Average Salary in Canada 2026 | By Province, Age, Occupation & Education

The average salary in Canada was about $69,148 in 2025, but that number tells only part of the story. Because a relatively small group of very high earners (surgeons, executives, senior lawyers) pulls the average upward, the median salary of $60,320 is a more useful benchmark for most Canadians. Half of all workers earn above the median, and half earn below it.

Salaries in Canada vary by province, industry, age, education and occupation. Job Bank puts the median wage for registered nurses at $47.50 an hour in Alberta and $44.77 in New Brunswick (2023-2024 data). In Toronto, the median is $56.49 an hour for software engineers and designers and $47.50 for secondary school teachers. In 2024, workers aged 25 to 34 with wage income averaged $57,200 in wages, compared with $86,900 for workers aged 45 to 54, or about 66% as much. This guide breaks down each of those dimensions with the latest available data.

Data on this page comes from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey (the national, provincial and gender figures are average or median weekly earnings of all employees, full- and part-time, multiplied by 52), the Canadian Income Survey (age), the 2021 Census (education) and Employment and Social Development Canada’s Job Bank wage data (occupations). The total-compensation ranges further down are our own illustrative estimates, not survey data. Figures are pre-tax annual amounts unless otherwise noted.

Average vs. median: why the distinction matters

Before reading any salary table, it helps to understand why averages can be misleading.

The average (mean) salary adds up all wages and divides by the number of workers. Because a small number of people earn extremely high incomes — $500,000 or $1,000,000+ — the average gets pulled upward significantly, making it higher than what most workers actually earn.

The median salary is the midpoint: exactly half of workers earn more and half earn less. It is not affected by extreme values at either end and gives a much clearer picture of what a “typical” Canadian earns.

As a practical example: if ten people earn $40,000 each and one person earns $1,000,000, the average salary is $127,273, but ten out of eleven workers earn far less than that. The median would be $40,000, accurately reflecting what most people in that group earn.

Rule of thumb: Use the median when asking “what do most Canadians earn?” Use the average when comparing your salary against total wage data or government statistics.

Average salary by province (2025)

Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, Table 14-10-0064-01 (2025 annual average and median weekly wages of all employees, full- and part-time, multiplied by 52). Canada: $69,148 average and $60,320 median. Take-home is calculated live on each province’s average salary using 2026 federal and provincial brackets, basic personal amounts, CPP/QPP, EI and QPIP premiums, the Canada employment amount and the Ontario surtax and health premium; Quebec’s figure also applies the federal abatement and Quebec’s deduction for workers.

Alberta’s average is lifted by oil and gas, and cost of living complicates the comparison. Alberta’s average is heavily influenced by the oil and gas sector: Alberta employees in forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying and oil and gas averaged $134,985 a year in 2025 (median $120,640), against $73,172 for all Alberta employees, and the sector employed 5.9% of Alberta employees against 1.7% nationally. Housing costs matter too: see the Calgary and Edmonton pages for current home prices.

Quebec’s average needs context. Quebec employees averaged $64,621 in 2025, against $69,148 nationally, but living costs differ too: Quebec’s subsidized childcare, for example, has a reduced contribution of $9.65 a day in 2026.

The after-tax column shows take-home pay for a single person with no dependants and standard deductions; see what is net income in Canada for a full breakdown of what gets deducted from gross pay. Provincial income tax rules vary significantly. Alberta’s brackets run from 8% to 15%, against a bottom rate of 5.05% in Ontario and 5.6% in BC. Alberta’s basic personal amount is $22,769, against $12,989 in Ontario, and Alberta has no provincial sales tax, while BC charges 7% PST. The take-home column above shows the combined effect of the income-tax rules at each province’s average salary. Use the salary calculator to model take-home pay for any province.

Average salary by age and career stage

Wages follow a curve over a career: low at entry, rising through the thirties and forties, then falling as workers approach retirement (some choose part-time work, others move into lower-stress roles). In 2024, the age group with the highest average wages was 45 to 54 years.

Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Income Survey 2024, Table 11-10-0239-01: wages, salaries and commissions of everyone who had wage income in 2024, including part-time and part-year workers, which is why the youngest and oldest groups are so much lower than a full-time salary.

The 15–24 group includes large numbers of part-time workers, students working minimum wage jobs, and recent graduates in their first role. These numbers do not reflect the trajectory of a career — they reflect a highly varied group.

From 25–34 to 35–44, average wages go from $57,200 to $78,000. The change largely reflects two things: years of experience compounding, and workers who pursued professional or graduate credentials entering the workforce in their mid-to-late twenties at a higher starting point.

At 45–54, average wages are $86,900. Workers in this cohort have accumulated seniority, have typically reached senior or management-level roles, and have the negotiating leverage that comes from an established track record.

At 55–64, average wages are $71,300, against $86,900 at 45–54. The difference reflects a mix of forces: some high earners retire early, some workers scale back hours, and industries shift underneath people with specialized skills.

The 65+ figure ($37,200) reflects that most high earners have retired and the remaining workforce in this cohort is dominated by part-time work, consulting, and seasonal roles.

Average salary by occupation

High-paying occupations

Canada’s highest-paying occupations require significant education, licensing, or both. The range column shows the spread from the lowest-paid 10% to the highest-paid 10% of each occupation, so entry-level pay sits near the low end, especially in medicine (residency) and law (articling students).

Source for all three occupation tables: Employment and Social Development Canada, Job Bank wage data (2025 edition, mostly 2023 to 2024 Labour Force Survey wages). Hourly wages are converted to annual at 1,950 hours (37.5 hours a week), so annual figures are not rounded. Physician figures are Job Bank’s annual figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (2023 to 2024) and dentist figures come from the 2021 Census (2020 income).

Physician figures in Canada represent gross clinical payments for most doctors, not a salary in the traditional sense, and many physicians are incorporated. The effective take-home after practice expenses varies significantly.

Mid-range occupations

These occupations require professional education, skilled training, or significant experience, and form the core of Canada’s middle-income workforce.

Skilled trades pay well at the top end. Job Bank puts the top 10% of plumbers at $83,850 a year in Alberta and $93,600 in BC in base pay before overtime, and trades workers usually start earning during their apprenticeship rather than taking on years of student debt.

Entry-level and administrative occupations

Tech industry salaries in Canada

Tech occupations are among the better-paid jobs in Canada’s largest job markets, including Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo. For a broader look at which cities offer the best employment opportunities and wage levels, see best cities in Canada for jobs. The table below shows Job Bank median wages (reference period 2023-2024) for the main tech occupations in each region, converted to annual at 1,950 hours; total compensation at larger companies can be significantly higher once bonuses and equity (RSUs or options) are included.

Job Bank figures are wages only: at larger tech employers such as Shopify, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Meta, annual bonuses and equity grants come on top, and they vary too much by company and level to summarize reliably. See average income by city in Canada for a full city-by-city salary breakdown.

Salary by education level

Higher education in Canada generally yields higher lifetime earnings, but the relationship is not simple: field of study matters enormously, and the table below compares trades credentials, college diplomas and degrees with a high school diploma.

Source: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census, Table 98-10-0409-01: average 2020 employment income of people who worked full year, full time, by highest certificate, diploma or degree. Percentages are our calculation from the unrounded averages.

A few important nuances:

The degree premium depends heavily on field. Among Canadian students who finished a bachelor’s degree in 2017, Statistics Canada’s graduate tracking data put median employment income five years later at $93,600 for computer and information sciences and $89,200 for engineering, versus $60,100 for social and behavioural sciences and law and $53,000 for the humanities (2022 dollars, Table 37-10-0115-01).

