Cut, colour and style hair. Licensed in about 2 years, then it takes years more to build a clientele.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Established stylist
$40,000
Junior stylist
$30,000
Top stylist or salon owner
$70,000
Job Bank puts most hairstylists between $15 and $30 an hour, before tips. Pay depends on your clientele more than your years. A stylist with a full book in a big city, or one who rents a chair and keeps everything, can pass $70,000. Many earn under $35,000 for the first few years.
$17 to $19 an hour
Apprentice or junior stylist
Often minimum wage plus tips while you assist. Commission salons pay a percentage of what you bill, so a new stylist with few clients earns little.
15 to 20% on top
Tips on most services
Established stylists often rent a chair for $200 to $400 a week and keep everything they bill. That means booking your own clients, buying product and paying your own taxes, but it is how the top earners get there.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is the apprenticeship route: a salon sponsors you, you are paid while you learn, and you pay only $400 to $800 per college block, a starter kit of shears, clippers and a dryer, and the certificate exam at about $150. The high end is a private hairstyling academy at up to $20,000 for the program plus a fuller kit and the same exam. The apprenticeship costs a fraction of the academy and pays you, but you have to find a salon willing to sponsor you first, which is the real obstacle. Apprentices can use the Canada Apprentice Loan and EI (Employment Insurance) during school blocks, though the federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 2025.
The apprenticeship route costs a fraction of a private academy and pays you while you learn, but you need a salon to sponsor you. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 2025.
Tips
Cash and card, most days.
Product discounts
Professional product at cost.
Flexible schedule
Once you have clients, you set your hours.
Health and dental
Rare unless you work for a large chain or a spa.
Portable skill
Every town has salons.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A 2-year apprenticeship, or a private academy followed by apprenticeship hours. Compulsory in Ontario.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12. Many high schools offer cosmetology courses with a working salon. OYAP (Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program) can count your hours.
Choose a route
Months
Private academy (6 to 12 months, $10,000 to $20,000) then work as an apprentice, or find a salon that sponsors you from day one and take school blocks at a college. Both lead to the same exam.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With Skilled Trades Ontario (trade code 332A), Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training, or your province's authority.
Work and study
2 years
Ontario requires about 3,500 hours: 3,020 on the salon floor plus 480 in school. Roughly 2 years.
Certificate of Qualification
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. Hairstylist is a Red Seal trade nationally, though Ontario issues a provincial certificate rather than the Red Seal endorsement.
Cosmetology or hairstyling
Offered in many high schools with real salons.
Art
Colour theory, shape, proportion.
Business or math
Chair rental means running a tiny business.
Chemistry
Colour and perms are chemistry.
English
Consultations are conversations.
In Ontario you must be a registered apprentice or hold a Certificate of Qualification to cut, colour or style hair for pay. Alberta also requires certification. Some provinces are voluntary. Barbering is a separate trade in some provinces and part of hairstyling in others, so check your provincial authority before choosing a school.
Private academy
Fast, full-time, $10,000 to $20,000. No salon needed to start.
College apprenticeship
Cheaper and paid, but you need a sponsoring salon first.
High school co-op
Free hours toward your apprenticeship.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Colour specialist
Colour is the highest-margin service. Brand certifications run a few days each.
Barbering
Fades and beards. Men's salons have grown fast.
Extensions and keratin treatments
High-ticket services, $300 and up.
Editorial, film and TV work
Union hair and makeup for productions in Toronto and Vancouver pays well but is hard to break into.
Educator for a product brand
Travel and a salary.
A social media portfolio
Clients find stylists on Instagram.
Friends who let you practise
You need heads to work on.
A customer service job
Half the work is conversation.
Good shoes
You stand all day.
Many stylists open a salon within 10 years. Rent, chairs, product and staff cost $50,000 to $150,000 to start, and owners often earn more from renting chairs than from cutting hair. Plenty go the other way and stay independent chair renters to avoid the headaches.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Salon opens at 9 or 10am. Back-to-back clients: a cut every 45 minutes, colour every 2 hours, with consultations and blow-dries in between. Sweep, sanitize, rebook. Evenings and Saturdays are the busiest, so expect to work them. Standing 8 hours, arms up. Slow days early in your career mean small paycheques on commission.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Stylists who move salons take their clients with them. Building a full book takes 2 to 5 years, and once you have it, you can rent a chair almost anywhere.
Hairstylist is one of Ontario's compulsory trades, on the same list as electrician and plumber. Cutting hair for money there without registration or a licence is illegal.
Hairstyling is a competition trade at Skills Canada and WorldSkills, judged next to welding and carpentry.
Repetitive strain in the wrists and hands, and sore feet and legs from standing, are the most common complaints in the trade. Good shoes and stretching are not optional.
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.