Teach your trade or field at a college. Real work experience counts more than 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.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Full-time faculty
$94,000
New or part-time
$50,000
Top of the grid
$153,000
Job Bank's national median is $45 an hour, about $94,000 a year full time. The page pools college teachers of every subject, from nursing to welding. Full-time faculty sit on a grid that climbs each year; part-time teaching is paid by the hour with no security.
$50,000 to $65,000
First full-time contract, bottom of the grid
Almost nobody starts full time. Most people teach one or two courses part time while keeping their day job in the field, then apply when a full-time posting opens.
$120,000 to $155,000
Senior full-time faculty with maximum credentials
Job Bank's top tenth is about $73 an hour, roughly $153,000 a year. Nursing, engineering technology and trades programs have to compete with industry pay, so they tend to sit high on the scale.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a tradesperson who was paid a wage all the way through an apprenticeship, so the only money out of pocket was a few hundred dollars in registration and exam fees, and whose college then pays for the teaching certificate. Colleges hire trades and technical instructors on experience, not on schooling. The high end is a four year degree plus a two year master's degree, which academic subject departments expect, plus a teaching certificate you pay for yourself. The cheap door needs something you cannot buy: five or more years of current hands on experience doing the work, which is why nobody walks into this job young.
This is one of the cheaper teaching paths, because the expensive part is work you were already doing for a salary.
Pension
Ontario colleges use the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAAT) Pension Plan, one of the better-funded plans in the country.
Union protection
Full-time faculty at Ontario's public colleges bargain together under one province-wide agreement.
Time off between terms
Most full-time contracts include weeks with no scheduled teaching.
Money for training
Colleges commonly pay for the courses and certificates that keep your field skills current.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You do the job first, then you teach it. There is no straight line from high school.
High school
Grade 12
Get into the field you eventually want to teach. Nothing about teaching yet.
Credential in your field
2 to 4 years
A college diploma, a degree, or a licensed trade certificate. Colleges usually want a credential one level above the program you would teach.
Work in the field
5 years or more
This is the real requirement. Five years or more of current, hands-on experience is a common posting minimum.
Teach part time
1 to 3 years
Pick up a night course or a single section. This is how almost everyone gets in the door and finds out if they like it.
Full-time posting
Varies
Apply, interview, teach a demo lesson. Many colleges then ask you to finish a short teaching certificate in your first year or two.
Whatever leads into your trade or field
Shop, science, business, health, computing.
English and communication
You explain things for a living.
Math
Needed for most technical and health programs.
There is no teaching licence for colleges the way there is for public schools. Each college sets its own hiring rules, and they nearly always want a credential above the level you teach plus several years of current industry experience. If you teach a licensed trade or profession, you keep your own licence in that field. Trades instructors in some provinces are expected to hold a provincial instructor diploma as well.
Things you don't need, but that help.
A master's degree
Moves you along the pay grid and is close to required in academic subjects.
Red Seal or a professional licence
For trades and health programs, the licence is the credential that matters.
Curriculum development
Writing a course or a program is paid work and gets you known.
Program coordinator
A step up in pay and responsibility inside a department.
Training people at your current job
Apprentice supervision or staff training is the experience colleges look for.
Online teaching skills
A lot of college teaching is now hybrid or fully online.
Industry contacts
Colleges value instructors who can place students in real jobs.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Teaching blocks of two or three hours, often in a shop, lab or simulation room rather than a lecture hall. Between them: marking, answering student email, prepping the next lesson, and meetings about the program. Class sizes are small compared with university. Many students are adults retraining, so questions come from real work.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Full-time faculty at Ontario's 24 public colleges bargain as one group, so the grid is identical whether you teach in Toronto or Timmins. The College Employer Council negotiates on the colleges' side.
In Quebec, students finish high school a year earlier and attend CEGEP (the province's public college system) before university or a career program. Teaching there is a college instructor job.
Colleges enrol a lot of adults retraining after a layoff, a move to Canada, or a change of mind. A first-year class can hold an 18 year old and a 45 year old doing the same lab.
Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) represents public colleges, institutes and polytechnics, many of which run applied research projects solving problems for local companies. Instructors often lead that work.
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.