TL;DR: Kerry Consulting, the firm with the most Employment Pass placements on this list, leads ten headhunters worth a call for senior hiring in Singapore.
Singapore search fees run 15% to 25% of annual salary on contingency and 25% to 35% of first-year pay on retained search.
Headhunters in Singapore need a Ministry of Manpower licence. MOM's free directory shows how many Employment Passes each agency placed in the last year. The industry average is three. Kerry Consulting placed ten.
Spencer Stuart, licensed for 30 years, placed none.
Quick comparison
| Firm | Model | Strongest for | MOM licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kerry Consulting | Search and selection | Senior functional roles in Singapore | 16S8060 |
| Second Talent | Flat monthly rate | Engineering, data and AI hires, employed for you | 25C2662 |
| Egon Zehnder | Retained | Board seats and CEO succession | 00S4529 |
| Spencer Stuart | Retained | Independent directors and board research | 96S3140 |
| Russell Reynolds | Retained | C-suite search and succession | 01S4825 |
| HRnetOne | Search and staffing | Regional mandates across Asian cities | 16S8408 |
| Robert Walters | Contingency and search | Finance and professional hiring in volume | 03C5451 |
| Michael Page | Contingency and search | Multinationals on a global supplier list | 18S9099, 18C9065 |
| Space Executive | Search and recruitment | Fintech, cyber and venture-backed leaders | 15S7496 |
| Kepler Search | Retained | Energy, commodities and data centres | 18S9419 |
- 1A Select Licence only lets an agency place roles paying more than S$4,500 a month, so it marks a firm built for senior hiring.
- 2MOM caps what an agency charges the worker at two months of salary. Nothing caps what it charges you.
- 3From 1 January 2027, new Employment Passes need at least S$6,000 a month, up from S$5,600.
The 10 best headhunting agencies in Singapore
With retained search, you pay in stages whether or not you hire. It buys exclusivity and a mapped market. With contingency search, you pay only when the hire starts. The firms below sell one, the other or both.
1. Kerry Consulting
Kerry Consulting is the first call for a senior functional hire in Singapore, such as a CFO, a general counsel or a head of HR.
It describes itself as the largest and most experienced executive recruitment firm in Singapore, and works from Suntec Tower 4 under licence 16S8060.
MOM's directory backs part of that claim. In the 12 months to 4 October 2026, MOM approved ten Employment Passes for candidates Kerry placed. That is the most of any firm on this list, and more than three times the industry average.
Its licence has been active for 22 years.
Beyond search and selection, Kerry sells market mapping run by a dedicated research team, plus interim placements. A map costs less than a search and tells you whether the search is worth running.
Its salary guides cover financial services, commerce and industry, HR, legal and compliance, technology and sustainability.
They quote the guaranteed package and leave out discretionary bonuses and stock, which is the base to agree before any fee is set.
- Best for: senior finance, legal, HR and technology roles where the pool sits in Singapore.
- Watch out: it publishes no fee, guarantee or timeline, so get them in writing.
- Model: search and selection, with interim and market mapping beside it.
2. Second Talent
We are on our own list, so read this entry with that in mind. Second Talent suits a company hiring engineers, data specialists or AI talent that wants the person employed, not only introduced.
We are not a retained search house, and we do not run board or C-suite searches.
Senior engineers based in Singapore cost $5,000 to $9,000 a month to hire through us, a flat rate rather than a share of salary. The vetting happens before you brief us, which is how a shortlist arrives inside 24 hours.
Candidates pass a technical test, a check of their AI coding tools, an English test at C1 or above, and a behavioural interview.
If the seat can sit outside Singapore, we can fill it from Vietnam or the Philippines with no Employment Pass at all.
Our Singapore entity, Second Talent SG Pte. Ltd., holds MOM licence 25C2662. It can also hold the contract through our employer of record in Singapore, so you need no local entity.
Across more than 200 client companies we hold a 92% talent retention rate.
