Build and repair the boilers, tanks and pressure vessels inside refineries and power plants. Intense shutdown weeks, big overtime, then time off.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Journeyperson
$102,000
1st-year apprentice
$78,000
Busy shutdown year
$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.
$32 to $38 an hour
First-year apprentice, a set percentage of the journeyperson rate
Job Bank's low end for the whole trade is about $38 an hour, and a first-year apprentice on the union scale can start a little under that. 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.
$45 to $55 an hour
Journeyperson base rate, before time and a half and double time
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.
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 plus the Certificate of Qualification exam, with the blocks paid for you. 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 is interest free 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; check the Job Bank site for what is current.
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, 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 makes 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.
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.
When a shutdown ends the whole crew is laid off and goes back on the union list. It is normal, expected, and often the start of a planned break.
The oil sands, upgraders and refineries around Fort McMurray and Edmonton run the biggest shutdowns in Canada. Boilermakers from every province fly in for them.
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.