Make, repair and set fine jewellery. A bench trade learned in college or under a goldsmith, with a slow climb to your own shop.
Click through it
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.
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 7,520 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $134,984 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 $47,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $33,000 at the lower end to about $75,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 5 years after high school, on the usual route.
$6,000 to $22,000 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.
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
$47,000
Lower end
$33,000
Upper end
$75,000
Job Bank's national median is $22.45 an hour, about $47,000 a year at 40 hours a week (2024 figures). The lower end is $16.09 and the upper end is $35.86 an hour. Designers who sell their own line are not paid a wage: what they earn depends on the business.
$24.18 an hour
The median in British Columbia, about $50,000 a year at 40 hours a week
Ontario's median is $22.91 and Quebec's is the lowest published, at $20.77. Job Bank has too few jewellers in the other provinces to publish a figure. Self-employed jewellers keep the full margin on custom work, and take on the cost of gold, stones and insurance.
Roughly, all in
$6,000 to $22,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is one year of a public college jewellery program, about $5,000 in tuition and fees, plus materials. The high end is a two year diploma at Vancouver Community College, about $16,300 in tuition, plus materials, a fuller bench and gemmology courses through the Canadian Gemmological Association. There is no required licence or exam, so nothing here is a legal gate: the Ontario Gemsetter and Goldsmith trade is voluntary. Because it is not a Red Seal trade the Canada Apprentice Loan, which charges no interest, does not apply, though provincial student aid does cover the college programs.
Gemsetter/Goldsmith is not a Red Seal trade, so the federal Canada Apprentice Loan does not apply. Provincial student aid covers college programs.
Staff pricing on jewellery and materials
Health and dental
At chains and larger manufacturers. Rare at small studios.
Quiet, seated, indoor work
Unusual among the trades.
A craft you can do into old age
Job Bank found 58% of jewellers were aged 50 or over in 2023.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
College or an apprenticeship under a goldsmith, then years at the bench.
High school
Grades 10 to 12
Art, metalwork or tech classes. Any small, careful handwork helps.
Jewellery program or apprenticeship
1 to 2 years
Two year college diplomas include Georgian College in Barrie and Vancouver Community College, which asks for a portfolio. Or find a goldsmith who will train you at the bench.
Junior bench
1 to 2 years
Sizing, soldering, polishing, chain repair. Speed and cleanliness come with volume.
Stone setting and custom work
2 to 5 years
Prong, bezel, pave and channel setting. The skill that opens up custom work.
Gemmology (optional)
Part time, alongside work
The Canadian Gemmological Association's 4-level program trains you to identify and grade stones, and leads to the exams for the FCGmA (Fellow of the Canadian Gemmological Association) title.
Visual arts
Design, drawing, proportion.
Metalwork or technology
Soldering, filing, working small.
Chemistry
Alloys, acids, plating.
Business
Most jewellers end up self-employed.
No licence is needed to make or repair jewellery in Canada. Ontario has a voluntary Gemsetter/Goldsmith apprenticeship through Skilled Trades Ontario, which gives you a Certificate of Apprenticeship but is not required to work. Gemmology training is another voluntary credential that builds trust with customers.
Quebec trains jewellers in public vocational and college programs, in French, in Montreal and Quebec City. As elsewhere, no licence is needed.
Secondary IV courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) needs Secondary IV language of instruction, second language and math, and you must be 16. A high school diploma also gets you in.
DEP in Jewellery Making (Bijouterie-joaillerie, 5085)
About 17 months
1,800 hours. In Montreal at the École des métiers du Sud-Ouest-de-Montréal, by day or evening, and in Quebec City at the Maurice-Barbeau vocational centre.
Or the college route
3 years
The DEC (Diploma of College Studies) in Craft Techniques, jewellery option (573.A0), is a 3 year CEGEP (public college) program at Cégep du Vieux Montréal or Cégep Limoilou in Quebec City.
Start at the bench
After training
Quebec has no licence or apprenticeship certificate for jewellers, so you can work as soon as a shop or workshop hires you.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Stone setting
Especially micro-pave and invisible setting, the hardest bench work.
CAD (computer-aided design) and 3D printing
Most custom rings are now designed on screen and cast from a printed model.
Gemmology
Identifying and grading diamonds and coloured stones. The base for appraisal work, a service you can add to bench work.
Laser welding
Repairs next to heat-sensitive stones. A skill shops look for.
Good eyesight and steady hands
You work under magnification all day.
Patience
A ring can take days.
Retail experience
Custom work starts with a conversation.
Social media
Independent jewellers sell through Instagram and their own sites.
Many jewellers launch a brand: a small collection sold online, at markets and through boutiques. Start-up is a bench, tools and a few thousand dollars of metal and stones. It is creative, and income depends entirely on what sells. You become a marketer and bookkeeper too, and gold prices swing your costs.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
At the bench by 9am under a bright lamp and a loupe. A tray of repairs: three ring sizings, a broken chain, a loose stone to tighten. Then a custom job: file and finish a cast ring, set the centre stone, polish. Talk to a customer about a redesign of their grandmother's ring. Torch, files, saw, polishing wheel. Small, precise, quiet. Christmas and engagement season are the rush.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counted about 1,900 jewellers working in Canada in 2023, and 58% of them were 50 or older. It is one of the smallest trades in the country.
Ontario's Gemsetter/Goldsmith apprenticeship ends with a Certificate of Apprenticeship and no exam. That certificate is the highest one Skilled Trades Ontario gives for the trade.
Canada has mined diamonds since the Ekati mine opened in the Northwest Territories in 1998.
The Canadian Gemmological Association was founded in 1958. Its 4-level program runs in Toronto and Vancouver, with Calgary listed as coming soon.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Personal, food and outdoor trades 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.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.