- Best for: engineering, data and AI hires where you want one monthly cost and no entity.
- Watch out: our licence is a year old on MOM's count, younger than every other firm here.
- Model: flat monthly rate per hire, with no placement fee.
3. Egon Zehnder Singapore
Egon Zehnder is the firm a board calls when the appointment is a CEO, a chair or a non-executive director.
Its Singapore office opened in 1981 and is one of its principal hubs in Asia, with 14 consultants and 24 office staff at Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 2.
The office works for governments, listed companies and family-owned businesses, across financial services, health care, technology and consumer. Search is only part of it.
Clients also buy executive assessment, board reviews and succession planning. That work is often the real reason to pay a retained fee.
A firm that has assessed the whole peer group can tell you where your internal candidate stands. Its function practices cover board directors and chairs, CEOs, CFOs and audit chairs, and technology officers.
The Singapore entity's licence, 00S4529, has been active for 25 years. MOM's directory shows four Employment Passes placed in the past year, above the industry average of three.
- Best for: CEO succession, board seats and leadership assessment.
- Watch out: top-of-market retained pricing, paid whether or not you hire.
- Model: retained search plus board and leadership advisory.
4. Spencer Stuart Singapore
Spencer Stuart suits a listed company or a large family group filling an independent director seat. Its licence, 96S3140, has been active for 30 years, the longest of any firm on this list.
The Singapore office is at Singapore Land Tower on Raffles Place.
Its research shows what Singapore boards now hire for. A July 2025 study by Danny Koh and Malini Vaidya tracked 115 independent directors who joined about 30 top Singapore-headquartered boards between October 2019 and September 2024.
Of those, 43% still held full-time executive jobs, against 35% of the directors who left. Among the joiners with day jobs, 73% had worked at a multinational.
Financial services executives took 31% of the new seats, though finance companies made up 14% of the sample.
Directors from technology, media and telecoms rose from 4% of leavers to 19% of joiners when boards hired outside their own industry.
Reach mattered too: 88% of incoming directors with day jobs held a global or pan-Asia remit, against 70% of those who left. If your board is replacing a retired general manager, expect a shortlist of that shape.
- Best for: independent directors and board composition reviews.
- Watch out: MOM's directory shows no Employment Pass placements in the past year, so it is not the firm for a foreign hire's pass.
- Model: retained search and board advisory.
5. Russell Reynolds Associates
Russell Reynolds fits a company replacing a C-suite executive who reports to a global board. The Singapore office opened in 1984 and lists 18 consultants at 18 Robinson Road, led by country manager Euan Kenworthy.
The team covers consumer, finance, healthcare, industrial and technology, and sells CEO and C-suite succession and leadership assessment beside search.
It publishes an annual review of corporate governance trends for Singapore and Malaysia boards, which is useful reading before a board sets a director brief.
The firm also sells executive mentoring, executive transition support and team performance work.
Of the three global retained houses here, it moves the most foreign executives. MOM's directory shows five Employment Passes in the year to October 2026, against four for Egon Zehnder and none for Spencer Stuart.
Its licence, 01S4825, has been active for 25 years. If your regional hire will relocate to Singapore, ask about that number.
- Best for: C-suite and succession searches that may land a foreign candidate.
- Watch out: a smaller team than the regional hubs in Hong Kong or Tokyo, so ask who runs your search.
- Model: retained search, assessment and succession.
6. HRnetOne
HRnetOne is the call for a mandate that spans several Asian markets, such as a plant head in Bangkok and a finance lead in Shanghai for the same group.
It is the executive search brand of HRnetGroup, founded in Singapore in 1992 as a four-person team, and runs from Ngee Ann City Tower A on Orchard Road.
Its about page lists 144 consultants, a database of 916,615 candidates, and offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul and four mainland Chinese cities.
Teams cover healthcare and life sciences, consumer, industrial and chemicals, property, technology and software, plus HR and finance as functions.
