Design buildings and take legal responsibility for them. Two degrees, a long internship and an exam before you can use the title.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Licensed architect
$85,000
Intern architect
$55,000
Senior or principal
$130,000
Job Bank's national median works out to about $81,000 a year. Partners who own a firm earn more, often $150,000 and up, but that takes 15 to 20 years. Small firms pay less than large ones. Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary have the most jobs.
$50,000 to $65,000
Intern architect, fresh out of the M.Arch (master of architecture)
That is modest for 6 to 7 years of university. Most interns stay near this level for 3 to 5 years until they are licensed.
$75,000 to $110,000
Licensed architect, 5 to 15 years in
Project architects who run jobs and bring in clients move up fastest. Be honest with yourself: for the same years of school, engineers and lawyers usually earn more.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is four years of a pre professional degree at $7,000 a year plus two years of the M.Arch (master of architecture) at $8,000 a year, the ExAC (Examination for Architects in Canada), and intern fees while you log your hours. The high end is six or seven years at the top of the tuition range with a laptop, software and model materials on top. Both tuition figures are yearly, so the six or seven years are the whole story, and they need multiplying out. Many graduates carry $30,000 to $60,000 in loans into a first salary in the mid fifties.
Six to seven years of tuition adds up. Many graduates carry $30,000 to $60,000 in student loans into a $55,000 job.
Health and dental
Standard at mid-size and large firms. Thin or absent at very small ones.
Pension
Government, university and hospital employers. Rare in private firms.
Professional fees paid
Many firms cover your licence and RAIC (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada) dues.
Ownership
Becoming a partner is the main way pay climbs later in a career.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two degrees, then years of supervised work, then a national exam.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Physics, Advanced Functions, Calculus and visual arts. Some schools ask for a portfolio or an interview, so start drawing now.
Pre-professional degree
4 years, 5 with co-op
A bachelor's in architectural studies or environmental design. Waterloo, Toronto, Carleton, McGill, UBC (University of British Columbia), Manitoba, Calgary, Dalhousie, Laval, Université de Montréal, TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson).
M.Arch (master of architecture)
2 to 3 years
The professional degree, accredited by the CACB (Canadian Architectural Certification Board). Two years if your bachelor's was in architecture, three or more if it was not.
Internship
About 3 years
Register as an intern with your provincial association and log 3,720 supervised hours across set categories in the IAP (Internship in Architecture Program), with a mentor.
Exam and licence
About 1 year
Pass the ExAC (Examination for Architects in Canada), a four-part exam held once a year. Then apply to your regulator, such as the OAA (Ontario Association of Architects).
Physics
Required at most schools.
Advanced Functions and Calculus
Required or strongly recommended.
Visual arts
Drawing and composition. Feeds your portfolio.
English
You will write and present constantly.
Technological design or drafting
A head start on drawing software.
Only members of a provincial association, such as the OAA (Ontario Association of Architects), the AIBC (Architectural Institute of British Columbia) or the OAQ (Ordre des architectes du Québec), can call themselves architects or stamp drawings. Licences transfer between provinces under a national agreement with little extra paperwork. Until you are licensed you are an intern architect or a designer, never an architect.
About a dozen accredited schools in Canada.
Ontario
Toronto, Waterloo, Carleton, Laurentian, TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson).
Quebec
McGill, Laval, Université de Montréal.
West
UBC (University of British Columbia), Calgary, Manitoba.
Atlantic
Dalhousie.
Things you don't need, but that help.
LEED (a green building rating system) or Passive House
Low-energy building rules are tightening, especially in BC.
Revit and BIM (building information modelling) skills
Firms hire the person who can run the model.
PMP (Project Management Professional)
Moves you toward running projects and budgets.
A specialty
Hospitals, transit and schools are big public projects with steady budgets.
A portfolio
Drawings, models, photos. It gets you into school and into your first job.
Sketching and model making
Still how ideas get tested in most studios.
A summer on a construction site
You will design better if you have seen how things get built.
Software before school
SketchUp, Rhino or Revit. Student licences are free.
Many architects open a small practice after licensing: houses, renovations, small commercial. Income is uneven for the first few years and you carry your own liability insurance. Others move sideways into real estate development, construction management or design roles at furniture and tech companies, where the pay is often better.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mostly at a computer in Revit or drawing details, with meetings layered on top. Morning: coordinate a drawing set with the structural and mechanical engineers. Midday: a client call about budget cuts. Afternoon: a site visit to check the work against the drawings, then back to answer contractor questions. The week before a permit submission or a competition can run to 60 hours. Interns draft more; senior staff meet more and design less.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Before you can be licensed you record 3,720 hours of supervised work in categories like design, contract documents and site review, signed off by a mentor. That is about two years of full-time work, but most interns take three or more.
The ExAC (Examination for Architects in Canada) is written over two days each November. Fail a section and you wait a full year to try it again.
The stacked concrete homes on the Montreal waterfront started as Moshe Safdie's thesis at McGill. They were built for Expo 67 while he was still in his twenties.
The Blackfoot and Métis architect from Calgary designed the curving Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. He was one of the first architects anywhere to use computers to draw buildings.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.