Average and Median Income in Alberta

Alberta had the highest average individual income of the ten provinces in 2024, at $63,200, yet its median (the income of the Albertan in the middle) was $45,500, the third-highest. That $17,700 spread between average and median is wider than Canada’s ($15,000); the wider that spread, the more a minority of high incomes lifts the average above what a typical person earns. The province-by-province table is on our average income in Canada page; for the two big cities, see average income in Calgary and average income in Edmonton.

The figures come from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey (CIS), April 29, 2026 release, for the 2024 reference year.

Alberta’s income figures

Individual income: Table 11-10-0238-01, everyone aged 15 and over including people with no income. Family income: Table 11-10-0190-01, where each economic family and each person living outside one counts once.

Counted by family rather than by person, Alberta’s median after-tax income for families and unattached individuals was the highest of any province. For economic families alone (two or more related people living together) the after-tax median was $115,900, against $108,900 nationally, and for Albertans living alone or with non-relatives it was $44,900.

How much of a gross Alberta salary survives tax depends on the brackets set out on our Alberta income tax page; the salary calculator works it out for a specific pay.

How Alberta’s median has moved since 2014

The CIS reports every year in constant 2024 dollars, so the changes below are after inflation. Alberta’s median individual income was $51,200 in 2014 and $47,100 in 2016, a drop of about 8% over two years. That fall coincided with the oil price collapse: the WTI benchmark averaged US$93 a barrel in 2014 and US$43 in 2016 (U.S. Energy Information Administration).

By 2019 the median was $49,400, still about 3.5% under its 2014 level, and in 2024 it was $45,500, 11% below 2014. The average moved from $70,500 in 2014 to $63,200 in 2024, 10% below in real terms. Nationally, the median was 8% above its 2014 level over the same span.

Incomes in Calgary, Edmonton and smaller Alberta cities

The CIS publishes after-tax income for eight metropolitan areas, two of them in Alberta. In 2024 the median for families and unattached individuals was $88,900 in Calgary and $80,700 in Edmonton, the highest and fourth-highest of those eight.

Tax-filer data (Table 11-10-0008-01, 2023, before tax) reach smaller centres. The median individual income was $48,810 in Calgary, $48,730 in Edmonton, $45,790 in Red Deer and $45,370 in Lethbridge. Of the 17 Alberta cities and towns in that table, Wood Buffalo had the highest median ($76,460) and Wetaskiwin the lowest ($42,000).

Home prices against these incomes are covered on the Calgary housing market and Edmonton housing market pages.

Wages by industry and occupation in Alberta

Labour Force Survey averages for 2025 put the all-industry wage in Alberta at $37.35 an hour. Statistics Canada groups oil and gas extraction with mining, quarrying, forestry and fishing; that combined sector averaged $58.84 an hour, or $2,595.86 a week (about $134,985 over 52 weeks). Construction averaged $38.59 an hour, and professional, scientific and technical services, which include engineering and geology firms, $47.53.

Job Bank’s Alberta wage data (reference period 2023-2024) give median hourly wages of $86.54 for senior managers in financial and business services, $82.00 for engineering managers, $78.85 for lawyers, $66.35 for petroleum engineers and $51.92 for software engineers, and a median of $178,213 a year for family physicians. In the trades, the medians are $57.00 an hour for industrial instrument technicians, $44.00 for industrial electricians and $42.00 for millwrights.

Related tools and resources

• Alberta income tax brackets and rates
• Salary calculator: Alberta take-home pay for a given salary
• Income percentile calculator: where an income ranks in Alberta
• Income percentiles in Alberta
• Alberta housing market: home prices and trends
• Cost of living by province