Its specialisation list also names family offices, government and data centres, which are rarer desks in a regional group.
The parent, HRnetGroup, listed on the SGX Mainboard on 16 June 2017 and runs over 900 consultants across 18 Asian cities. A listed parent publishes accounts, which tells you more about a supplier's health than any search firm's brochure.
The Singapore entity, HRnet One Pte Ltd, holds licence 16S8408.
- Best for: regional mandates briefed to one Asian group rather than four boutiques.
- Watch out: search sits beside flexible staffing, so confirm a senior consultant owns your role.
- Model: executive search plus contract staffing.
7. Robert Walters Singapore
Robert Walters suits a company filling several finance, banking or professional roles at once. It has worked in Singapore since 1998, and the group has since folded its three brands into one business spanning 29 countries.
The useful extra is data. Its annual Salary Survey covers each discipline it recruits for, and the site is collecting responses for the 2027 edition now.
A benchmark in hand before you set a band is the cheapest way to avoid an offer that gets declined.
MOM's directory shows five Employment Passes and two S Passes placed in the year to October 2026, so its desks see foreign hires at mid-level as well as senior. The licence, 03C5451, has been active for 23 years.
Recruitment outsourcing is also available when a hiring plan outgrows a few individual searches. The same desks run interim and contract placements, which helps when you need someone in the seat while the permanent search runs.
- Best for: finance, banking and professional roles with a deep local pool.
- Watch out: a large desk, where your role competes with others for consultant time.
- Model: contingency recruitment, search and recruitment outsourcing.
8. Michael Page Singapore
Michael Page is the pick for a multinational that already buys from PageGroup elsewhere.
It works from Office Tower Two at One Raffles Place and recruits across its specialisms, from accounting, banking and legal to technology, life sciences, procurement and sustainability.
It splits its Singapore work across two licensed companies. Licence 18S9099 belongs to its International entity and 18C9065 to its Personnel entity, so ask which one signs your contract.
MOM counts eight years of active licence for each, which dates the current entities rather than the brand.
Executive search, recruitment outsourcing and job advertising sit beside permanent and contract hiring on one relationship. A company that already uses PageGroup in other markets can bring Singapore under the same master agreement.
The firm also publishes an annual salary guide and a Talent Trends report, and its site claims that 98% of clients choose to work with it again.
- Best for: multinationals that want Singapore on the same paper as other markets.
- Watch out: board-level search runs through its Page Executive arm, so say which you are buying.
- Model: contingency recruitment, executive search and outsourcing.
9. Space Executive
Space Executive suits a venture-backed scale-up or a fintech hiring its first commercial or technology leader. It runs executive search, recruitment and strategic advisory from Singapore, Hong Kong and London.
The go-to-market practice is the distinctive desk. It sources sales and commercial leaders in cyber security, cloud infrastructure, data, AI and machine learning, enterprise software and fintech.
A separate practice covers private equity and venture capital, both investment teams and portfolio company leadership. It also hires for finance, accounting, legal, risk and compliance, and HR functions inside those companies.
Its case studies name Standard Chartered Bank, for senior leadership hiring, and Dyson, for an Asia talent acquisition director. A third covers a VP for Adams Street Partners' London investment team.
That mix of banks, product companies and funds is unusual for a firm this size. The Singapore entity's licence, 15S7496, has been active for 11 years.
- Best for: sales, product and technology leaders at venture-backed companies.
- Watch out: one Employment Pass placement in the past year, so foreign hires are not its main work.
- Model: executive search and recruitment, terms agreed per mandate.
10. Kepler Search
Kepler Search is the narrowest firm here, and the right one for a commodities trading head, an LNG lead or a data centre build-out role.
It describes itself as a retained headhunting firm based in Singapore, focused on energy and natural resources, renewables, food and agribusiness, metals and mining, infrastructure investment and data centres.
The case studies on its homepage read like a trading floor's org chart. They include a chief risk officer for a European energy company and a head of data centres in South Korea.
