PTD officer salary in Malaysia

What a new PTD officer earns

Starting basic pay at M9 is RM2,580 with a bachelor's degree, RM3,130 with a master's and RM3,350 with a doctorate. Fixed allowances add RM900 in Kuala Lumpur.

Pegawai Tadbir dan Diplomatik grade M9, from the SPA service scheme, with allowances from the JPA circular.

Sources: SPA service scheme; JPA Pekeliling Perkhidmatan 1/2024, Lampiran E (allowance tables). BISH is RM250 in Kawasan B and RM150 elsewhere. Totals computed by Foundific.

• A year at the start: RM3,480 × 12 = RM41,760.
• Outside the big cities: fixed pay is RM3,430 in Kawasan B and RM3,330 elsewhere.
• With a master's or doctorate: RM4,030 or RM4,250 a month in Kuala Lumpur with the same RM900 in allowances.

How pay grows on the government scale

Grade 9 pay rises RM225 a year, from RM2,580 at the start up to RM11,110. Promotion to M10 and above moves an officer onto a higher range.

Minimum and maximum monthly basic salary for each SSPA grade, 2026.

Source: Ministry of Finance, Budget 2026 establishment list, Lampiran A: SSPA salary codes and minimum-maximum salaries (page A-1). Basic salary only.

• By increments alone: at RM225 a year, about 38 yearly increments reach RM11,110 from RM2,580.
• Promotion grades: M10 starts at RM3,840 and M12 to M14 at RM5,530 to RM6,560.

Compared with Malaysian pay overall

A new PTD officer's fixed pay, RM3,480, is below the public administration industry median of RM4,483, which covers officers of all grades and years.

• Public administration median covers government employees of all grades, most of them experienced.
• Measures differ: DOSM figures cover all paid employees and all ages. The government figure is one fixed pay point. Use them for scale, not as a direct comparison.

Administrative and executive jobs in private firms

DOSM publishes no figure for administrative officers as a single job. Executives and officers named in 140 Industrial Court awards between 2019 and 2025 had a median last-drawn pay of RM4,162.

• Court awards: middle 50% from RM3,035 to RM6,250, across 106 employers. The family covers executives, officers and assistant executives in many industries, and the people in it took a dismissal case to court.
• DOSM context: the public administration industry median is RM4,483 and the median for all professionals is RM5,821.
• DOSM publishes salaries by industry, state and skill level, but not by job title.
• Private surveys and job ads use different measures and samples, so their figures are not mixed into the tables here.

Data sources and coverage

Government pay for PTD officers is exact. Private-sector context rests on industry medians and a court-award sample.

• Compared with Singapore: Singapore's MOM publishes median pay by job title, age and industry. Malaysia publishes exact government pay scales but no market-wide figure by job.
• What a payslip shows is basic plus allowances plus any shift, on-call or overtime pay, so it can be higher than the fixed figures here.

Is administrative work affected by AI?

The International Labour Organization rates policy administration professionals Minimal for exposure to generative AI. Its scores cover the job worldwide, so they apply in Malaysia too.

• Average task score 0.42 out of 1, across 7 main tasks.
• Most exposed task: Researching social, economic and industrial trends, and client expectations of programmes and services provided (0.50).
• Least exposed task: Liaising and consulting with programme administrators and other interested parties to identify policy needs (0.31).
• What exposure measures: how much of the work AI could do or speed up. It does not measure job cuts.

What the pay figures include

Every figure is monthly basic pay or fixed allowances, before deductions.

Related guides

Sources