Study stars, planets and galaxies with telescopes and code. Almost everyone in this job has a doctorate.
Click through it
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 $117,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $73,000 at the lower end to about $200,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
9 to 12 years after high school, on the usual route.
$28,000 to $50,000 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.
Limited 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
$117,000
Lower end
$73,000
Upper end
$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.
A stipend, not a bill
Funding or a scholarship while you do your doctorate
University funding varies, and teaching assistant work tops it up. The top federal doctoral scholarship pays $40,000 a year for 3 years, and the master's award $27,000 for 1 year. A doctorate lasts 4 to 6 years.
$65.83 an hour
The median in Saskatchewan, the highest in Canada
Manitoba ($64.71) and Ontario ($60.08) follow, and Nova Scotia is lowest at $47.47. Salaries at public universities are also published every year in provincial disclosure lists.
Roughly, all in
$28,000 to $50,000
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.
Quebec reaches the same doctorate on a different clock: 2 years of CEGEP (public college) after Secondary V, then a 3 year bachelor's instead of 4.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V math (Technical and Scientific, or Science), chemistry and physics. The Science program at college asks for all three.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
Program 200.B1 at a CEGEP (public college): calculus, physics, chemistry and biology. Taught in English at John Abbott and Marianopolis colleges, among others.
Bachelor's in physics
3 years
90 credits after CEGEP. Université de Montréal has an astronomy and astrophysics option, in French, and asks for proof of French. McGill teaches in English and offers astronomy courses and astrophysics research projects.
Master's and PhD (Doctor of Philosophy)
The research degrees that lead to astronomy jobs. Université de Montréal and Université Laval jointly run the Mont-Mégantic Observatory, and students in the Montréal program can use it.
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. 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.
Canada buys into shared observatories with other countries through the National Research Council, and astronomers apply for nights on them the way you apply for a grant.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Physics, space and numbers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in science and environment.
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.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.