Plan and run the mines that dig up Canada's metals and minerals. High pay, remote sites, and an industry that rises and falls with metal prices.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Licensed engineer
$125,000
Engineer-in-training
$77,000
Mine manager or senior
$240,000
Site jobs in the North pay more than head-office jobs in Toronto or Vancouver, and often add a camp or northern allowance. In a downturn, hiring freezes and layoffs hit fast.
$75,000 to $90,000
Engineer-in-training (EIT) at a mine site
One of the highest starting salaries of any engineering discipline. Co-op and summer students at mine sites often earn $25 to $35 an hour plus free room and board in camp.
$150,000 and up
Mine superintendents, chief engineers, senior consultants
Rotation jobs at remote sites add a site allowance on top. Some senior roles at operating mines pass $200,000 with bonuses in a good year.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Both ends are the four year engineering degree multiplied out, 9,000 to 17,000 a year, plus the professional practice exam and the licence application, which together stay under 1,000. The professional engineer licence is only granted after roughly four years of supervised work, and the dues of about 500 a year begin then. Mining companies and industry groups fund an unusual number of scholarships because the field struggles to attract students, so the real cost is often below the low end. Co-op pay in mining is high enough that some graduates finish close to debt free.
Mining companies and industry groups fund a lot of scholarships because the field struggles to attract students. Co-op pay in mining is high enough that some graduates finish close to debt-free.
Site or northern allowance
Extra pay on top of salary for remote work.
Flights, room and board
Charter flights to site and camp living are paid by the company.
Bonuses
Tied to production targets and metal prices.
Health, dental and a pension or matched savings plan
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Degree, supervised experience, exam, licence. Same as every engineer, with rocks.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Advanced Functions, Calculus, Physics and Chemistry are required for admission. Marks in the 80s at most schools.
Accredited mining engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
A Bachelor of Engineering or Applied Science in mining engineering. Laurentian in Sudbury, Queen's, UBC (University of British Columbia), McGill, Polytechnique Montréal, Laval, Alberta and Dalhousie all have programs. Many students do a general first year and pick mining in second year.
Engineer-in-training
About 4 years
Register with your provincial regulator as an engineer-in-training (EIT). Work under a licensed engineer, usually at a mine site or a consulting firm. Log your experience.
Professional practice exam
During your EIT years
A law and ethics exam. Most people write it in their first or second year of work.
P.Eng (professional engineer) licence
After 4 years
Apply with your experience record and references. Now you can sign mine plans and take legal responsibility for them.
Calculus and Advanced Functions
Required.
Physics
Required.
Chemistry
Required at most schools. Ore processing is chemistry.
Earth science or geography
Optional, but a head start on rocks and minerals.
Only licensed professional engineers can practise engineering or use the title in Canada. Each province has a regulator: Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), APEGA (Alberta's regulator), Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC). Your P.Eng (professional engineer) licence transfers between provinces with a simple application, which matters because you will probably work in more than one. Ontario closed its engineer-in-training program to new applicants in 2023: there you work, log your 4 years of experience and then apply. Mines add their own safety training, such as mine rescue, on site.
Ontario
Laurentian (Sudbury), Queen's (Kingston), Toronto.
Quebec
McGill, Polytechnique Montréal, Laval.
West
UBC (University of British Columbia), Alberta.
Atlantic
Dalhousie (Halifax).
Things you don't need, but that help.
Qualified Person status
After 5 years of relevant experience, a licensed engineer can sign the technical reports mining companies must file when they raise money. In demand and well paid.
Rock mechanics or ventilation specialty
Deep underground mines need both. Few people have them.
Mine rescue and blasting certificates
Usually arranged by the mine. Shows you can handle the underground side.
MBA (master of business administration) or mineral economics
The route to head office, finance or running a company.
A summer job at a mine site
Even as a labourer. Mines hire the students they already know.
Mine planning software
Deswik, Vulcan and Surpac. Schools teach at least one.
A driver's licence and comfort with remote places
French
Quebec is one of the biggest mining provinces in the country.
Not everyone stays at a mine. Many mining engineers move to consulting firms in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal or Sudbury, writing feasibility studies for mines around the world. Others go into mining finance, since Toronto's stock exchange lists more mining companies than any other in the world. Both paths mean city life, travel, and less time underground.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
At an operating mine on a 2-weeks-on, 2-weeks-off rotation: up at 5, safety meeting at 6, then underground or into the pit to check the blast pattern, ground support and haul roads. Afternoons are in the site office planning next week's production and updating the mine plan. Twelve-hour days, then dinner in camp, the gym, and bed. After 14 days, a charter flight home for 14 days off.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Toronto Stock Exchange and its venture exchange list more mining companies than any other exchange in the world. That is why so many mining engineers end up in a downtown Toronto office.
The nickel around Sudbury, Ontario formed when a meteorite hit about 1.85 billion years ago. Mines there have run since the 1880s, and Laurentian University's mining school sits in the middle of the mining district.
Kidd Mine in Timmins, Ontario is the deepest base-metal mine in the world, reaching just over 3 km below the surface. Mining engineers design the ventilation and cooling that make it possible to work down there.
Many northern mines are reached only by air. Workers fly in on charter planes for a 2-week shift. Diamond mines in the Northwest Territories rely on an ice road that exists for a few weeks each winter to truck in a year of fuel and supplies.
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.