Highest Paying Industries in Canada (2025 Data)
Which industries actually pay the most in Canada? Using the latest Statistics Canada wage data, utilities, resource extraction, and professional services sit at the top, while accommodation, food services, and retail trade sit at the bottom, a gap of roughly $34/hour between the highest and lowest paying major industries.
| Industry | Avg. Hourly Wage | Avg. Annual Equivalent | Y/Y Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utilities | $55.9 | $110,624 | +5.8% |
| Forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas | $51.34 | $119,555 | +2.5% |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | $48.6 | $96,683 | +2.3% |
| Public administration | $46.39 | $89,324 | +4.1% |
| Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing | $44.24 | $86,063 | +3.4% |
| Educational services | $42.3 | $72,357 | +5.2% |
| Construction | $37.86 | $79,146 | +3.3% |
| Manufacturing | $35.21 | $71,776 | +2.6% |
| Health care and social assistance | $34.81 | $62,696 | +4.1% |
| Transportation and warehousing | $34.22 | $68,763 | +2.4% |
| Information, culture and recreation | $34.2 | $60,516 | +5.9% |
| Other services (except public administration) | $31.56 | $58,753 | +3.9% |
| Business, building and other support services | $28.65 | $54,686 | +6.4% |
| Wholesale and retail trade | $27.59 | $49,986 | +1.8% |
| Agriculture | $25.79 | $52,722 | +3% |
| Accommodation and food services | $20.98 | $32,063 | +1.9% |
Source: Statistics Canada Table 14-10-0064, 2025 annual average. “Annual equivalent” is the average weekly wage × 52, a simplified full-year estimate, not an official StatCan figure.
The national average across all industries and employee types was $36.40/hour in 2025, up 3.4% from the prior year.
Why the gap between industries is so wide
The roughly $34/hour gap between Utilities ($55.90) and Accommodation and food services ($21.61) comes down to a few consistent factors:
Capital intensity and specialized licensing. Utilities, oil and gas, and mining require workers with technical certifications (power engineers, heavy equipment operators, industrial electricians) operating expensive, safety-critical infrastructure. Employers pay a premium for scarce, licensed skill combined with the cost of downtime if something goes wrong.
Barriers to entry. Professional, scientific and technical services ($48.60/hour) includes engineers, lawyers, and consultants, roles requiring years of postsecondary education and, often, professional licensing. Accommodation and food services, by contrast, has some of the lowest formal education requirements of any major sector, which keeps the labour supply large relative to demand.
Unionization and public-sector wage floors. Public administration ($48.14/hour) and utilities both have high unionization rates and multi-year negotiated wage scales, which tend to compress the gap between entry-level and experienced workers compared to non-unionized sectors.
Automation and outsourcing exposure. Wholesale and retail trade and accommodation/food services face intense competitive pressure and are harder to differentiate on price, which limits how much employers can pay before margins disappear.
Fastest-growing wages by industry
Year-over-year wage growth varied significantly by industry in 2025. Business, building and other support services (+6.4%) and utilities (+5.8%) saw the fastest wage growth, both well above the 3.4% national average, while wholesale and retail trade (+1.8%) lagged furthest behind.
Fast wage growth in a lower-paying sector like business support services can reflect either a genuinely tightening labour market for those specific roles, or simply a smaller base making percentage changes look larger. Either way, it is worth checking the dollar level alongside the growth rate before assuming a sector is becoming a better bet.
Industry pay compared to overall average
Roughly half of the 18 major industries pay above the $36.40/hour national average, and half pay below it, but the distribution is not symmetric. The highest-paying industries (utilities, oil and gas, professional services) cluster well above average, while the lowest-paying industries (accommodation/food services, retail trade) cluster only moderately below it, meaning a small number of very high-paying sectors pull the national average up.
This is the same pattern that shows up when comparing average and median salary in Canada: high earners in a handful of sectors and occupations skew the mean well above what a typical worker actually earns.
How to use this data
If you are evaluating a career change or negotiating a job offer, industry-level averages are a useful starting point, but they blend together very different roles, experience levels, and provinces. Use this page alongside our profession-specific salary guides (for example, how much software engineers make or how much construction workers make) and the income percentile calculator to see where a specific salary offer actually sits relative to your province or city, not just your industry.
Data source: Statistics Canada, Table 14-10-0064, “Employee wages by industry, annual,” both full- and part-time employees, age 15 and over, most recent year available.