Buy and sell stocks, bonds and funds for clients at a brokerage. Licensed, commission-heavy, and hard to start.
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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.
The median pay is about $89,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $50,000 at the lower end to about $183,000 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.
$32,000 to $48,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
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
$89,000
Lower end
$50,000
Upper end
$183,000
Job Bank groups this job with investment brokers and dealers under the title Broker, Investments. Its national median is $42.56 an hour, about $89,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end is $24.00 an hour and the upper end $88.21. Pay is mostly commission or a share of client fees, so the spread is wide.
$57.29 an hour
The median in Alberta, about $119,000 a year, the highest in Canada
Ontario's median is $43.59 and Manitoba's $42.75. Quebec ($38.97) and British Columbia ($38.46) are the lowest of the provinces with a figure.
Roughly, all in
$32,000 to $48,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The degree is nearly all of it: four years of undergraduate tuition at the cheaper or the dearer end of the domestic range. Since January 1, 2026 the CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) licensing exams have replaced the old CSC (Canadian Securities Course) path, and you take them after a dealer hires you. Exam, registration and annual fees are normally covered by that dealer. You cannot licence yourself in this job: a registered dealer has to sponsor you, so getting hired comes before the licence.
The degree is the main cost. Licensing is cheap compared with most professions, but you cannot do it alone: a registered dealer has to sponsor you.
Commission per trade
The old model. Still common for stocks and bonds.
Fee-based
A percentage of the assets you manage, charged each year.
Salary plus bonus
Bank branch advisors and some associates.
Team split
Associates take a share of a senior advisor's grid until they have their own clients.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Degree, then a dealer hires you and puts you through licensing. Then years of finding clients.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Math, business, economics. Start following markets now.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Business, economics or finance. Job Bank says a bachelor's or master's is usually required.
Get hired by a dealer
Months of applying
A bank-owned brokerage or independent firm. Many start as an associate on a team, or in a bank branch with a mutual funds licence.
Licensing and registration
Months
The CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) licensing exams, which replaced the old CSC (Canadian Securities Course) on January 1, 2026, then registration with CIRO and your provincial securities commission.
Build a book
3 to 5 years
Find clients, keep them, grow their money. This is the real qualification and it takes years.
Math
Returns, compounding, risk.
Economics and business
English
You explain complicated things simply, all day.
Anything that builds confidence talking to adults
Debate, sales jobs, sports teams.
Selling securities or advising on them without registration is illegal in Canada. Investment advisors register through CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) and their provincial securities commission, such as the OSC (Ontario Securities Commission), the BCSC (British Columbia Securities Commission) or the AMF (Autorité des marchés financiers) in Quebec. A dealer sponsors you, you pass a background check, and you complete continuing education every cycle to keep the licence. Anyone can look up a registered advisor through the CSA (Canadian Securities Administrators) national search.
In Quebec the business degree takes 3 years after a 2 year CEGEP (public college) program, and your provincial regulator is the AMF (Autorité des marchés financiers).
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Take Secondary V math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence. The college programs that lead to business school ask for it.
Social Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies) with math
2 years
Dawson College's Commerce profile is one example: it prepares you for finance, accounting and economics at university. Business schools want college calculus and linear algebra.
Bachelor's in finance
3 years
In English, Concordia's Bachelor of Commerce in Finance, 90 credits with an optional co-op. In French, the BAA (Bachelor of Business Administration) at HEC Montréal (a business school) with a finance specialization.
Get hired, licensed and registered
Months
A dealer hires you and puts you through the CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) exams, the same as in other provinces. You register with CIRO and the AMF.
Financial planner title, optional
After your degree
In Quebec only people with the Institut de planification financière (Financial Planning Institute) diploma and an AMF certificate can call themselves Pl. Fin. (financial planner). It takes an approved university program, a 63 hour course and an exam.
Many people start in a bank branch selling mutual funds. Since July 4, 2026, Quebec mutual fund representatives are supervised by CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization), as in the rest of Canada. Before that they were overseen by the CSF (Chambre de la sécurité financière), which merged with the damage insurance chamber into the new Chambre de l'assurance (the Quebec insurance chamber).
Things you don't need, but that help.
CIM (Chartered Investment Manager)
Path to becoming a portfolio manager who can trade for clients without asking each time.
CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst)
Three exams. Respected for research-heavy and institutional roles.
CFP (Certified Financial Planner)
Adds retirement, tax and estate planning to investment advice.
Options and futures licences
Extra courses to trade derivatives for clients.
Insurance licence
Lets you sell life insurance and segregated funds alongside investments.
A sales job in your teens
Proof you can handle rejection.
Your own investments
Even a small account teaches more than a textbook.
A second language
Communities that share your language are often your first clients.
Co-op at a bank or brokerage
The easiest way to be noticed by a team that is hiring.
Many advisors start as a financial services representative in a bank branch with only a mutual funds licence. The pay is a salary, the training is paid for, and the branch sends you clients. After a few years you move to the bank's full-service brokerage as an associate. It is slower than joining a brokerage straight out of school, but the salary takes off some of the pressure.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Before the market opens at 9:30 Toronto time: news, research notes, a team meeting. Then client calls and trades: rebalancing a retiree's portfolio, walking a nervous client through a market drop, opening accounts. Afternoons go to reviews, planning meetings and the compliance notes every conversation needs. New advisors spend hours each day prospecting: calling, networking, hosting seminars. Established advisors spend that time on their existing clients.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
For decades the CSC (Canadian Securities Course) was the entry ticket. Since January 1, 2026 it is no longer accepted for approval with an investment dealer. CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) now runs its own licensing exams, and anyone starting today writes those.
In 2023 Canada merged its two investment industry regulators into one, CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization). It oversees both investment dealers and mutual fund dealers, and the advisors who work for them.
Job Bank counted about 26,200 people in this occupation in 2023, and 36% were aged 50 or over. As they retire, their clients need someone new.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Money and finance first, then the rest of the field. See every career in business and money.
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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