Trades credentials against college diplomas: apprenticeship certificate holders averaged $76,500 and college diploma holders $70,100. Job Bank puts median pay at $58,500 for Alberta plumbers and $82,427 for Alberta gas fitters a year before overtime, and apprentices earn while they train, so a tradesperson can have four to five years of paid experience by the time a university graduate starts their career.

Doctorates against medical and dental degrees: $127,200 against $132,200 on average. Academic careers are highly competitive and often start with years of postdoctoral work at modest stipends. The $127,200 average for doctorate holders includes both academics and those who moved into industry (data science, consulting, pharma, tech); at the median, doctorate holders earned $110,000 and the medicine and dentistry group $96,000 in 2020.

The gender pay gap in Canada

The gender pay gap is a persistent feature of the Canadian labour market. In 2025, women employees earned about 88.1 cents for every dollar men earned per hour (a gap of 11.9%), and about 79.6 cents per dollar of weekly earnings (a gap of 20.4%), partly because men work more paid hours.

Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, Table 14-10-0064-01 (2025 annual averages, all employees).

The gap is real but also complex. It is partly explained by:

• Occupational sorting: Men and women are distributed differently across occupations, though a Statistics Canada study found this explained only 5.1% of the 2018 hourly wage gap
• Industry concentration: Women are under-represented in higher-paying industries such as construction, manufacturing, and mining, quarrying and oil and gas; the same study found industry was the largest single measured factor in the 2018 gap
• Part-time work: Women are more likely to work part-time, often due to caregiving responsibilities
• Career interruptions: Women are more likely to have work interruptions, particularly around having and raising children, which leaves them with fewer total years of work experience

However, the same Statistics Canada study of employees aged 25 to 54 found that measured factors such as industry, occupation, education, part-time work and union coverage explained just over one-third (36.6%) of the 13.3% hourly wage gap in 2018, leaving nearly two-thirds (63.4%, or about 8.4 percentage points) unexplained. Statistics Canada notes that the unexplained portion can reflect differences in wage negotiation as well as explicit or implicit gender-based discrimination.

Union coverage is one factor: in 2025 women covered by a union earned 4.4% less per hour than unionized men ($37.91 against $39.67), compared with a 16.0% gap for employees without union coverage ($32.11 against $38.24; Labour Force Survey, Table 14-10-0066-01).

For a full breakdown by industry and province, including how the gap differs between hourly wages and weekly earnings, see our dedicated gender pay gap in Canada guide.

What is a “good” salary in Canada? (by city)

“Good” is relative. The table below reflects income levels that support a comfortable lifestyle for a single person: modest savings, occasional dining out, reasonable housing without extreme financial stress. Thresholds for a family of four run a little under double the single-person figure, because housing and other costs are shared.

“Comfortable” in this context means: covering housing, food, transportation, and utilities with some capacity for savings and discretionary spending. It does not mean wealth accumulation or mortgage paydown on expensive property.

The income percentile context: Among Canadians who reported income in 2023, $75,000 is higher than 73.9% of incomes. At $100,000, you are in the top 14.8%; see is $100,000 a good salary in Canada? At $150,000, you are in the top 5.4%; see is $150,000 a good salary? The income percentile calculator shows exactly where a specific income falls nationally and by province.

Salary growth and real wages

Canadian wages have grown in nominal terms over recent years, but inflation eroded real purchasing power significantly in 2021–2022. Since 2023, real wage growth has turned positive as inflation moderated.

Sources: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, Table 14-10-0064-01 (annual average hourly wage of all employees: $30.04 in 2020 to $36.40 in 2025) and Consumer Price Index annual averages as published (Table 18-10-0005-01). Real growth is (1 + wage growth) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1.

The 2021–2022 decline was the largest annual fall in average real hourly wages from 1997, when the Labour Force Survey’s wage series began, to 2022. Workers whose raises did not match that year’s 6.8% inflation lost purchasing power.

