Keep the wires, Wi-Fi and firewalls running so everyone else can work. A 2-year diploma and one big certification get you in.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$75,000
Junior technician
$44,000
Senior or network engineer
$114,000
Job Bank's national median is $36 an hour, about $75,000 a year full time. The low end is a junior technician at a small company. The top end is a senior administrator or network engineer at a bank, telecom, hospital or large public body.
$44,000 to $55,000
Junior network technician, first 1 to 2 years
Many people start on a help desk and move to the network team once they have a certification. Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver pay the most. Small towns pay less but have less competition.
$90,000 to $114,000
Senior administrator or network engineer who designs networks, not just runs them
Advanced Cisco or cloud networking certifications, plus security skills, make the difference. Telecoms and large enterprises pay the most.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is somebody who starts on a help desk, studies at home using free network simulators and a little used gear, and pays only for the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam. That route is common and real, but it takes longer to be taken seriously. The high end is a two or three year college diploma, which is what most employers still ask for, plus exam fees on top. Exam fees are priced in United States dollars, so what you actually pay moves with the exchange rate, and many employers cover renewals once you are hired.
Employers often pay for certifications once you are hired. The college diploma is the main cost.
Pension and union
Hospitals, school boards, universities and governments employ a lot of network staff, with defined-benefit pensions and union contracts.
Health and dental
Standard almost everywhere.
On-call pay
Carrying the pager on evenings and weekends usually comes with extra pay or time off.
Paid certifications
Common, because vendors retire certifications every few years.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A college diploma plus one recognized certification is the standard route. No degree needed.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Math, computer science and any technology courses. Set up a home network and learn what every setting does.
College diploma
2 to 3 years
Computer systems or networking technology at a public college: 2 years for a diploma, 3 for an advanced diploma. Co-op terms give you the work experience employers want.
Certify
During or right after college
The CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) is the certification most job ads name. CompTIA Network+ is a good first step. Many students pass one before they graduate.
First job
1 to 2 years
Help desk or junior network technician. Expect to do a year or two of tickets and cable runs before you touch the core routers.
Network administrator
Year 3 onward
Running the network on your own, planning upgrades, and mentoring the juniors.
Computer science or computer engineering technology
Programming and hardware basics.
Math
Binary and subnetting are daily arithmetic in this job.
Physics
Signals, cables and wireless are physics.
English
You will write documentation and explain outages to people who are not technical.
No licence or professional body controls this job. Vendor certifications do the job a licence would: the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) is recognized worldwide and lasts 3 years, then you recertify or take a higher exam. Because nothing is provincial, you can move anywhere in Canada or abroad without re-qualifying.
BC
BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) Computer Systems Technology, 2-year diploma.
Alberta
NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) and SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) run networking and IT diplomas.
Ontario
Seneca Computer Systems Technology (3-year advanced diploma), Algonquin, Conestoga, Mohawk, Sheridan.
Atlantic Canada
NSCC (Nova Scotia Community College) and NBCC (New Brunswick Community College) IT programs, with strong local hiring.
Things you don't need, but that help.
CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional)
The step above the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate). Marks you as a network engineer, not a technician.
Cloud networking
AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Azure networking credentials, because more of the network now lives in the cloud.
Security
Firewall vendor certifications (Palo Alto, Fortinet) and CompTIA Security+. Network and security jobs are merging.
Wireless
Enterprise Wi-Fi design is its own specialty with its own certifications.
A home lab
Free network simulators plus a couple of used switches. Employers ask what you built.
Scripting
Python and PowerShell to automate repetitive changes. Networks are increasingly managed by code.
Driver's licence
Managed service providers send you to client sites.
Calm under pressure
When the network is down, everyone is watching you.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Check the monitoring dashboard first thing: any links down overnight, any alerts? Then tickets: a floor with slow Wi-Fi, a new office that needs switches configured, a vendor's system that needs a firewall rule. Afternoons are project work, like replacing old switches or rolling out a new wireless network, done in a test lab first. Big changes happen after hours or on weekends so users are not affected. Once in a while, an outage takes over the whole day.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) is a single 2-hour exam with no prerequisites, and it is the credential that turns a college graduate into a hireable network technician. It costs US$400 and is valid for 3 years.
Canada's job statistics put network administrators and systems administrators in the same box (NOC 22220). In small organizations that is accurate: one person does both jobs.
Most network changes happen when nobody is using the network, which is why a lot of the important work in this job happens at 2am on a Sunday, with a rollback plan open in another window.
Network administrators carve up address ranges by hand using binary, a skill called subnetting. It is on every certification exam and is the part of the job most students dread, then find easy after a month.
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.