Agentic AI is Singapore’s hottest job skill, and that should worry the people it replaces
Somewhere in Singapore this week, a recruiter is probably rewriting a job ad that once asked for “advanced Excel skills” so that it now asks for “hands-on experience with agentic AI workflows”. Multiply that by a few thousand listings and you arrive at the headline figure in Jobstreet by SEEK’s new AI Gauge. According to […] The post Agentic AI is Singapore’s hottest job skill, and that should…
Singapore's job market is witnessing a surge in demand for skills related to agentic AI, according to a new report by Jobstreet by SEEK. The share of job ads mentioning AI-related skills has increased from 1.3% in January 2024 to 5.1% in August 2026, a threefold jump in less than three years. Agentic AI, which encompasses systems that perform multi-step tasks on a user's behalf, saw the fastest growth among AI skills in Singapore, with mentions increasing by 460% year-on-year.
However, the report highlights the irony of hiring people to deploy software designed to perform tasks previously done by humans, a potential hiring freeze waiting to happen. While there is an increase in job ads mentioning AI ethics and governance, the demand for people to build and deploy these agents remains significantly higher.
The report also notes that ICT leads in AI-related job ads, while the advertising, arts & media sectors have seen the most significant increase in AI-related ads. Notably, older AI-related roles like data scientist have dropped out of the top three, replaced by AI engineers and automation engineers.
Written by urgent.news from e27's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
