“Manager” is not one occupation. Canada’s National Occupational Classification (NOC) has a separate management occupation for each field, from restaurants and retail stores to finance departments and hospitals, and their pay differs widely. This page is the overview: it compares wages across management occupations and explains how Statistics Canada groups them. Field-specific pages in the salary by profession hub go further for IT managers, marketing managers, project managers and HR managers.
How Statistics Canada classifies managers
In the 2021 version of the NOC, management is identified through the TEER system (Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities), not through a field of its own. The TEER category is the second digit of each five-digit code, and management occupations are TEER 0: financial managers are 10010, construction managers 70010. The broad category that starts with 0 now holds only legislators and senior management occupations; middle managers were moved into the other broad categories based on the industry of employment. So manager pay has to be read occupation by occupation, as in the table below.
Wages across management occupations
Job Bank’s national wages for a range of management occupations, on the same basis:
| Occupation (NOC) | Low (per hour) | Median (per hour) | High (per hour) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior managers - financial, communications and other business services (00012) | $51.28 | $96.15 | $153.85 |
| Financial managers (10010) | $38.50 | $59.48 | $91.76 |
| Human resources managers (10011) | $37.94 | $57.69 | $87.18 |
| Advertising, marketing and public relations managers (10022) | $34.62 | $55.29 | $89.74 |
| Computer and information systems managers (20012) | $43.75 | $66.67 | $103.37 |
| Managers in health care (30010) | $35.00 | $55.29 | $79.33 |
| Corporate sales managers (60010) | $36.54 | $60.10 | $112.00 |
| Retail and wholesale trade managers (60020) | $21.63 | $42.74 | $80.77 |
| Restaurant and food service managers (60030) | $18.00 | $26.00 | $48.08 |
| Construction managers (70010) | $31.25 | $48.72 | $83.76 |
| Manufacturing managers (90010) | $33.33 | $52.82 | $93.33 |
Source: Job Bank wages (Employment and Social Development Canada), 2023-2024, Labour Force Survey. Low is the 10th percentile and high the 90th percentile of wages.
In the table, restaurant and food service managers have a national median of $26.00 an hour, and senior managers in financial, communications and other business services $96.15. At 37.5 hours a week for 52 weeks (1,950 hours), those medians come to about $50,700 and $187,500 a year (rounded to the nearest $100). Actual hours differ, and a salaried manager may not be paid for extra ones, so the annual figures are a yardstick, not a typical salary. The 90th-percentile column shows how far each occupation reaches at the top.
What managers earned in 2020: the Census
The 2021 Census reports 2020 employment income for people who worked full year, full time. It is older than Job Bank’s data, and the inflation-adjusted columns only restate those 2020 amounts in today’s dollars. For five management occupations:
| Occupation | Median, 2020 | Median in August 2026 dollars | Average in August 2026 dollars |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising, marketing and public relations managers | $87,000 | $107,900 | $128,100 |
| Computer and information systems managers | $117,000 | $145,100 | $169,100 |
| Construction managers | $89,000 | $110,300 | $124,200 |
| Financial managers | $101,000 | $125,200 | $154,500 |
| Human resources managers | $99,000 | $122,700 | $137,900 |
Source: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census of Population, Table 98-10-0586-01: employment income in 2020 of people who worked full year, full time. Columns in August 2026 dollars multiply the 2020 figure by the change in the Consumer Price Index from its 2020 average to August 2026 and round to the nearest $100; they are not newer survey results.
Financial managers had a 2020 median of $101,000 and construction managers $89,000. In each occupation the average is above the median, which means a smaller number of high incomes is pulling the average up.
Pay beyond the base salary
Manager pay packages can include more than salary: performance bonuses, profit sharing, stock options or share units at public and some private companies, and employer pension or RRSP matching. How much each adds varies by employer, and none of it is broken out in the wage data above, which is why two offers with the same base salary can be worth different amounts. The salary calculator shows take-home pay after tax for a given salary, and how tax brackets work explains why a raise is taxed at the marginal rate.
Management in specific fields
- Finance: accountants and the CPA path, including what the CPA program involves.
- Technology: IT managers.
- Marketing and communications: marketing managers.
- Projects: project managers.
- People: HR professionals and managers.
- Engineering: engineers.
- Public sector: government workers.
→ Back to: Canadian Income Guide
Sources
The figures and rules on this page come from these sources, last checked against them between September 24, 2026 and October 4, 2026. How we check facts.
- Government of Canada: Find your National Occupational Classification (NOC)
- Government of Canada: Wages - Open Government Portal
- Statistics Canada: Introduction to the National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2021 Version 1.0
- Statistics Canada: Statistics Canada
- Statistics Canada: Consumer Price Index, annual average, not seasonally adjusted
- Statistics Canada: Consumer Price Index, monthly, not seasonally adjusted