Hang, tape and finish the walls inside almost every building. Fast to enter, often paid by the sheet.
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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 4,800 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $86,160 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)
You are paid from your first day. Over the 4,920 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $88,314 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)
The median pay is about $69,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $48,000 at the lower end to about $91,000 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.
$900 to $6,650 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 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
$69,000
Lower end
$48,000
Upper end
$91,000
Job Bank's national median is $33 an hour, about $69,000 a year at 40 hours a week, for installers and finishers together. The lower and upper ends are Job Bank's low and high wages for everyone in the group, $23 and $43.75 an hour. On residential piecework, pay depends on speed: a fast boarder or taper can beat the hourly rate, a slow one falls below it.
A share of the journeyperson rate
Apprentices are paid a percentage that rises as they log hours
Job Bank does not publish apprentice rates. Many start as a helper carrying sheets and screwing off boards. Residential crews often pay by the sheet or square foot instead of by the hour. 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.
$38 an hour
The median in Quebec, the highest of any province
Ontario follows at $35.48 and British Columbia at $30. Newfoundland and Labrador's median is the lowest, at $25. Piecework is the big variable.
Roughly, all in
$900 to $6,650
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
An apprenticeship is paid work, so there is no tuition year to fund. The low end is Ontario, where Level 1 class is free for classes from January 2026 and the first certificate of qualification exam try is free once your apprenticeship is complete, so you pay for one more block at the cheap end and a starter tool kit. The high end is three blocks in a more expensive province, a fuller kit including stilts and a sander, and the same exam. The Canada Apprentice Loan lends up to $4,000 per block with no interest and Employment Insurance can cover you while you are in class, so very few people finish this trade in debt.
Cheap to enter and almost never leaves anyone in debt. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 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 and health plan
Installers are usually in the carpenters' union and tapers in the painters' union. Both run pension, health and dental plans.
Indoor, year-round work
Drywall goes in after the building is closed in, so winter matters less than for outdoor trades.
Overtime near move-in dates
Easy to go independent
A van and a few tools is a business. Many drywallers work for themselves on renovations.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two related trades: installers (boarders) and finishers (tapers). Many people learn both.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 helps but some employers will take you without it. Math and shop are useful.
Find a sponsor
Weeks
A drywall contractor, a general contractor or the union hall. Showing up as a helper is the usual way in.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With Skilled Trades Ontario, Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training, or your province's trades body. In Ontario the installer trade is Drywall, Acoustic and Lathing Applicator; the taper trade is Drywall Finisher and Plasterer.
Work and study
3 years
5,400 hours in Ontario for either trade. Installers do 4,800 on the job and 600 in class over two levels; finishers do 4,920 on the job and 480 in class in one level.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. The Red Seal trades are Lather (Interior Systems Mechanic) for installers and Drywall Finisher and Plasterer for tapers.
Math
Counting sheets, square footage and quoting jobs.
Construction technology or shop
Tool habits and reading a plan.
Physical education
A sheet of drywall weighs over 20 kilograms and you lift hundreds a week.
Business
Useful early if you go independent, which many do.
Drywall installing and finishing are compulsory trades only in Quebec, where you need a competency certificate from the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec) on construction sites. In the rest of Canada, including Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, a lot of residential drywallers have no certificate at all. Certification matters on union and commercial jobs, where it is expected. The Red Seal endorsement transfers between provinces.
In Quebec drywall is two separate construction trades, each with its own vocational diploma, and the CCQ (Quebec construction commission) decides who can work on a site.
Secondary V, or Secondary III at 16
From age 16
Both diplomas take you with a high school diploma, or from age 16 with Secondary III language, second language and math.
Pick a trade and its DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies)
About 6 to 8 months
Hanging board is interior systems installer, DEP 5350, 735 hours. Taping and finishing is plasterer, DEP in Plastering (5392), 810 hours. Inforoute FPT (formation professionnelle et technique, the Quebec vocational training directory) lists an English version of the plastering program (5892) as coming.
Apprentice competency certificate
Weeks
From the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec). You need the DEP, an employer registered with the CCQ who guarantees 150 hours of work within 3 months, the site safety course and a $100 fee.
Work as an apprentice
6,000 hours
Three periods of 2,000 hours, 6,000 in all, on CCQ sites. Part of your DEP hours count toward them.
Provincial qualification exam
End of apprenticeship
Pass it and you become a journeyperson (compagnon) in your trade, with a journeyperson competency certificate.
Figures from the CCQ (Quebec construction commission). Women entering the trade do not need the 150 hour job guarantee.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Red Seal endorsement
One extra exam, recognised across Canada.
Steel stud framing and acoustic ceilings
The interior systems side of the trade. Mostly commercial and union work.
Level 5 and high-end finishing
Perfectly smooth walls for galleries, condos and lobbies. Slow and skilled.
Plastering and stucco
Older skills that are still in demand for restoration and exterior work.
Fire and sound rated assemblies
Knowing the rules for rated walls opens up institutional work like hospitals and schools.
WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials training)
Drywall dust and joint compound are covered by it. A one-day course.
Driver's licence and a vehicle
Jobs move often and you carry your own tools.
Stilt and lift training
Tapers work on stilts. Commercial installers use scissor lifts, which need a ticket.
Speed with care
Piecework rewards fast work, but a bad joint shows through the paint forever.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On site by 7am. Installers measure, cut and screw sheets to the studs, ceilings first, room after room, dozens of sheets a day. Tapers come next: tape every joint, coat it, let it dry, coat again, then sand. A respirator and a lot of dust. On commercial work, add steel stud framing and drop ceilings. Done by 3:30pm, or later on piecework if you want the money.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Drywall is a sheet of gypsum plaster between two layers of paper. Nova Scotia has long been Canada's biggest gypsum producer, and much of it ships to drywall plants in the eastern US.
Before the Second World War, walls were wet plaster over wooden lath, which took days to apply and dry. Drywall went up in hours, and by the 1950s it had taken over. The Lather trade name is a leftover from those days.
Under a low light from a window, every bump and ridge in a joint shows through paint. A great taper makes a wall look like one flat piece. A bad one shows up on every sunny afternoon for the life of the house.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Construction 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.
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