Install hardwood, laminate, vinyl and carpet in homes and offices. A 3 to 4 year paid apprenticeship and a fast route to your own business.
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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 5,400 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $96,930 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 $54,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $35,000 at the lower end to about $89,000 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 $4,100 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.
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
$54,000
Lower end
$35,000
Upper end
$89,000
Job Bank's national median is $26 an hour, about $54,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower and upper ends ($17 and $43 an hour) are the bottom and top of the range for everyone in the group.
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 people start as a helper carrying material and pulling up old flooring. The rate climbs each year as you are trusted with the finished product. 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.
$36.60 an hour
The median in Quebec, the highest in Canada
British Columbia is next at $30.00. Ontario's median is $26.00 and Nova Scotia's is the lowest, at $20.50. In Quebec, construction pay is set by collective agreements.
Roughly, all in
$900 to $4,100
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is a paid apprenticeship, so there is no tuition to find and you earn while you learn. 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 cheaper rate and a basic set of hand tools and knee pads, while the high end is three blocks at the higher rate with a fuller tool kit. Employers supply the big tools while you are an apprentice, and the Canada Apprentice Loan charges no interest on up to four thousand dollars per school block, with EI (Employment Insurance) available while you are in class. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 2025, so check the Government of Canada apprenticeship page for what is currently open.
Employers supply the big tools while you are an apprentice. 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 on commercial work
The carpenters' union represents floor layers on commercial and institutional jobs in several cities.
Indoor, year-round work
Floors go in after the building is closed up, so winter is busy.
Cheap to go self-employed
A van, a nailer and a saw. Flooring stores hand out install jobs to reliable subcontractors.
Steady renovation demand
Every home gets new floors eventually, not just new builds.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship: mostly on the job, with college blocks.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12. Math and shop classes help. Ontario students can start early through OYAP (the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program).
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A flooring store, a flooring contractor or a union hall that will register you as an apprentice.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With your provincial trades authority, such as Skilled Trades Ontario or SkilledTradesBC.
Work and study
3 to 4 years
About 6,000 hours in Ontario: 5,400 on the job plus 600 hours in class, roughly three and a half years. British Columbia asks for 4,560 hours on the job plus 15 weeks of school over 3 years.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. Add the interprovincial Red Seal endorsement to work in any province.
Math
Square footage, waste percentages, staggered layouts and pricing a job.
Shop or technology classes
Saws, nailers and measuring are daily tools.
Physical education
You are on your knees and lifting rolls of carpet all day. Fitness is part of the job.
In Ontario, floor covering installer is a voluntary trade. You do not need a licence to install flooring for pay, and many installers never certify. British Columbia and the other provinces treat it as voluntary too. Quebec is the exception: on construction sites you need a competency certificate from the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec). The Certificate of Qualification and the Red Seal endorsement are proof of training that commercial employers and unions look for.
In Quebec carpet, vinyl and resilient tile on construction sites is a CCQ (Quebec construction commission) trade, resilient flooring layer, and the vocational diploma comes first.
Secondary V, or Secondary III at 16
From age 16
You need a high school diploma, or be 16 with Secondary III language, second language and math.
DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Installation de revêtements souples (5334)
About 6 months
That means resilient floor covering installation. 900 hours of carpet, vinyl, resilient tile and sports surfaces, offered in Quebec City, Laval and Montreal.
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) with a journeyperson competency certificate.
Sanding wood floors is a separate specialty inside the carpenter-joiner trade at the CCQ (Quebec construction commission), with a 4,000 hour apprenticeship. For resilient flooring, the CCQ counted 1,337 active workers and 501 companies hiring in 2025. Under the August 2026 collective agreement rates, hourly pay runs from $25.02 for a first-period apprentice in light residential work to $49.07 for a journeyperson on commercial and institutional sites.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Hardwood: solid, engineered and site-finished
Skilled work that takes years to do well. Sanding and finishing on site is its own specialty.
Commercial sheet vinyl and rubber
Hospitals, schools and labs need heat-welded seams. Fewer people can do it well.
Stairs and custom work
Stair treads, borders and inlays are slow, careful work that not every installer takes on.
Manufacturer training
Big flooring brands run short courses. Manufacturers set strict instructions for laying their products, and the warranty depends on following them.
Pre-apprenticeship or flooring program
A short college program that gets you sponsored faster.
Driver's licence and a van
Almost required once you subcontract for flooring stores.
Customer manners
You work inside people's homes, around their furniture and pets.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Load the van at 7. Pull up the old carpet, scrape the subfloor, fix squeaks and check it is flat. Snap a line and start laying: hardwood goes down board by board with a nailer, vinyl plank clicks together, carpet gets kicked and stretched to the walls. Cut around vents, doors and closets. Trim, transitions, vacuum. A bedroom in a morning, a whole main floor in a long day.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Red Seal exam has 120 questions. 35 are on resilient flooring such as sheet vinyl and tile, 28 on preparing the floor and 26 on carpet. Wood, laminate and floating vinyl plank get only 18.
The national standard for the trade notes better knee pads that prevent long-term knee injuries, and more self-levelling products that keep installers off their knees as much as possible.
The national standard for the trade says flooring glues are no longer solvent-based. Today's adhesives perform better and are less harmful to the environment.
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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