Install, fix and keep running the machines inside mines, mills and factories. The Red Seal name is Industrial Mechanic (Millwright).
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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.
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 7,280 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $130,676 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)
You are paid from your first day. Over the 7,280 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $130,676 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)
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $77,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $50,000 at the lower end to about $108,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 5 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,250 to $6,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a licence, certificate or registration in Quebec. Elsewhere there is none 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.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$77,000
Lower end
$50,000
Upper end
$108,000
Job Bank's national figures for industrial mechanics and millwrights, 2023 to 2024: a median of $37 an hour, about $77,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end is $24 an hour and the upper end is $52 an hour. Overtime adds to these figures in busy years.
60% of a journeyperson's rate
The least a first-year millwright apprentice can be paid in Alberta
It rises to at least 70%, 80% and 90% in the next three years. In Ontario no share is set in law: your sponsor agrees your rate, often in a union or company agreement, and it can never be below the minimum wage.
$46.48 an hour
The median in the Northwest Territories, about $97,000 a year
Newfoundland and Labrador is the top province at $42.35, with Alberta, BC (British Columbia) and Saskatchewan at $42. Shutdown overtime, shift premiums and on-call are paid on top of base pay. Mines add fly-in rotations and camp allowances.
Roughly, all in
$1,250 to $6,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A millwright apprenticeship is paid work from day one, so most people finish it with little or no debt. The low end is Ontario, where Level 1 class is free for classes from January 2026 and the first certification exam try is free once your apprenticeship is complete, so you pay for two blocks at the cheaper rate and a tool kit built slowly with help from a plant tool allowance. The high end is paying the full block fees yourself and buying 4,000 of tools out of pocket. The Canada Apprentice Loan covers up to 4,000 a block with no interest and EI (Employment Insurance) is available while you are in class, but the federal Apprenticeship Incentive and Completion Grants closed on March 31, 2025.
The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant and Apprenticeship Completion Grant closed on March 31, 2025. The new federal Red Seal Completion Bonus pays $5,000 if you finish your apprenticeship and get certified in a Red Seal trade on or after April 1, 2025. Applications open November 16, 2026. Paid from day one, so most finish with no debt.
Pension and benefits
Standard at mines, mills, auto and steel plants. Unifor and the United Steelworkers represent many plant millwrights.
Shift premiums
Nights, weekends and on-call add to base pay.
Tool allowance and boots
Common at larger employers.
Overtime at premium rates
Shutdowns and breakdowns do not wait for Monday.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A 4-year apprenticeship. Broad: mechanical, hydraulics, welding, rigging and some electrical.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 math, physics and shop. OYAP (Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program) lets Ontario students start in Grade 11 or 12.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
Manufacturing plants, mines, mills, food plants, hydro utilities or an industrial contractor. A 1-year college mechanical techniques program helps you get hired.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
Ontario registers Industrial Mechanic Millwright with Skilled Trades Ontario. Alberta and BC (British Columbia) use their own trades authorities.
Work and study
4 years
8,000 hours in Ontario: 7,280 on the job plus 720 in school, taken as three college blocks of about 8 weeks. Precision alignment, bearings, gearboxes, conveyors, pumps, hydraulics, welding, rigging and reading drawings.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam and add the Red Seal endorsement to work in any province.
Math
Alignment and gearing calculations.
Physics
Forces, torque, fluids and heat: the whole trade.
Shop classes
Welding, machining and small engines all transfer.
Technological design
Reading mechanical drawings and schematics.
In Ontario, Industrial Mechanic Millwright is not a compulsory trade, so no licence is legally required and plants hire on skill and certification. Alberta also leaves certification optional, with a 4 year apprenticeship of 1,560 work hours and 8 weeks of class each year. Quebec is the exception: millwright work on construction sites needs a competency certificate from the Quebec construction commission. The Red Seal endorsement lets you work anywhere in Canada without re-testing, which matters because mines and mills are spread across the country.
