Build and repair the boilers, tanks and pressure vessels inside refineries and power plants. Intense shutdown weeks, big overtime, then time off.
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.
An apprenticeship: you are hired by a sponsor, paid while you learn on the job, and go to class for a few weeks at a time. Every fact here is from Skilled Trades Ontario (STO) and the Ontario government. See every Ontario trade side by side
You are paid from your first day. Over the 5,880 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $105,546 before tax while you train, and most sponsors pay more as your skills grow.
The trade on Skilled Trades Ontario's site(opens in a new tab)
Still in high school? In Grade 11 or 12, with at least 14 credits and age 15 or older, you can start an apprenticeship through co-op placements and earn credits at the same time. Ask your school's OYAP recruiter, guidance counsellor or co-op teacher. Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP)(opens in a new tab)
Not ready to find a sponsor? Free pre-apprenticeship programs (up to a year at a college or community agency, tools and books covered, with a work placement) get you ready and in front of employers. Employment Ontario helps you apply. Pre-apprenticeship training(opens in a new tab)
Ontario sets no percentage of full pay for apprentices. Your sponsor agrees your wage with you, and it can never be below the minimum wage: $17.95 an hour from 1 October 2026. Source (opens in a new tab)
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 $102,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $78,000 at the lower end to about $114,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
3 to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,000 to $4,500 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, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec. Elsewhere there is none 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
$102,000
Lower end
$78,000
Upper end
$114,000
Job Bank puts the trade at $38 to $55 an hour, median $49. Almost all boilermakers are union members, so the hourly rate is set by the collective agreement. What changes your year is how many hours you get: back-to-back shutdowns with overtime can push well past the top of this range, and a slow year can be far less. Alberta has the highest median, $51.81 an hour, and Newfoundland and Labrador the lowest, $41.33.
A share of the journeyperson rate
Set by the collective agreement, rising each period of the apprenticeship
Job Bank's low end for the whole trade is $37.66 an hour. Apprentices are dispatched by the union hall to the same jobs as journeypersons, so overtime, travel pay and living-out allowances apply from year one. In Ontario no share is set in law: your sponsor agrees your rate, often in a union or company agreement, and it can never be below the minimum wage.
Time and a half, then double time
Overtime on top of the union rate during refinery and plant turnarounds
A refinery turnaround means 10 to 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week, for 3 to 6 weeks. Two or three of those a year is where the six-figure income comes from.
Roughly, all in
$1,000 to $4,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Costs here are lower than most trades because the lodges run their own training and the union training fund often covers the in school blocks. The low end is tools and gear, with the blocks paid for you and the first Certificate of Qualification exam try free in Ontario once your apprenticeship is complete. The high end is paying for all three blocks yourself and buying a fuller kit. Much of the heavy gear is supplied on site, the Canada Apprentice Loan charges no interest on up to four thousand dollars a block, and EI (Employment Insurance) is paid while you are in class.
Boilermakers lodges run their own training, for example Lodge 146 in Alberta has a weld centre for welder testing and pressure tickets, so costs are lower than most trades. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant and Apprenticeship Completion Grant closed on March 31, 2025. The new federal Red Seal Completion Bonus pays $5,000 if you finish your apprenticeship and get certified in a Red Seal trade on or after April 1, 2025. Applications open November 16, 2026.
Union pension
The Boilermakers have one of the strongest defined-benefit pension plans in the trades.
Health, dental and vision through the union
Coverage continues between jobs as long as you keep enough hours.
Travel and living-out allowances
Daily allowances on out-of-town jobs, and camp or flights on remote sites.
Time off between jobs
Layoffs between shutdowns are normal. Many boilermakers plan their year around them.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A union apprenticeship. You apply to the lodge, not to a company.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 with math and shop. Physical fitness matters.
Apply to a Boilermakers lodge
Months, sometimes longer
Lodge 128 covers Ontario, Lodge 146 covers Alberta, other lodges cover BC (British Columbia), the Prairies, Quebec and the Maritimes. Intake opens when work is busy. Welding experience or a welding certificate helps you get picked.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
The lodge registers you with the provincial trades authority, for example Skilled Trades Ontario or Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training.
Work and study
3 to 4 years
In Ontario, 6,600 hours: 5,880 on the job, dispatched from the hall to shutdowns and construction jobs, plus 720 in school across three blocks of about 8 weeks. Alberta runs a 3-year, 3-period program. Rigging, welding, fitting and blueprint reading.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the exam. Boilermakers follow work between provinces more than almost any trade, so the Red Seal endorsement is nearly standard.
