Design ships and everything else that floats: hull shape, stability, structure and the systems inside.
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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.
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 $104,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $58,000 at the lower end to about $171,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$36,500 to $86,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$104,000
Lower end
$58,000
Upper end
$171,000
Job Bank has no separate wage figures for naval architects. It groups them with other professional engineers, where the national median is $50 an hour, about $104,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($28) and upper end ($82.42) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. Treat the numbers as the range for that wider group.
$58.97 an hour
The median for the group in Alberta, about $123,000 a year
British Columbia is next at $52.88. Nova Scotia, home to the biggest naval yard, is at $47.50. Halifax, Vancouver, Levis in Quebec and St. John's are where the work is, and the projects last for years.
Roughly, all in
$36,500 to $86,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is four years of engineering tuition at a low cost school such as Memorial University in Newfoundland, which runs the main undergraduate program in this field, plus the professional practice exam and the fee to apply for a P.Eng (professional engineer) licence. The high end is five years at a pricier school, the same exam and licence fees, and the first couple of years of annual dues. Sea time and shipyard work terms are paid placements, so they cost you nothing. Tuition is set each year and usually rises, so check current rates before you plan.
Memorial University in Newfoundland charges some of the lowest engineering tuition in Canada, which matters because it runs the main undergraduate program in this field.
Long project cycles
A shipbuilding contract can mean a decade of steady work.
Travel
Sea trials, yard visits and overseas design reviews.
Pension or matched savings
Government and large yard employers usually offer one.
Defence work is stable
Navy and coast guard programs do not follow the business cycle.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A specialised degree if you can get into one, otherwise mechanical engineering plus marine experience.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus, Advanced Functions, Physics and Chemistry. Physics carries most of the weight.
Engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
Memorial University in St. John's runs ocean and naval architectural engineering, the main route in Canada. Mechanical engineering with ship design electives also works.
Work terms in a yard or design office
During the degree
This is where you learn how steel is actually cut, welded and assembled. Employers hire heavily from their own students.
Engineer-in-training
About 4 years (2 in Quebec)
About four years of supervised work (24 months in Quebec) with your provincial regulator, logging real design experience.
P.Eng (professional engineer) licence
After about 4 years (2 in Quebec)
Law and ethics exam plus an experience record. Now you can seal drawings that a yard will build from.
Physics
Required. Floating, moving and breaking are all physics.
Calculus and Advanced Functions
Required.
Chemistry
Required for engineering admission. Corrosion in salt water is a real problem.
Technical drawing or shop
Reading and making drawings is the everyday language of a shipyard.
Naval architecture is practised as engineering in Canada, so you need a provincial P.Eng (professional engineer) licence to take responsibility for a design. On top of that, Transport Canada sets the rules for how Canadian vessels are designed, built and maintained, and classification societies review structural drawings before a hull is built. Your work gets checked by people who are paid to find problems in it.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Memorial University in St. John's. Its ocean and naval architectural engineering program is the best known in Canada and runs as a co-op degree.
British Columbia
University of British Columbia offers naval architecture and marine engineering at the graduate level.
Nova Scotia
Dalhousie in Halifax has mechanical engineering beside the country's largest naval shipyard.
The common back door
A mechanical engineering degree, a yard job, and a master's in naval architecture later.
Quebec's own naval architecture training is a 3 year CEGEP (public college) technology program, so engineers take mechanical engineering here or study in Newfoundland, and the licence comes from the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, the Quebec order of engineers).
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Take Secondary V math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence, plus Secondary V chemistry and physics. All three are required for the Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies).
Science DEC at a CEGEP
2 years
The 2 year Science program (200.B1). In English at Dawson and the other English colleges. Engineering schools look for its calculus, physics and chemistry courses and your R score (the Quebec college ranking mark).
Bachelor's in engineering
About 4 years
Memorial University in Newfoundland teaches ocean and naval architectural engineering as a co-op degree. In Quebec, take mechanical engineering, in English at Concordia or in French at ÉTS (École de technologie supérieure).
Become a CPI (candidate to the engineering profession)
Before or right after graduating
Quebec graduates can apply after 60 university credits ($180), and joining costs $520 plus tax. Graduates of Memorial or another Canadian school apply on the order's form for Canadian graduates.
24 months of supervised work, then the exam
At least 2 years, at most 5
Work under an engineer you declare to the order. Paid internships done after 60 credits can count. Add 25 to 30 hours of online training ($345) and a multiple choice exam ($285, 60% to pass).
Show French, get the permit
End of the program
A Quebec high school diploma counts, even from an English school. Otherwise you pass the 3 hour exam, at no cost, of the Office québécois de la langue française (the Quebec French language office). Then the order issues your permit.
The Institut maritime du Québec in Rimouski runs Naval Architecture Technology (248.A0), a 3 year DEC (Diploma of College Studies) taught in French, with English courses. Graduates draft, design and inspect ships and boats. ÉTS (École de technologie supérieure) accepts this DEC for direct entry into its mechanical engineering degree.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Stability and damage stability
Working out whether a ship stays upright, loaded or flooded. A specialty that few people master.
Ice class design
Ships built for Arctic ice need heavier structure and special rules. Canada needs more of these people.
Offshore structures
Rigs, platforms and floating production vessels.
A master's in ocean or marine engineering
Often the fastest way into design authority roles.
Time on boats
Sailing, fishing or a summer on a ferry all help you picture what you are designing.
Computer aided design skills
Ship design software and three dimensional modelling are used daily.
A passport
Yards, owners and class societies are spread around the world.
Welding or fabrication basics
Knowing how a plate gets shaped changes how you draw it.
Not every naval architect works on warships. Canada has a busy industry designing fishing vessels, ferries, tugs, workboats, water taxis and pleasure craft. These firms are small, the projects are short, and you see a boat go from sketch to launch in a year or two instead of a decade. The draw is the variety and the credit for your own designs.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Most of it is at a computer, running a hull model, checking weight and balance and adjusting structure to hit a target. There is a long meeting about why the owner wants another deck and what that does to stability. Once or twice a month you are down at the yard in a hard hat and boots, climbing through a half finished hull, noticing that something built does not match something drawn.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Since 2010, under the National Shipbuilding Strategy, the federal government has chosen to build its navy and coast guard vessels in Canadian yards. That is why naval architecture hiring here has been steady for years.
Job Bank has no separate count for naval architects. They sit in a group of about 42,900 other professional engineers, with a moderate outlook in most provinces.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Engineers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in engineering.
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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