Northern Ontario
Cambrian College in Sudbury and Northern College in Timmins, next to the mines.
Southern Ontario
Conestoga, Mohawk and Fanshawe.
Alberta
NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) and SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology).
BC (British Columbia)
BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology).
Quebec splits the trade in two: plant work as an industrial mechanic, with a voluntary apprenticeship, and construction site work as a millwright, controlled by the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission).
Secondary IV courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Industrial Construction and Maintenance Mechanics needs a high school diploma, or age 16 with Secondary IV language, second language and math.
DEP 5399, or 5899 in English
About 18 months
1,800 hours of hydraulics, pneumatics, welding, machining, alignment and vibration analysis. These new versions replace DEP 5260 and 5760 and are required in every centre from 2026 to 2027. Offered in French across Quebec, and in English at the Laurier Lachute centre in the Laurentides.
Plant route: industrial mechanic
2 to 3 years
Factories and utilities hire graduates directly. Your employer can enrol you in Quebec's workplace apprenticeship for industrial mechanic. You must be 16 and employed. It leads to a voluntary certificate.
Site route: CCQ apprentice certificate
Weeks
For millwright (mécanicien de chantier) work on sites. You need the DEP, an employer guaranteeing 150 hours within 3 months, the 30 hour site safety course and a $100 fee.
Site apprenticeship and exam
About 3,300 hours
Three periods of 2,000 hours, 6,000 in all. The DEP counts for its hours plus a 50% bonus, about 2,700. Sit the CCQ exam once 85% of your hours are done.
Red Seal, if you want it
Any time after
Quebec takes part in the Industrial Mechanic (Millwright) Red Seal. You apply with a Quebec certificate from either route: 100 to 150 questions in 4 hours, 70% to pass.
In 2025 the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) counted 1,248 millwrights active on sites, working for 187 employers, and admitted 166 new apprentices, above the 2021 to 2024 average of 83 a year. Collective agreement rates from August 2026 run from $28.72 to $50.87 an hour. In 2025 a journeyperson who worked at least 500 hours averaged $108,922, and an apprentice who worked at least one hour averaged $44,447.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Welding tickets from the CWB (Canadian Welding Bureau)
Many millwrights weld daily. Tickets prove it.
Hydraulics and pneumatics specialist
Presses, mobile equipment and mill drives run on fluid power.
Laser alignment and vibration analysis
Predictive maintenance: finding a failing bearing before it stops the plant.
Electrical or PLC (programmable logic controller) basics
Machines are mechanical and electrical now. Millwrights who can read a control panel get the lead hand jobs.
Mechanical instinct
If you fixed bikes, dirt bikes or cars as a kid, this is the trade.
Driver's licence
Plants and mines are rarely on a bus route.
Forklift, working at heights, confined space and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials) certificates
Day courses that every plant asks for.
Comfort with shift work
Many plants run 24 hours.
Mines in northern Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the territories hire millwrights on rotations such as 14 days in and 14 out, with flights and camp paid. You get long blocks at home, but the weeks in camp are long, isolated and cold. Many people do it for a decade, bank money, then move to a plant near home.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start with the maintenance list and the overnight breakdowns. Replace a bearing on a conveyor, align a motor to a pump with a laser tool, rebuild a gearbox, change a hydraulic cylinder on a press, weld a cracked bracket. During a shutdown the whole line stops and you install or overhaul machines for 10 to 12 hours a day. In a mine you might be underground fixing crushers and hoists. Dirty, mechanical, and different every day.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Industrial Mechanic (Millwright) has been a Red Seal trade since 1964, one of the oldest, and every province and territory takes part.
The Quebec construction commission says a millwright journeyperson who worked at least 500 hours on Quebec construction sites in 2025 averaged $108,922.
Job Bank counted about 88,500 industrial mechanics and millwrights in Canada in 2023, and 36% of them were 50 or older.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Industrial and mechanical 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.
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