Parks, streets, campuses and the land around buildings. A design degree, two years of practice and a four-part exam.
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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.
Full member
$85,000
Intern or junior
$47,000
Senior or principal
$171,000
Job Bank's national median works out to about $85,000 a year, and the top of its range is high because it includes principals who own firms. Ontario, BC and Alberta pay the most. Municipal parks departments pay steady, pensioned wages. Firm owners earn above the range in good years and below it in bad ones.
$50,000 to $60,000
Junior designer with a BLA (bachelor of landscape architecture) or MLA (master of landscape architecture)
A little below architecture and engineering to start. Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary have the most firms.
$80,000 to $100,000
Registered landscape architect, 8 to 15 years in
Project managers on big public parks, transit and campus jobs push past this. Government jobs top out a bit lower but come with a pension.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
You need one accredited degree, not two, so these numbers cover a four year BLA (Bachelor of Landscape Architecture) rather than a bachelor's followed by an MLA (Master of Landscape Architecture). The low end is a cheaper university, modest software and model making supplies, and the LARE (Landscape Architect Registration Examination), whose four sections are charged in United States dollars at about $535 each. The high end is a higher tuition school, fuller supplies and intern association dues. If your first degree was in something else, add two or three years of master's tuition on top.
You only need one degree, not two, unless your bachelor's was in something else.
Health and dental
Standard at most firms and every municipality.
Pension
Defined-benefit plans in municipal and provincial parks jobs.
Time outdoors
Site visits and planting checks are part of the job, not a perk on paper.
Professional fees paid
Many employers cover association dues and exam costs.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
One degree, two years of supervised work, a four-part exam, then registration.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, geography, visual arts and math. Get a summer job with a landscaping crew or a parks department.
Degree
4 to 7 years
Either a 4-year BLA (bachelor of landscape architecture) at Guelph, or any bachelor's followed by a 2 to 3 year MLA (master of landscape architecture) at Guelph, Toronto, UBC (University of British Columbia), Manitoba or Université de Montréal.
Intern or associate
About 2 years
Join your provincial association as an intern and work under a full member. Log your experience.
LARE (Landscape Architect Registration Examination)
1 to 2 years
Four sections on project management, grading and drainage, construction and design. Offered three times a year on a computer.
Full membership
After the exam
Apply to your provincial association, such as the OALA (Ontario Association of Landscape Architects). Some provinces add a short exam on local law.
Biology
Plants, soils, ecosystems.
Geography
The closest school subject to the job.
Visual arts
Drawing and composition for your portfolio.
Math
Grading, drainage and budgets are all numbers.
English
Reports and public presentations.
Anyone can design a garden, but only full members of a provincial association can call themselves landscape architects. In Ontario that is the OALA (Ontario Association of Landscape Architects). Each province has its own association under the CSLA (Canadian Society of Landscape Architects), and full members move between provinces through a reciprocity agreement. Most public projects and senior jobs require the title, so nearly everyone gets it.
Only a handful of accredited programs in Canada.
Ontario
Guelph (the only bachelor's in English Canada, plus a master's), Toronto (master's).
Quebec
Université de Montréal, bachelor's and master's in French.
West
UBC (University of British Columbia) and Manitoba, both master's.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Stormwater and green infrastructure
Cities are paying to manage rain with plants and soil instead of pipes.
GIS (geographic information systems)
Mapping software. Opens planning and environmental work.
LEED (a green building rating system) accreditation
Asked for on many public and institutional projects.
Certified arborist
Through the ISA (International Society of Arboriculture). Tree work pays on every urban project.
Playground safety inspector
A short certification that municipalities value.
Plant knowledge
Knowing 200 species by sight is a real advantage. Start with the ones on your street.
A summer with a landscaping crew or nursery
Teaches how things are actually built and planted.
Drawing and software
Sketching, AutoCAD, Rhino and Adobe before you start.
A driver's licence
Sites are rarely on a subway line.
Many landscape architects end up in municipal parks, planning or transit departments. The trade: fewer late nights, a pension, set hours and influence over public land, but less pure design and a lot of approvals and public meetings. Consulting firms are the reverse. Plenty of people do a decade of each.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning: a grading plan for a new park, checking that every slope drains somewhere sensible. Late morning: a call with the civil engineer about a storm pond. Afternoon: a site visit to check the plants match the spec and walk the job with the contractor. End of day: renderings for a public meeting next week. Seasons matter. Spring and summer are site heavy; winter is drawing heavy.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Frederick Todd worked in Frederick Law Olmsted's office, then set up in Montreal in 1900 as the first landscape architect living in Canada. He designed Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg.
Vancouver's Stanley Park covers about 400 hectares. New York's Central Park is about 340.
The LARE (Landscape Architect Registration Examination) is written by an American council and used across both countries. You pay for it in US dollars and write it at a testing centre in Canada.
The Bentway in Toronto, opened in 2018, turned the dead space under the Gardiner Expressway into a skating trail and public park. It was designed by a landscape architecture firm, not an architect.
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.