Oceanographer

What oceanographers make

Job Bank's national median is $50 an hour, about $104,000 a year full time. Read this one carefully: Job Bank counts oceanographers in the same group as geologists and geophysicists, and the very high end of that group comes from oil, gas and mining. Most working oceanographers in Canada are federal scientists paid on a government grid, closer to the middle of the range.

Starting out

A lot of early work is term contracts tied to a specific research project or survey season rather than permanent jobs.

Sea pay

Cruises run one to six weeks. You work 12 hour watches with no days off, and you cannot leave, so the days are paid at a premium.

What it costs to get there

Bachelor of Science (BSc), 4 years

$7,000 to $14,000 a year in tuition

Master's degree, 2 years

Usually funded with a stipend and teaching work

Doctorate, if you want to lead research

4 to 5 years, funded

Sea gear

Boots, waterproofs and warm layers, a few hundred dollars

Roughly, all in

$28,300 to $57,000

Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel

The low end is a four year science degree at the cheaper end of Canadian tuition plus a few hundred dollars of boots, waterproofs and warm layers for time at sea. The high end is the same degree at a higher tuition university. Graduate school in ocean science in Canada normally comes with a stipend and teaching work, so a master's or a doctorate usually costs nothing in tuition and is not added here. What the numbers hide is the years on a small stipend before you reach a real salary.

Graduate school in ocean science in Canada is normally funded, so the real cost is the four-year degree plus years of low pay while you train.

What comes with the job

• Federal pension

  Fisheries and Oceans Canada is the largest employer of ocean scientists in the country.

• Ship time

  Weeks at sea in the Arctic, on the Grand Banks or off British Columbia, paid and fed.

• Field travel

  Coastal field stations, ice camps and international research cruises.

• Data you cannot get anywhere else

  Your measurements become part of the global climate record.

The path

Start with a hard science, specialise in the ocean later. Most working oceanographers hold a graduate degree.

1. 1

   High school

   Grades 11 and 12

   Physics, chemistry, biology and calculus. Oceanography uses all four, which is unusual.

2. 2

   Bachelor of Science (BSc)

   4 years

   Ocean sciences if your university offers it, otherwise physics, chemistry, biology or earth science with ocean courses.

3. 3

   Sea-going experience

   Summers

   Summer work on a survey vessel, at a marine station or in a lab. Employers want to know you can function on a ship.

4. 4

   Master's degree

   2 years

   This is the normal entry point for real oceanography work. You pick one of the four branches here.

5. 5

   Doctorate, if you want to run research

   4 to 5 years

   Needed for professor and lead scientist roles, not for technical and monitoring jobs.

High school courses that help

• Physics

  Currents, waves and ice are physics problems.

• Chemistry

  Ocean acidification, oxygen and nutrients are chemistry problems.

• Biology

  Plankton, fish and whales are biology problems.

• Calculus

  Required for every route into the field.

Time and money, at a glance

Years after high school

4 for technical work, 6 to 10 for a scientist role

Admission

Mid 80s average for science programs at the main ocean schools

Total tuition

About $35,000 to $55,000, mostly in the first four years

Paid while training?

Yes from graduate school onward, at a stipend level

Four branches, one degree name

Physical oceanography is currents, tides, waves and ice. Chemical oceanography is what is dissolved in the water, including carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Biological oceanography is life, from plankton to whales. Geological oceanography is the sea floor itself. You take all four in a degree and then pick one. The branch you choose decides whether your career looks like modelling on a computer or hauling nets on a deck.

Where people study

• Nova Scotia

  Dalhousie University in Halifax, next door to the federal Bedford Institute of Oceanography.

• British Columbia

  University of British Columbia and University of Victoria, which runs ocean observatories wired to the sea floor.

• Newfoundland

  Memorial University of Newfoundland, with its own marine institute.

• Quebec and Ontario

  Université du Québec à Rimouski, Université Laval, University of Guelph and University of Toronto for related earth science.

Skills that get you hired

• Programming and data analysis

  Python, Matlab and statistics. Modern oceanography is mostly handling sensor data.

• Instrument work

  Building, deploying and fixing moorings, floats and gliders. Practical people are in short supply.

• Small boat and dive tickets

  Coastal work often needs a pleasure craft operator card, and some jobs want scientific diving certification.

• Acoustics

  Sonar and underwater sound, used for mapping the sea floor and tracking marine mammals.

Nice-to-haves

• Seasickness tolerance

  Not a joke. Find out on a rough ferry before you commit to a career at sea.

• Marine safety training

  Basic survival at sea courses are often required before you board a research vessel.

• Volunteering at a marine station

  Bamfield in British Columbia and Huntsman in New Brunswick take students.

• French

  Useful for federal jobs and for work in Quebec and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The private side

Not all ocean science is research. Offshore wind, subsea cables, port expansions and offshore oil all need current and wave surveys, sea floor mapping and environmental monitoring before they get permits. Consulting firms on both coasts hire ocean scientists for this work, it pays more than a research contract, and there is much less waiting for grant decisions.

A typical day at sea

Twelve hour watches, often noon to midnight. Lower instruments over the side to take water samples and profiles, recover moorings that have been in the water a year, process samples in a lab that is moving under you, and log everything. Meals at set times, no days off, no leaving. Ashore, the job flips to screens: cleaning the data you collected, running models and writing it up.

The honest trade-offs

Work life

Typical hours

37.5 a week ashore, 12 hour watches at sea

Remote work

Common for analysis, impossible for fieldwork

Physical demand

Moderate to high at sea

Unionized

Yes for federal scientists

Similar paths

• GeologistRead rocks to find metals, water and oil, and to work out what the ground will do next.
• HydrologistWork out where water goes: floods, droughts, groundwater and the rivers a city drinks from.
• Environmental ScientistMeasure pollution, assess projects before they are built, and hold industry to the rules.

Canada touches three oceans

The Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic all border Canada, giving it the longest coastline of any country in the world at about 243,000 kilometres. That is why federal ocean science is split across institutes on both coasts and in the north.

There are observatories on the sea floor

Ocean Networks Canada, run by the University of Victoria, operates cabled observatories off British Columbia that stream live data from instruments sitting on the bottom of the ocean. Anyone can watch the feeds online.

Robots do a lot of the measuring now

Thousands of drifting floats worldwide sink to about 2 kilometres, drift for ten days, then rise while recording temperature and salinity and radio the profile to a satellite. Canada owns part of that fleet, and it has changed what oceanographers can see.