Math
Rigging loads, angles and plate layout.
Physics
Pressure, heat and how steel moves.
Shop and welding
The trade is a lot of welding. High school welding is a real head start.
Physical education
Fitness is part of the job.
Boilermaker is not a compulsory trade in Ontario: no licence is legally required. In practice the work is almost entirely union, and the lodges dispatch only registered apprentices and certified journeypersons, so the certificate is what gets you on site. Alberta, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia make boilermaker a compulsory certification trade: there you must be a registered apprentice or certified journeyperson to do the work. Pressure welding on the job needs a separate pressure welder certification through the provincial safety authority. The Red Seal endorsement lets you follow the work across provinces.
In Quebec you take a vocational diploma first, and the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) decides who can work on a construction site.
Secondary IV courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Boilermaking needs a high school diploma, or age 16 with Secondary IV language, second language and math. From 18, the general development test is another way in.
DEP in Boilermaking (Chaudronnerie, 5356)
About 10 months
1,290 hours of welding, cutting, rigging and assembly. Offered at one centre, the Centre de formation des métiers de l'acier in Montreal, in French, with day and evening groups.
Apprentice competency certificate
Weeks
Issued by the CCQ. You need the DEP, an employer registered with the CCQ who guarantees at least 150 hours of work within 3 months, the 30 hour site safety course and a $100 fee.
Work as an apprentice
About 4,065 hours
Three periods of 2,000 hours, 6,000 in all. The DEP counts for its hours plus a 50% bonus, about 1,935, which leaves about 4,065 hours of paid site work.
Qualification exam
Near the end
The provincial exam, set by the CCQ. You can sit it once 85% of your apprenticeship hours are done. Pass and you become a journeyperson (compagnon).
The CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) sometimes opens a labour pool when a region runs short of workers. Then you can get an apprentice certificate without the DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies), as long as an employer guarantees you 150 hours of work. If you already have work and training that add up to 35% of the apprenticeship, you can apply on that basis instead. It is a small trade in Quebec: in 2025 the CCQ counted 726 boilermakers on construction sites and admitted 54 new apprentices.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Pressure welding certification
Called the B pressure ticket in Alberta, issued by ABSA (Alberta Boilers Safety Association). In Ontario it goes through TSSA (Technical Standards and Safety Authority). Pressure welders get first call on the best jobs.
Rigging and crane signalling
Moving multi-tonne vessel sections safely. Senior boilermakers run the rigging.
Confined space and rescue training
Required on most sites, usually paid for by the union or contractor.
Foreman and superintendent roles
Running a shutdown crew of 20 to 100 people pays a premium over the tool rate.
Welding experience
Most lodges pick applicants who can already weld.
A driver's licence and willingness to travel
The work is where the plants are, not where you live.
Fitness and no fear of heights or tight spaces
You will work inside vessels and on top of them.
Working at heights, confined space and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials) certificates
Day courses that get you dispatched sooner.
Not every boilermaker chases shutdowns. Fabrication shops build pressure vessels, tanks and boiler parts in a plant, 40 hours a week, home every night, at a lower rate and with far less overtime. Some people do shutdown years in their twenties and move to shop or supervision work later.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On a shutdown: safety meeting at 6:30am, then into the unit. Cutting out worn boiler tubes and welding in new ones, bolting up the flanges on a vessel, replacing the internals of a tower, rigging a section into place with a crane. Much of it is inside a vessel through a manhole, in a harness, in heat, with a hole watch outside. 10 to 12 hours, then camp or a hotel, and the same tomorrow for 3 to 6 weeks. Then, often, weeks off until the next call.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The trade grew up building riveted steam boilers for locomotives and ships in the 1800s. The union, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, says it was organized in 1880. Today the vessels are welded, but the name stuck.
A shut-down refinery or power plant loses a huge amount of money every day, so shutdown crews work around the clock in shifts and every hour of overtime is worth it to the owner.
Job Bank counts about 2,800 boilermakers working in Canada in 2023, and expects the number of jobs and job seekers to stay roughly in balance through 2033.
The oil sands, upgraders and refineries around Fort McMurray and Edmonton run some of the biggest shutdowns in Canada, and Alberta has the highest boilermaker median wage in the country, $51.81 an hour.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Metal and machining first, then the rest of the field. See every career in skilled trades.
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.