Test hearing and balance, fit hearing aids, and help people hear again. A master's degree and only six schools in Canada.
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 $96,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $69,000 at the lower end to about $124,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
6 to 7 years after high school, on the usual route.
$42,000 to $80,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a licence, certificate or registration in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Elsewhere there is none 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
$96,000
Lower end
$69,000
Upper end
$124,000
Job Bank groups audiologists with speech-language pathologists and puts the median at about $46 an hour, roughly $96,000 a year full time, with a spread of about $33 to $60 an hour. Hospital and public health jobs pay on a grid. Private hearing clinics often pay a base salary plus commission on hearing aid sales, so income there swings with sales.
$55.00 an hour
The median in Alberta, the highest in Canada
Saskatchewan ($53.00) is next. Ontario's median is $46.70 and Quebec's the lowest, at $41.00.
Base salary plus commission
Paid on hearing aid sales in many private clinics
There is no official figure for commission, and it swings with sales. Some audiologists dislike the sales pressure and choose hospital or public health work, which pays on a grid.
Roughly, all in
$42,000 to $80,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year undergraduate degree at in province public rates followed by the shorter two year master's, with no private tuition anywhere. The high end is a three year master's at a costlier program plus placement travel, immunizations and a police check, and the first year of registration with the provincial regulator. That registration fee repeats every year for the rest of your career. Because only a handful of audiology programs exist in Canada, most students move provinces to study, and the cost of moving is not counted here.
Roughly $45,000 to $70,000 in tuition. Because there are only six programs, many students move provinces to study, which adds living costs.
Defined-benefit pension in hospitals
HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) in Ontario hospitals. Private clinics rarely offer a pension.
Extended health and dental
Regular daytime hours
Almost no evenings, nights or weekends.
Continuing education budget
Equipment and hearing aid tech change fast.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Six to seven years of university. The bottleneck is the master's.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Grade 12 physics, biology, math and English. Sound is physics, so do not skip it.
Undergraduate degree
4 years
Any major with the prerequisites: physics or acoustics, statistics, anatomy, psychology and linguistics. Keep a high average.
Master's in audiology
2 to 3 years
Only six universities: Dalhousie, Western, UBC (University of British Columbia), Université de Montréal, University of Ottawa and Université Laval. Classes are small. Hundreds of supervised clinical hours.
Register with your provincial regulator
A few weeks
In Ontario that is CASLPO (the College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists of Ontario). Some provinces add a short test on the rules of practice.
Physics
Sound waves, decibels and frequency are the core science.
Biology
Ear and brain anatomy come later.
Math
Statistics in the master's.
English
You explain results to worried people all day.
French
Required for the Montréal, Laval and Ottawa programs, and a plus everywhere.
These are the only audiology master's programs in Canada:
Dalhousie University
Halifax. Takes students from across the country.
Western University
London, Ontario.
UBC (University of British Columbia)
Vancouver.
Université de Montréal, Université Laval and University of Ottawa
French language programs.
Every province requires audiologists to register with its college, for example CASLPO (the College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists of Ontario), and renew every year. The three territories have no college, so employers there ask for certification from SAC (Speech-Language & Audiology Canada). Hearing instrument practitioners, who finish a college diploma, can fit and sell hearing aids but cannot call themselves audiologists or do diagnostic testing.
Quebec's two audiology master's are taught in French, and the order admits their graduates without an exam.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Then any pre-university DEC (Diploma of College Studies) at CEGEP (public college) that opens the bachelor's you want.
Pre-university DEC
2 years
2 years at CEGEP. Pick a program that leads to a university science or health bachelor's.
Bachelor's with the prerequisites
Before the master's
Laval asks for an average of 3.3 out of 4.33 and set prerequisite courses. Montréal requires two of its own courses, on hearing anatomy and on speech perception.
Master's in audiology, in French
2 years
Montréal: 80 credits over at least 6 terms, chosen 50% on marks and 50% on the Casper test. Laval: 76 credits, about 2 years, 30 places.
Register as a student with the OOAQ (Ordre des orthophonistes et audiologistes du Québec)
Before your first placement
The Quebec order of speech-language pathologists and audiologists. One $100 fee, plus tax, covers all your placements.
Get your permit
Usually under a week
No entry exam. Send your Quebec master's, proof of French and proof of liability insurance. Quebec graduates cannot get a temporary permit, so French must be shown first.
Montréal tuition is for 2025 to 2026, for a 15 credit term. The order's fees apply if you graduated within 5 years, and yearly dues come on top.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Cochlear implant programs
Hospital teams that program implants for people who are deaf. Highly skilled, hard to get into.
Pediatric audiology
Following up newborn screening and fitting hearing aids on babies.
Vestibular (balance) testing
Dizziness clinics. A growing area with few trained people.
Hearing conservation
Noise testing for mines, factories and the military.
Owning a clinic
Some audiologists open their own clinic and run it as a business.
Comfort with physics and technology
Hearing aids are tiny computers you program.
Volunteer with seniors
Most patients are older adults.
Customer service experience
A lot of the job is explaining, reassuring and following up.
Some sign language
Useful, and shows real interest.
A 2-year college diploma trains you to test hearing for the purpose of fitting and selling hearing aids. Pay usually includes commission on sales. You cannot diagnose or work with children in most provinces, but it is a real job in the same field with far less school.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In a clinic you see 8 to 12 people. A hearing test in a soundproof booth takes about 30 minutes, then you explain the results, fit or adjust hearing aids, and program them on a laptop while the person tells you how the restaurant sounded. Hospital days add newborn screening, balance tests and cochlear implant checks. You end the day with reports and hearing aid orders.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
Statistics Canada measured the hearing of adults aged 20 to 79 and found that from 2012 to 2015 about 4 in 10 had at least slight hearing loss in one or both ears. About 77% of them had no diagnosis and did not know it.
In the same Statistics Canada testing, 95% of children aged 6 to 11 who had measurable hearing loss had never been diagnosed, and 86% of youth aged 12 to 19.
Most provinces screen every newborn's hearing in the hospital. Audiologists follow up the ones who do not pass, and a child found early can get hearing aids or an implant before speech is delayed.
That is about a busy city street. A loud concert can hit 110. Audiologists spend a lot of time explaining that earbuds at full volume are doing permanent harm.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Therapy and rehab first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
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.