Study stars, planets and galaxies with telescopes and code. Almost everyone in this job has a doctorate.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
University or government astronomer
$117,000
Early career researcher
$73,000
Senior professor
$200,000
Job Bank's national median is $56.49 an hour, about $117,000 a year full time. The pay looks good because almost everyone counted already has a doctorate and a permanent job. Getting to that point is the hard part.
$25,000 to $40,000 a year
Stipend or scholarship while you do your doctorate
It is a small salary, not tuition you pay. Teaching assistant work and national scholarships top it up. This lasts 5 or 6 years.
$150,000 to $200,000
Full professor at a research university
Salaries at public universities are published every year in provincial disclosure lists, so you can look up what a real astronomer at a real university earns.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The undergraduate degree is the part you actually pay for: four years of a BSc (bachelor of science) at $7,000 to $12,000 a year, which is where both ends of this range come from. Master's and doctoral study in physics and astronomy in Canada is normally funded with a small stipend paid to you, so the six or so years after the degree do not add tuition debt. Conference travel is usually covered by a supervisor's research grant. What the numbers hide is the length: close to a decade on stipend level income before a first real salary.
The undergraduate degree is the part you pay for. Graduate school in physics and astronomy in Canada is normally funded, so you are not adding debt after year four.
University pension and benefits
Tenured professors are on strong plans, and most are in a faculty union.
Research travel
Observing runs, conferences and visits to partner observatories, paid from grants.
Freedom over what you study
Rare in any job. You pick the questions.
Skills that pay elsewhere
Coding, statistics and handling huge data sets transfer straight into technology and finance.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
This is one of the longest training paths on the site. Plan for about a decade after high school.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Physics, calculus and computer science. Grades matter because science programs at big universities are competitive.
Bachelor of Science (BSc)
4 years
Physics, astronomy, or astrophysics. Do summer research with a professor every year you can. That is what gets you into graduate school.
Master's degree
0 to 2 years
Some schools go straight from a bachelor's degree to a doctorate. Others do a master's first. You are paid a stipend either way.
Doctorate
4 to 6 years
Original research, a thesis, and usually a few published papers. You are supervised but you run your own project.
Postdoctoral jobs
2 to 6 years
Two or three short research contracts, often in different countries. Most astronomers do this before any permanent job exists.
Physics
This is a physics job that happens to point at the sky.
Calculus and advanced functions
Non-negotiable for a physics degree.
Computer science
Modern astronomy is mostly writing code to handle huge data sets.
English or French
Papers and grant applications are writing jobs.
There is no licence and no protected title. What gates the job is the doctorate and the number of permanent positions, which is small. Canada graduates far more astronomy doctorates each year than there are professor jobs. That is not a reason to skip it, but you should go in knowing that many people with this training end up in data science, software, finance or teaching, and are glad they did.
Departments with full astronomy and astrophysics programs.
Ontario
University of Toronto, Queen's University, McMaster University, Western University, University of Waterloo.
British Columbia
University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia, both near the national observatory in Victoria.
Quebec
Université de Montréal, McGill University, Université Laval.
Atlantic and Prairies
Saint Mary's University, Dalhousie University, University of Alberta, University of Manitoba.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Observational astronomy
You apply for telescope time, take the data and analyse it. Travel to mountaintops, or remote observing from a laptop.
Theory and simulation
You build models of galaxies or stars on supercomputers. No telescope required.
Instrumentation
Designing cameras, detectors and adaptive optics. The most employable branch, because engineering firms want you too.
Planetary science and space missions
Work tied to the Canadian Space Agency and missions with partner agencies.
Real coding ability
Python and version control. Write code every week from first year, not just for assignments.
Summer research placements
Paid undergraduate research awards run at most Canadian universities. Apply in your first year.
Statistics
Almost every modern astronomy result is a statistics argument.
Public outreach
Planetarium and science centre work. Good for grant applications and good practice at explaining things.
Astronomy doctorates are hired constantly by banks, insurance firms, technology companies and government agencies, because a person who can model noisy data and write their own software is useful anywhere. Some Canadian departments now track where their graduates land, and more of them go into industry than stay in research. If you want a guaranteed career, study something else. If you want the training, know that the training itself sells.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mostly a desk and a screen. Writing code to clean and analyse data, reading papers, writing your own, and meeting students. A few weeks a year you might be at an observatory, or observing remotely overnight while someone else operates the telescope. Professors also teach classes, mark, sit on committees and spend a lot of time writing grant applications for money to keep their research group running.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Plaskett telescope at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory near Victoria opened in 1918 and was briefly the largest working telescope in the world. It is still used today, and the observatory is run by the National Research Council of Canada.
Canada built the fine guidance sensor that keeps the James Webb Space Telescope locked on its target, plus a science camera that flies with it. In exchange, Canadian astronomers get a guaranteed share of observing time.
The CHIME telescope (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) near Penticton, British Columbia has no moving parts and looks like four half-pipes. It has detected far more fast radio bursts than every other telescope combined.
No Canadian university owns a world-class telescope. Canada buys into shared observatories run by the National Research Council with other countries, and astronomers apply for nights the way you apply for a grant. Most applications are turned down.
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.