Cut, shape and fit steel into bridges, tanks and buildings. A Red Seal trade you earn while you work.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Journeyperson
$60,000
1st-year apprentice
$44,000
Lead hand or industrial
$90,000
Job Bank's national median is $29 an hour, about $60,000 a year full time. Shipyards, oil and gas fabrication and unionized structural steel shops pay at the top; small job shops pay near the bottom.
$21 to $24 an hour
First-year apprentice
About $44,000 a year to start. Apprentice pay rises each level as a percentage of the journeyperson rate.
$40 to $43 an hour
About $83,000 to $90,000 a year at full-time hours
Overtime is common when a shop has a big contract. Fabricators who also hold pressure welding tickets or who lead a crew earn the most.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is a paid apprenticeship, so there is no tuition to find and you earn from the first day. The low end is somebody whose employer or union covers the in school blocks and who builds a tool kit slowly, leaving mainly the certification exam to pay for. The high end is paying the few hundred dollars a level yourself across three levels, buying a full tool set and boots, and sitting the Red Seal exam. The Canada Apprentice Loan is interest free up to 4,000 a school period, and EI (Employment Insurance) is available during class blocks.
Paid on the job from the start, so most apprentices finish with little or no debt.
Union pension and health plan
Boilermaker and ironworker union shops offer strong plans.
Overtime at time and a half
Big projects run long weeks.
Tool and boot allowance
Common at larger shops.
Travel and living-out pay
On site work at mines, plants and shipyards.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
An apprenticeship. Most of your training is in the shop, paid.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Math, shop and drafting. Some provinces let you start through a youth apprenticeship program.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A fabrication shop, shipyard or union that takes you on. A pre-apprenticeship or welding certificate helps you get noticed.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With your provincial trades authority, such as Skilled Trades Ontario or Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training.
Work and study
3 to 4 years
In Ontario, 5,400 hours: 4,680 on the job and 720 in school over three levels. Other provinces run similar three-level programs.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. The Red Seal exam has 130 questions and is recognized in nine provinces and territories.
Math
Geometry and trigonometry for layout. You will calculate angles and bends every day.
Technological design or drafting
Reading and making blueprints is half the trade.
Manufacturing or welding shop
Hands-on time with metal before you apply.
Physics
Loads, strength and heat.
Metal Fabricator (Fitter) is a non-compulsory trade: you can legally work in a shop without a certificate. But it has been a Red Seal trade since 1991, and certified fabricators earn more and can move between provinces without retesting. Employers doing structural steel, pressure vessels and shipbuilding usually want the ticket, and welding on those jobs needs separate welder certification.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Welder certification
Most fabricators weld. A CWB (Canadian Welding Bureau) ticket or pressure welding ticket adds pay and job options.
Boilermaker or ironworker
Related Red Seal trades that put fabrication skills on site, often at union rates.
CNC (computer numerical control) cutting and press brake
Programming plasma tables and brakes moves you off the floor and into higher pay.
Blueprint and CAD (computer-aided design) skills
Detailers and shop supervisors come from the fabrication floor.
Pre-apprenticeship or welding certificate
A college semester that makes shops willing to sponsor you.
Forklift and overhead crane tickets
You move heavy steel all day.
Spatial thinking
Turning a flat drawing into a three-dimensional part in your head is the core skill.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start at 7am in the shop. Read the drawing, lay out the part on plate or beam, mark it, then cut it with a plasma torch, saw or shear. Bend, roll or drill as needed. Fit the pieces together with clamps and tack welds, checking every dimension with a tape and square. Hand it to a welder or finish the welds yourself. Big parts move with an overhead crane. Some jobs send you to site to fit steel into a building, tank or ship.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Metal Fabricator (Fitter) is one of about 65 Red Seal trades. The interprovincial exam has 130 questions, and Alberta, BC, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces all recognize it.
Red Seal fabricator exams provide the math formulas you need on the test itself. What they check is whether you know which one to use and can do the layout.
The Red Seal program lists buildings, bridges, tanks, towers, boilers and pressure vessels as the things fabricators build. Canada's shipyards in Halifax, Vancouver and Quebec are among the biggest employers.
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.