers' needs change.

Retention improves, with costs still a challenge

Singapore moved up seven places to 31st in talent retention. Improvements in personal rights and physician density contributed to that result, together with its consistent leadership in personal safety. Physician density measures the availability of doctors relative to the population.

Public services, ease of mobility and a dense job market also help Singapore retain talent. Workers can benefit from access to services and employment opportunities, while firms benefit from a concentration of people with different capabilities.

The cost of living remains a challenge for some workers and businesses. Australia and New Zealand currently score better than Singapore on retention, showing that the city state's strongest skills results sit alongside a more demanding task in keeping talent.

Singapore's improvement points to a broader focus on well being, family support and health capacity. These conditions matter alongside career opportunities because the retention pillar assesses people's quality of life, rights, social protection and health services.

A predictable regulatory landscape adds to Singapore's appeal by giving employers confidence to invest and expand. Targeted pathways have drawn experienced professionals and founders in technology, finance and biomedical science.

Secondments, which temporarily move people into other roles or organisations, and exchanges between the public and private sectors help skills circulate. Singapore's model pairs an international reach with the development of local capabilities, supported by cooperation across education, government and business.

Europe dominates as the United States and China fall

The top 10 economies in the 2025 index are Singapore, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, the United States and Australia. High income European economies continue to anchor the upper part of the table.

Europe holds 18 of the top 25 positions, equivalent to 72 percent of those places. Strong institutions and inclusive labour markets support skills development and mobility across the region.

The United States fell from third in 2023 to ninth in 2025. Its generalist adaptive skills ranking moved from fifth to 13th, while its performance in attractiveness and enabling conditions also weakened.

The United States remains strong in growing talent and in vocational and technical skills, supported by leading universities, research centres and a deep network of employers. Its lower position shows the weight the index places on broad skills and openness alongside technical strength.

China dropped from 40th to 53rd. The index links that movement to a less favourable business climate and labour market conditions. Limited data availability also influenced the assessment, and future measurements could change if transparency improves.

Asia and Oceania present a mixed picture. Singapore leads in adaptive skills, while Australia and New Zealand perform better in retention. The comparison shows different strengths within the region: the ability to prepare people for change and the conditions that encourage them to stay.

The index's recent sequence helps place these movements in context:

• 2013: The Global Talent Competitiveness Index began. Switzerland held first place in every edition before 2025.
• 2023: The United States ranked third and China ranked 40th, the earlier positions used to describe their subsequent declines.
• 2024: Publication paused while the index's methods were strengthened.
• 2025: The refreshed index returned, with Singapore first, Switzerland second, the United States ninth and China 53rd.

Which countries turn resources into results?

Singapore, Israel and South Korea stand out for converting relatively modest inputs into strong talent outcomes. The report also identifies lower middle income performers including Tajikistan, Kenya, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Talent efficiency describes how effectively the resources and conditions supporting a workforce translate into usable skills and other results. The countries highlighted show that aligning education, labour and innovation policies can produce strong outcomes even when resources are limited.

Israel leads North Africa and Western Asia, while the United Arab Emirates performs strongly in attracting talent and developing skills. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile leads, followed by Uruguay and Costa Rica.

The 2025 report observes outperformance at both ends of the income spectrum. Some smaller economies turn targeted investments into rapid gains in skills and openness, while many upper middle income economies are absent from the most dynamic movers.

The authors describe a talent plateau that can emerge when income rises faster than institutions and education systems improve. A country may have more resources without turning them quickly enough into stronger workforce capabilities.

Coordination across ministries and continuing links with employers are central to closing that gap. Education, labour and innovation policies need to work together so that additional resources translate into skills people can use.

What employers and workers can take from the findings

Singapore's ranking signals a deeper pool of adaptable talent and a stable policy environment for business planning. For workers, it reinforces the value of combining technical knowledge with communication, data literacy and judgment when using AI.

Adult learning infrastructure makes career changes more practical, while the market rewards people who continue learning. The recommendations flowing from the article's findings focus on combining specialist capabilities with skills that remain useful across jobs.

Employers can support that combination through several practical steps:

• Develop training across functions that pairs AI tools with problem solving, client engagement and ethics.
• Use hiring based on skills for roles aimed at people in the middle of their careers, rather than screening only by degrees.
• Invest in manager training, since good management is one of the strongest predictors of team productivity and retention.
• Partner with polytechnics and universities on applied projects that give students and workers preparing for new roles practical experience.
• Provide flexible working options where possible to widen the hiring pool and improve retention.

Workers can build capabilities that help them move between roles and respond to changing demand:

• Strengthen communication, collaboration and critical thinking, which are useful across many jobs.
• Develop AI literacy by learning to use tools, question their outputs and assess their value. Building AI models is not necessary to benefit from them.
• Maintain a learning habit, using SkillsFuture credits or employer programmes to add a new tool or credential each year.
• Remain open to moves across functions, which can accelerate development and widen career options when markets change.

Singapore's strengths connect these priorities. Education develops technical foundations, continued training updates them, and adaptive skills help people apply what they know in different settings.

How other rankings compare and what comes next

Singapore placed second behind Switzerland in the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking 2025. That ranking takes a broader economic view than the Global Talent Competitiveness Index, which concentrates on talent systems.

The two results place both economies near the leading edge in business conditions and productivity, while assigning them different positions. The measures use distinct indicators and definitions, so they answer different questions about national performance.

IMD also publishes a World Talent Ranking with a different approach and country coverage. Across these assessments, talent, skills and resilience are central to national advantage, although each framework measures them differently.

The GTCI team plans to develop the report into a continuous intelligence system called the Talent and Competitiveness Monitor. The planned system would provide more frequent updates and richer tools for decision makers; no launch date was given.

The 2025 edition places adaptable workers, AI literacy, rights, health and education at the centre of its account of resilience. Singapore leads the complete ranking through strengths across several areas, while its retention result shows where further progress matters.

Key Points

• Singapore ranks first in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index, replacing Switzerland for the first time since the index began in 2013.
• Switzerland is second, followed by Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, the United States and Australia.
• The index covers 135 economies and 77 indicators across six pillars, representing more than 97 percent of global GDP and 93 percent of the world's population.
• Singapore leads in generalist adaptive skills and improved seven places to 31st in talent retention.
• Europe holds 18 of the top 25 positions. The United States fell from third to ninth, while China declined from 40th to 53rd.
• Australia and New Zealand outperform Singapore in retention but trail it in adaptive skills.
• The refreshed framework adds measures covering AI, soft skills, employee well being and workforce resilience.
• Singapore, Israel, South Korea and several lower middle income economies stand out for converting resources into strong talent outcomes.
• The GTCI team plans a Talent and Competitiveness Monitor to provide more frequent updates and additional tools.