Install the glass on towers, storefronts and homes, from a shower door to a 40-storey curtain wall.
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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.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Journeyperson
$62,000
1st-year apprentice
$40,000
Union curtain wall
$90,000
Union glaziers hanging curtain wall on towers in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary earn at the top. Small residential glass shops pay less but offer steadier indoor hours.
$20 to $26 an hour
First-year apprentice, about 50 to 60% of the journeyperson rate
Your rate rises with each level. Many glaziers start in the shop cutting and assembling units before they go on site.
$32 to $45 an hour
About $64,000 to $90,000 a year at full-time hours
Tower work runs overtime to hit enclosure deadlines. Glaziers who move into estimating or project management at a glass contractor earn more.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The apprenticeship is paid work, so there is no tuition bill to find, only the three in school blocks at $400 to $1,500 each depending on the province. The low end is the cheapest blocks, a basic set of hand tools and suction cups, and the certificate exam at about $150. The high end is pricier blocks, a fuller tool kit including a harness, and the same exam. Most glaziers finish with no debt, helped by the Canada Apprentice Loan, which is interest free up to $4,000 a block, and EI (Employment Insurance) while you are in class. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 2025, so check what is currently open on the Government of Canada apprenticeship page.
Most glaziers finish with no debt. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 2025, so check the Government of Canada apprenticeship page for what is open now.
Union pension and health plan
IUPAT (the painters and glaziers' union) covers most commercial glazing in big cities, with pension, health and dental.
Overtime at premium rates
Common on towers.
Year-round work
Less seasonal than most outdoor trades. Winter storefront and interior glass keeps going.
Company vehicle
Common for service glaziers doing repairs and replacements.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A four-year apprenticeship, one of the longer construction trades.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 with math and shop. Some provinces let you start through a high school apprenticeship program.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A glass and glazing contractor, a window manufacturer or the union hall. Shop helper is a common first job.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With Skilled Trades Ontario (where the trade is called Architectural Glass and Metal Technician), Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training, or your province's trades body.
Work and study
4 years
About 8,000 hours in Ontario: 7,280 on the job plus 720 hours in class, usually three levels of about 8 weeks at a college.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. The Red Seal endorsement lets you work in any province.
Math
Measuring openings to the millimetre, angles, and reading shop drawings.
Physics
Wind loads, thermal expansion and why glass breaks.
Technological design or drafting
Glazing is drawn in detail before anything is cut.
Construction technology or shop
Tool skills and safety habits.
Glazier is not a compulsory trade in Ontario, Alberta or BC, so you can work without a certificate. Big commercial contractors and union sites expect one, and it raises your rate. Quebec regulates construction work through the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec). The Red Seal endorsement transfers between provinces.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Red Seal endorsement
One extra exam, recognised across Canada.
Curtain wall and unitized systems
Hanging the whole glass skin of a tower, panel by panel, from a crane. The top of the trade.
Suspended access and swing stage tickets
Needed to work from the outside of a tower.
Shop fabrication
Cutting, tempering and assembling sealed units. Indoor, steady, less pay.
Estimating and project management
Glass contractors promote from the tools. This is the office path.
Working at heights and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials training)
One-day courses. Mandatory before you go up a tower.
Comfort at height
Setting glass from a swing stage 30 floors up is normal on commercial work.
Driver's licence
Sites and service calls move daily.
Care and precision
Glass does not forgive a rough measurement or a dropped corner.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On site by 7am. On a tower, the crane lifts a glass panel weighing hundreds of kilograms, you guide it into the frame with suction cups, anchor it and seal it, then the next one. On a storefront, cut and set aluminum framing, then lift in the glass. In a shop, measure, cut and build sealed units. Service glaziers drive between broken windows and shower door installs. Done by 3:30pm unless a deadline is close.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
A curtain wall is a skin hung from the floor slabs, not a structural wall. The concrete or steel frame carries the weight. The glaziers' job is to hang that skin straight and keep the weather out.
A single unitized panel on a modern tower, glass and frame together, can weigh several hundred kilograms. It is lifted by crane or hoist and set by a small crew using suction cups and anchors.
Almost all new windows in Canada are double or triple pane sealed units filled with argon gas and coated to reflect heat back inside. Glaziers assemble and install millions of them a year.
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.