Turn an architect's ideas into drawings a builder can use. A 2 or 3 year college diploma, Revit and the building code.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $63,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $44,000 at the lower end to about $105,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 5 years after high school, on the usual route.
$2,000 to $25,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$63,000
Lower end
$44,000
Upper end
$105,000
Job Bank's national median is $30.10 an hour, about $63,000 a year full time, with a low of $21 and a high of $50.68 an hour. Saskatchewan ($34.66) and British Columbia ($34.31) have the highest provincial medians. Technologists who run their own house-design business with a BCIN (Building Code Identification Number) earn whatever the business makes.
About $80,000 median
Job Bank's national median for construction inspectors, the group that includes municipal plans examiners and building inspectors
A common move after a few years. Municipal jobs come with a pension, set hours and a union.
Roughly, all in
$2,000 to $25,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is moving across from construction or a drafting job, teaching yourself the drawing software, and writing the Ontario building code exams that give you a Building Code Identification Number, which is what lets you sign residential drawings. Add a laptop strong enough to run the software. The high end is a three year college diploma, a better laptop, the fees charged by the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists, and the code exams. The cheap door is harder: without the diploma you cannot get that association's certification, so you need an employer willing to judge your drawings instead of your paper.
One of the cheapest routes into the building industry. Many students graduate with little or no debt.
Health and dental
Standard at mid-size and large firms.
Pension
Municipal building departments and school boards.
Paid overtime
Many firms pay technologists hourly, unlike salaried architects.
Predictable hours
Closer to 9 to 5 than most design jobs.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A college diploma, a job, then voluntary certification.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Grade 12 English and math. Physics and technological design help. Most college programs admit you if you have the required courses.
College diploma
2 to 3 years
A 2-year architectural technician or 3-year architectural technology diploma. Algonquin, Sheridan, Conestoga, George Brown and Fanshawe in Ontario; BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology); SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) and NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) in Alberta.
First job
Right after graduation
Drafting in Revit at an architecture firm, a home builder or an engineering firm. Co-op terms during the diploma often turn into this job.
Certification
2 years after graduation
After about 2 years of experience, apply to OACETT (Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists) or your provincial body, pass a practice exam, and use the C.E.T. (certified engineering technologist) title.
Optional: BCIN (Building Code Identification Number)
A few months of study
In Ontario, pass provincial building code exams to design houses and small buildings under your own name.
Math (Functions)
Required for admission.
Physics
Loads, heat, moisture. All of building science.
Technological design or drafting
You will be ahead on day one.
Construction technology
If your school has a shop, take it.
English
Required. Specs and code reports are writing.
You do not need a licence to work. Certification is voluntary but common. OACETT (Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists), ASET (Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta) and ASTTBC (Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of BC) grant the protected title C.E.T. (certified engineering technologist), which transfers between provinces. You can never call yourself an architect. In Ontario, a BCIN (Building Code Identification Number) from the province lets you design houses and small buildings under your own name.
Most large colleges have a program.
Ontario
Algonquin, Sheridan, Conestoga, George Brown, Fanshawe, Mohawk.
BC (British Columbia)
BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology).
Alberta
SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology), NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology).
Prairies and Atlantic
Red River College Polytechnic, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, NSCC (Nova Scotia Community College).
In Quebec the diploma is a 3 year technical DEC (Diploma of College Studies), and since 2024 certified technologists may design some houses without an architect.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary IV math in the Technical and Scientific or Science sequence, and Secondary IV Science and Technology or the applied version. Both are required.
Architectural Technology DEC (221.A0)
3 years
A 3 year CEGEP (public college) program of about 2,760 hours. In English at Vanier College, in French at many colleges across Quebec.
First job
Right after graduating
Drafting and modelling for architects, engineers, contractors or a city building department. Quebec rates job prospects as good to 2029.
Join the OTPQ (Ordre des technologues professionnels du Québec)
After graduating
The Quebec order of professional technologists. Your diploma makes you eligible. Only members may use the T.P. (professional technologist) title.
Show your French
With your application
A Quebec high school diploma from 1985 to 1986 or later counts, even from an English school. Otherwise you pass the provincial French exam.
Optional: sign plans for houses
When ready
Since 15 February 2024 a T.P. in architecture can design and supervise some single-family homes alone. You tell the order and join its liability insurance plan.
Under the 2024 rule shared between the two orders. Building area means the largest floor at ground level.
Design and supervise single-family homes
Detached, or a single one built between or at the end of existing row houses. At most 3 storeys, 1 basement level and under 600 square metres.
Additions to semi-detached and row houses
The same limits apply after the work.
Supervise work on an architect's plans
Homes, offices, shops and lower-risk industrial buildings up to 3 storeys and 600 square metres, plus some farm buildings.
Who it does not cover
Technicians who are not members of the order. The rule applies to T.P. members only.
Quebec government figures, averaged over 2023 to 2025. At 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, the median works out to about $58,000 a year.
Things you don't need, but that help.
BCIN (Building Code Identification Number)
Ontario only. Lets you take on house and small-building design yourself.
BIM (building information modelling) lead
The person who manages the Revit model on big projects is paid for it.
Building code specialist
Firms and municipalities pay for people who know the code cold.
Energy modelling and Passive House
Low-energy building rules keep tightening.
A degree bridge
Some colleges and universities give advanced standing toward an architecture or building science degree.
A summer on a construction site
You will draw better details if you have framed a wall.
Student software at no cost
Autodesk gives students Revit and AutoCAD at no cost. Learn them before college.
SketchUp
Quick 3D models for clients and builders.
A driver's licence
Site visits and municipal offices.
In Ontario, pass the province's building code exams, register with the ministry and carry insurance, and you can design houses and small buildings under your own name. A large share of custom home and renovation drawings in Ontario are done by technologists, not architects. Some run a one-person business from home; others do it on the side of a day job.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mostly at a desk in Revit, turning an architect's sketches into drawings a builder can price and build: wall sections, window details, stair dimensions, exit widths, fire ratings. A call from the site about a beam that does not fit. A code check before a permit goes in. Senior technologists visit sites and review shop drawings. Hours are steadier than an architect's, and deadlines land on you a week before they land on the architect.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counts about 9,300 architectural technologists and technicians working in Canada in 2023, and expects jobs and job seekers to stay roughly in balance through 2033.
The median retirement age in this job was 67 in 2023, and only 26% of the people doing it were 50 or older.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Architecture and planning first, then the rest of the field. See every career in architecture and design.
Last checked October 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. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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