Wage growth has varied by industry. From 2021 to 2025, average hourly wages rose 20.9% in accommodation and food services and 21.7% in business, building and other support services, against 18.1% in construction and 17.8% in health care and social assistance. Consumer prices rose 16.0% over the same period.

Where you stand: Canadian income percentiles

Source: Statistics Canada, Table 11-10-0008-01 (tax filers and dependants with income, 2023): share of all Canadians with income below each threshold, calculated from the counts of people at or above it. These are total incomes of everyone with income, including part-time workers, students and retirees, not salaries of full-time workers.

Use the income percentile calculator to see where a specific income falls by province and age group, not just nationally. For common reference points: is $50,000 a good salary? · is $60,000 a good salary? · is $120,000 a good salary? · is $200,000 a good salary?

Total compensation: beyond base salary

Base salary is only part of what an employer pays you, and the other parts aren’t all taxed the same way, which matters when you compare offers. The Canada Revenue Agency’s rules for the most common extras:

• Health and dental plans: premiums an employer pays to a plan that qualifies as a private health services plan (such as most medical and dental plans) are not a taxable benefit federally.
• Group RRSP contributions: employer contributions to a group RRSP are a taxable benefit, added to your employment income. If you can withdraw them while you’re still employed, they’re also subject to CPP and EI; if you can’t withdraw them until you retire or leave the job, they’re subject to CPP but not EI.
• Pension plans: employer contributions to a registered pension plan are not a taxable benefit. Instead, the benefits you earn under the plan create a pension adjustment, which generally reduces your RRSP deduction limit for the following year.
• Group term life insurance: premiums an employer pays for group term life insurance are a taxable benefit.
• CPP and EI: your own contributions come off your pay whatever the package: 7.58% of salary up to the annual maximums in 2026 (QPP and QPIP rates differ in Quebec); see our payroll deductions guide.

Sources: Canada Revenue Agency, Premiums and contributions to insurance plans, Contributions to savings and pension plans and Pension adjustment.

Bonuses, stock options and perks vary too much from one employer to another to summarize. When evaluating an offer, ask the employer to put a dollar value on each component so you can compare offers on a like-for-like basis.

Salary negotiation tips

Understanding where you stand in salary data is the first step; using that information effectively is what moves the needle.

1. Research before every conversation. Use Statistics Canada data, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi (for tech), and the Income Percentile Calculator to understand where a proposed salary sits relative to the market and your experience level. Come with numbers, not feelings.

2. Negotiate at the offer stage, not after you start. The highest leverage moment is between when you receive an offer and when you accept. Once you start, raises come in small annual increments. A $5,000 raise at offer is worth far more than negotiating for it a year in.

3. Consider total compensation. If an employer is rigid on base salary, negotiate RRSP matching, extra vacation days, a signing bonus, or a six-month salary review. These may be easier wins that still increase your total compensation.

4. Anchor high and give a range. When asked for a salary expectation, give a range where your actual target is the lower end; this leaves room for negotiation while ensuring the conversation starts near your real number.

5. Document everything. Confirm any verbal offer or salary discussion by email. If an employer backtracks on a promised raise, having written confirmation is essential.

Related tools and resources

• Income Percentile Calculator — See exactly where your income ranks nationally and by province
• Salary Calculator — Convert annual salary to hourly, weekly, or monthly take-home
• Hourly to Salary Calculator — Convert hourly wage to annual salary with taxes
• Income Tax Calculator — Calculate federal and provincial taxes on any income
• Average Income by Province — Provincial income breakdowns with more detail
• Median Income in Canada — Median vs. average income explained with full data by province and age
• Average Household Income in Canada — Family and household income vs. individual wage data
• Average Income by City in Canada — City-by-city salary breakdown across major Canadian cities
• Salary vs. Hourly: Which Is Better? — Pros and cons of each compensation structure
• Payroll Deductions Guide — CPP, EI, income tax and what comes off your paycheque
• Minimum Wage in Canada — Federal and provincial minimum wages for 2026