Two more are LNG roles, one of them a VP of project development on an exclusive retainer.
It also sells salary benchmarking and outplacement, and offers a 2026 talent trends report on commodities and energy. Its reach list runs from Singapore, Japan and Indonesia to Houston, Chicago, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Singapore is the trading and treasury hub for most of those sectors, which is why a desk this narrow can work from here. MOM's directory shows two Employment Pass placements in the past year and seven years of active licence under 18S9419.
- Best for: trading, energy, agribusiness and data centre leadership.
- Watch out: outside those sectors, there is no reason to call.
- Model: retained executive search only.
Check the MOM licence before the first call
Any firm placing job seekers with employers needs an MOM licence, fee or no fee. MOM issues four types, each valid for three years, and the type tells you what the firm was set up to place.
Take the number from the firm's footer or proposal and search it in MOM's Employment Agencies Directory.
It returns the registered company name, the main branch address, years of active licence, and the passes approved through the agency in the past year. A separate tab lists agencies under revocation, suspension or surveillance.
What headhunting costs in Singapore
None of the firms above prints a rate card, and no Singapore authority publishes an employer benchmark. A 9cv9 review of Singapore pricing from August 2026 puts contingency fees for permanent roles at 15% to 25% of annual salary.
Retained executive search runs 25% to 35% of first-year pay.
MOM does regulate one fee, the one charged to the worker. An agency may collect no more than one month of fixed salary for each year of service, capped at two months. MOM removed the cap on employer fees on purpose:
"Employers are unlikely to be exploited by employment agencies (EAs) charging unreasonable fees as they have a stronger bargaining power compared to workers."
Ministry of Manpower FAQ
So negotiate the fee base, the replacement window and an off-limits period in the contract. Compare staffing agency fee structures before you sign, or price the same hire under each model with our recruitment agency fee calculator.
The work pass rules inside your timeline
If your candidate is not a citizen or permanent resident, three MOM tests sit between the offer and the start date.
Under the Fair Consideration Framework, the role must be advertised on MyCareersFuture for at least 14 consecutive days, and you should not make an offer during that window.
Firms with fewer than 10 employees, and roles paying S$22,500 a month or more, are exempt.
The candidate must then earn the Employment Pass qualifying salary, S$5,600 a month today and S$6,000 for new applications from 1 January 2027, rising with age. Last comes COMPASS, which needs 40 points.
A company with fewer than 25 PMET staff scores 10 by default on both workforce criteria, so the candidate's salary and degree must earn the other 20. Salaries of S$22,500 and above skip COMPASS.
In the cross-border hires I work on, the pass sets the start date more often than the search does. Run the advertisement while you still build the shortlist.
Why Singapore searches got harder in 2026
MOM's Labour Market Report for the second quarter of 2026 puts most of the drop in PMET vacancies in financial services and information and communications.
The resignation rate held at 1.0% while recruitment fell from 1.6% to 1.4%. In financial services it was 0.7%. Few managers are moving on their own.
Filling a senior role means approaching someone who is not looking, and that is the work a headhunter charges for.
Choosing between them
Pick the model first, then the firm. For volume hiring, see our lists of IT recruitment agencies in Singapore and staffing companies in Singapore. Or compare the same search market in Vietnam and the Philippines.
If the role is engineering, data or AI, you may not need an introduction at all. Tell us what you are hiring for and we will send a vetted shortlist inside 24 hours, employed through our Singapore entity at a flat monthly rate.
Frequently asked questions
Who pays the headhunter, the employer or the candidate?
The employer, for all ten firms on this list. MOM lets an agency charge a worker one month of salary per year of service, up to two months. Walk away from a search firm that bills both sides of one placement.
Can I hire in Singapore without a local entity?
Yes, through an employer of record that holds the contract and runs Singapore payroll, CPF and tax. A search firm introduces the candidate but does not employ them.
