Diagnose and repair the circuit boards inside machines, medical gear and industrial equipment.
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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 7,280 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $130,676 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 $55,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $37,000 at the lower end to about $86,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 3 years after high school, on the usual route.
$1,500 to $25,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence 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
$55,000
Lower end
$37,000
Upper end
$86,000
Job Bank's national median is $26.50 an hour, about $55,000 a year full time. The lower and upper ends are Job Bank's low and high wages for everyone in the group, $18 and $41.35 an hour.
$33.34 an hour
The median in Yukon, the highest in Canada
Newfoundland and Labrador is the highest province at $30.50, then Saskatchewan at $30. Manitoba and Ontario are the lowest, at $26. Field technicians travel to hospitals, factories or data centres to keep expensive equipment running, and many get overtime and on-call pay.
Roughly, all in
$1,500 to $25,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is the Ontario apprenticeship route, where the in school blocks cost a few hundred dollars each and you are paid on the job, plus a meter, a soldering iron and hand tools. The high end is a three year technology diploma paid for up front with the same tool kit. A two year diploma is the more common route and lands between the two at roughly $8,000 to $16,000 in tuition. There is no licence fee at the end of either route.
A two-year diploma is the normal route and leaves most graduates with modest debt.
Health and dental
Standard at manufacturers, hospitals and utilities.
Company vehicle and phone
For field service roles.
Paid manufacturer training
Equipment makers fly technicians to factory courses on their gear.
Pension
In hospitals, transit agencies and public utilities.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A two-year college diploma is the standard route. Ontario also has an apprenticeship.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 math and physics. Any electronics or computer tech class is a bonus.
College diploma
2 to 3 years
Electronics engineering technician (2 years) or technology (3 years) at a college such as NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology), Algonquin, Humber, BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) or Nova Scotia Community College. You learn circuits, soldering, digital systems and troubleshooting.
Or apprentice in Ontario
A few years
Electronic Service Technician (416E) is a registered trade with on-the-job and in-school training. There is no certifying exam, so you finish with a Certificate of Apprenticeship.
First job
After graduation
Repair depots, equipment manufacturers, hospitals, broadcasters and industrial service companies hire diploma graduates directly.
Specialise
1 to 3 years on the job
Medical, industrial, telecom or audio-visual. Manufacturer training on specific equipment opens more senior work.
Physics
Electricity and magnetism are the whole job.
Math
Algebra and some trigonometry for circuit calculations.
Computer engineering or technology
Many schools let you build circuits and program microcontrollers.
English
Service manuals, reports and explaining faults to customers.
No province requires a licence to repair electronics. Ontario registers it as a voluntary trade, but Skilled Trades Ontario issues no Certificate of Qualification for it because there is no exam. Employers care about your diploma, your troubleshooting skill and manufacturer certifications. Anything involving mains wiring or gas appliances crosses into the licensed electrician or gas technician trades.
Quebec has no electronics apprenticeship, so the usual route is a 3 year college diploma, or a shorter vocational diploma for industrial equipment.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Colleges ask for Secondary IV math in the Technical and Scientific or Science sequence, or Secondary V Cultural, Social and Technical math. Some also ask for Secondary IV science.
Electrical Engineering Technology DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
3 years
A 3 year CEGEP (public college) program with three options: Automation and Control (243.D0), Networks and Telecommunications (243.F0) and Programmable Electronics (243.G0).
Or a DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies)
About 19 months
Automated Systems Electromechanics (5388), 1,800 hours, for maintaining and repairing industrial machines and their electrical and electronic parts. Offered at centres across Quebec.
First job
After graduating
Graduates work as technicians in manufacturing plants, research labs, and network and telecommunications companies, building, testing and troubleshooting equipment.
Vanier College
Automation and Controls DEC (Diploma of College Studies), 243.D0, 3 years. Sensors, motors, controllers and robots.
Dawson College
Electrical Engineering Technology DEC, 243.F0, 3 years. Electronic circuits, networks and telecommunications.
Rosemount Technology Centre, Montreal
Automated Systems Electromechanics DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies), 5888, 1,800 hours.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Biomedical equipment
Hospitals employ technicians to keep monitors, pumps and imaging machines running. Steady work, often unionized.
Industrial and automation
Drives, sensors and PLCs (programmable logic controllers) on factory floors. Overlaps with instrumentation.
Telecom and broadcast
Transmitters, fibre and network hardware.
Technologist upgrade
Adding the third year and registering with a provincial technology association opens design and supervisory roles.
Soldering skill
Surface-mount rework under a microscope is a rare and valued skill.
Driver's licence
Required for any field service job.
Hobby projects
Repairing old gear, building circuits or fixing game consoles shows employers you actually like this.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On the bench: a queue of units to fix. Read the fault report, power it up, trace the problem with a meter and oscilloscope, replace the failed part, test, document. In the field: drive to a hospital or plant, calibrate or repair a machine while the customer waits, then write the service report. Most days mix careful, quiet diagnosis with the pressure of someone needing their equipment back now.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Canada amended its copyright law in 2024 so that breaking digital locks to diagnose, maintain or repair a product is no longer illegal. It is a small step toward the right-to-repair rules that technicians have asked for.
Job Bank counted about 44,600 electronic service technicians in Canada in 2023, and 35% were 50 or older. It expects demand and supply to stay roughly in balance through 2033.
Every infusion pump, monitor and ventilator in a Canadian hospital is inspected and repaired by biomedical technicians, many of whom started with an electronics diploma.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Electrical and energy 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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