Measure pollution, assess projects before they are built, and hold industry to the rules.
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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.
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 $94,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $61,000 at the lower end to about $117,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 6 years after high school, on the usual route.
$28,000 to $70,000 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.
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
$94,000
Lower end
$61,000
Upper end
$117,000
Job Bank's national median is $45 an hour, about $94,000 a year full time. That page is titled Environmental Officer and covers the wider group of environmental officers and inspectors, so it mixes government enforcement roles in with consulting science. The lower and upper ends are Job Bank's low and high wages for everyone in the group, $29.33 and $56.41 an hour.
$59.01 an hour
The median in Nunavut, the highest in Canada
The Northwest Territories follow at $58.30. Ontario is the highest province at $46.67 and Manitoba the lowest at $36. The first two years are heavy on fieldwork: soil sampling, water sampling, site inspections and long drives. It is how you learn what the reports actually describe.
Roughly, all in
$28,000 to $70,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year bachelor's degree at the cheaper end of Canadian tuition, with the employer paying for first aid, hazardous materials and confined space tickets once you are hired. The high end is a pricier program plus an optional master's degree paid for yourself, and the fees for the EP (Environmental Professional) designation from ECO Canada (Environmental Careers Organization of Canada). Many environmental science degrees have a co-op stream where paid work terms cover a real share of the tuition, which is not reflected in either number. Field boots and rain gear are minor and usually supplied on site.
A cheap career to enter compared with engineering or health. Co-op programs in environmental science are common and cover a good share of tuition.
Field allowances
Per diem payments, camp accommodation and travel when you work away from the office.
Vehicle provided
Consulting firms run fleets of trucks for site work.
Government pension
If you work for a provincial or federal regulator rather than a consultancy.
Broad job market
Mining, energy, municipalities, agriculture and regulators all hire the same skills.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A science degree, then field experience. There is no licence to wait for, so you start working right away.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, chemistry, math and geography. Chemistry matters more than people expect.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Environmental science, biology, chemistry, earth science or environmental studies with a science focus. Choose a program with co-op or a required field course.
Field seasons
Summers
Summer jobs sampling water, surveying vegetation or monitoring sites. This is the experience employers screen for.
First consulting or government job
Year 1 to 3
You start as a field technician or junior scientist and learn the regulations on the job.
Designation or graduate degree, if you want it
Optional
The Environmental Professional (EP) designation from ECO Canada (the Environmental Careers Organization of Canada), or a master's degree if you want to specialise in assessment or toxicology.
Chemistry
Contamination work is chemistry. This is the single most useful course.
Biology
Species surveys, habitat and ecological risk.
Math and data
You will be handling sampling results and statistics.
Geography
Mapping, watersheds and land use planning.
There is no licence to call yourself an environmental scientist in Canada. ECO Canada (the Environmental Careers Organization of Canada) grants the Environmental Professional (EP) designation and a trainee version for people early in their careers, and some employers and contracts ask for it. Certain tasks inside the job are regulated: contaminated site assessments in some provinces must be signed by a qualified person, and that usually means a registered professional engineer or professional geoscientist. Know which parts of the work you want before you pick your degree.
Ontario
University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, Trent University, York University.
British Columbia
University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, University of Northern British Columbia.
Prairies
University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, University of Manitoba.
Quebec and Atlantic
Université Laval, McGill University, Dalhousie University, University of New Brunswick.
Quebec has no licence for environmental scientists, but some of the work, such as lab analysis and signed analysis reports, is reserved by law to the order of chemists.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V math (Technical and Scientific, or Science), chemistry and physics. The Science program at college asks for all three.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
Program 200.B1 at a CEGEP (public college): calculus, physics, chemistry and biology. Taught in English at John Abbott and Marianopolis colleges, among others.
Bachelor's in environmental science
3 to 4 years
In English, McGill's Major in Environment runs mostly at the Macdonald Campus. Concordia's Environmental and Sustainability Science has biology, chemistry and earth systems streams, with co-op in the first two.
Decide if you will do chemistry
After graduating
To run lab analyses or sign chemistry reports, you must join the OCQ (Ordre des chimistes du Québec, the Quebec order of chemists). It accepts chemistry degrees and reviews other science degrees.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Contaminated sites and remediation
Cleaning up old gas stations, mines and industrial land. Steady and technical.
Environmental impact assessment
The studies a mine, pipeline or highway must pass before approval. Long projects, high stakes.
Air quality and emissions
Monitoring and greenhouse gas accounting, a growing area as reporting rules tighten.
Indigenous consultation and traditional knowledge
Part of most major project reviews in Canada.
Driver's licence
Nearly every posting requires one, often with a clean record for fleet insurance.
Geographic information systems (GIS) skills
Mapping software is in most job ads in this field.
Species identification
Being able to identify birds, plants or fish quickly makes you the person who gets sent to the field.
Technical writing
The product of this job is a report a regulator will read closely.
There are two sides to this career. In consulting you work for the company that wants to build something, and you produce the studies and monitoring that the approval depends on. As a government regulator you review those studies, inspect sites and enforce the rules. Consulting moves faster. Regulating is steadier, pensioned and gives you authority. Many people do a few years of consulting and then move to a regulator, and the experience transfers cleanly.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In a field week: load the truck at 6am, drive to a site, collect soil or water samples, log the conditions, fill out chain of custody forms for the lab and drive back. In an office week: interpret lab results, compare them against provincial guidelines, write up findings, and sit in meetings where a client wants a softer conclusion than the data supports. Every few months there is a deadline tied to a permit, and those weeks are long.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Federal and provincial law requires an environmental assessment before major mines, pipelines, dams and highways proceed. Those assessments run for years and are written by teams of environmental scientists, which is why the work exists regardless of which government is in power.
The federal government keeps a public inventory of the contaminated sites it is responsible for, many still being assessed or cleaned up. Old military bases, fuel depots and mines are on the list.
Canadian scientists documented lakes in Ontario and Quebec going acidic from sulphur emissions, and that evidence drove an air quality agreement with the United States in 1991. Sulphate levels and lake chemistry have improved since.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Environment and conservation first, then the rest of the field. See every career in science and environment.
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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