Machines, engines, heating systems and factories. The biggest engineering discipline, with the widest choice of employers.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Licensed (P.Eng)
$90,000
Engineer-in-training
$65,000
Senior or manager
$130,000
Oil and gas, mining and utilities pay the most, mostly in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Consulting and manufacturing in Ontario and Quebec sit in the middle. Engineering managers and plant managers earn above this range.
$62,000 to $75,000
EIT (engineer-in-training), straight out of school
Higher at Alberta energy companies, lower at small machine shops. Co-op students earn $20 to $30 an hour during work terms.
$90,000 to $130,000
Licensed engineer, 5 to 10 years in
Pay plateaus around here unless you manage people or projects. Plant managers and engineering managers reach $130,000 to $170,000.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Engineering tuition is higher than most degrees, and both ends are simply four years of it, 9,000 a year at the low end and 17,000 at the high end. The practice exam and the licence application add a few hundred dollars each, and the annual licence of 300 to 550 only starts after about four years of supervised work. Many graduates leave with 20,000 to 40,000 of debt, noticeably less if they do paid co-op work terms. Nothing here covers living costs during the four years, which for most students are larger than the tuition.
Engineering tuition is higher than most degrees. Many students graduate with $20,000 to $40,000 of debt, less if they do co-op.
Pension
Defined-benefit at utilities, government and universities. Matched savings plans at private companies.
Health and dental
Bonuses and profit sharing
Common in manufacturing and energy.
Licence fees paid
Most employers cover your annual P.Eng (professional engineer) dues.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Degree, supervised experience, exam, licence.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Advanced Functions, Calculus, Physics and Chemistry are required. Marks in the high 80s or above at most schools.
Accredited mechanical engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
A four-year Bachelor of Engineering or Applied Science at a school accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board. Almost every engineering school in Canada offers mechanical.
Engineer-in-training
About 4 years
Register with your provincial regulator and work under a licensed engineer. Log your experience.
Professional practice exam
During your EIT (engineer-in-training) years
A law and ethics exam, taken during your training years.
P.Eng (professional engineer) licence
After 4 years
Apply with your experience record and references. Now you can seal drawings and take legal responsibility for designs.
Calculus and Advanced Functions
Required.
Physics
Required, and the subject you will use most.
Chemistry
Required at most schools.
Technological design or shop class
Not required, but you will understand how things are actually made.
English
Reports, specifications and emails, every day.
Only licensed professional engineers can use the title engineer or sign off on designs. Each province has a regulator: PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario), APEGA (the Alberta association) and EGBC (Engineers and Geoscientists BC) are the big three. Licences transfer between provinces easily. Many mechanical engineers in manufacturing never seal a drawing, but the licence still raises pay and opens management roles.
Nearly every engineering school offers mechanical. A few with strong co-op or industry ties:
Ontario
Waterloo, Toronto, McMaster, Queen's, Western, Ottawa, Carleton, Windsor.
Quebec
McGill, Concordia, Polytechnique Montréal, Laval, Sherbrooke.
West
UBC (University of British Columbia), Alberta, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Manitoba.
Atlantic
Dalhousie, Memorial, New Brunswick.
Things you don't need, but that help.
HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) design
Every building needs it and consulting firms are always hiring for it.
Automation and robotics
Factories cannot find enough people who understand both machines and controls.
Project Management Professional (PMP)
The usual route into managing projects and budgets.
A master's degree in a specialty
Thermal systems, materials or fluids. Needed for research and aerospace roles.
Co-op or internships
Most programs include them. Employers hire from their co-op pool first.
SolidWorks and AutoCAD
Design software fluency gets you hired faster.
Student design teams
Formula Student race cars, rocketry, solar cars. Interviewers love them.
A summer in a shop or plant
Welding, machining or a production line. You learn what drawings leave out.
Companies that sell pumps, compressors, industrial robots or building equipment need engineers who can talk to other engineers. Technical sales pays a base salary plus commission, and good salespeople out-earn design engineers. It suits people who like talking more than modelling.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Design engineers spend the day in SolidWorks or similar software, running calculations, checking drawings and talking to machinists. Plant engineers walk the production floor, fix whatever stopped the line, and plan equipment upgrades. Building services engineers size heating and cooling systems and review contractor submissions. Meetings and emails fill the gaps in all three.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
About a quarter of the engineering degrees awarded in Canada each year are in mechanical, more than any other discipline. That is why it is the safest bet if you like engineering but do not know which kind yet.
Joseph-Armand Bombardier built his first snow vehicles in Valcourt, Quebec, and launched the Ski-Doo in 1959. His company grew into Bombardier, which now builds business jets.
A large share of mechanical engineers in consulting design HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems. It is not glamorous, but every hospital, school and condo tower needs stamped mechanical drawings.
Ontario assembles well over a million vehicles a year for Toyota, Honda, Ford, Stellantis and General Motors, and Magna in Aurora is one of the largest auto-parts makers in the world. Most of the engineers in those plants are mechanical.
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.