Paint, stain and coat the inside and outside of buildings. A 3-year paid apprenticeship, and outside Quebec no licence is needed to start.
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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 5,280 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $94,776 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 5,280 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $94,776 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)
The median pay is about $58,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $42,000 at the lower end to about $85,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
3 to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,300 to $4,050 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.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$58,000
Lower end
$42,000
Upper end
$85,000
Job Bank's national figures for painters and decorators, 2023 to 2024: a median of $28 an hour, about $58,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($20) and upper end ($40.99) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. Some residential companies pay by the job instead of by the hour, so speed matters.
$28.43 an hour
A first-period apprentice on Quebec commercial and institutional construction sites, from August 2026
It rises to $47.39 for a journeyperson on the same sites. Residential sites start at $25.69. In Ontario no apprentice share is set in law: your sponsor agrees your rate, and it can never be below the minimum wage.
$34.98 an hour
The median in Quebec, about $73,000 a year
British Columbia's median is $28 and Ontario's $25. Industrial work means blasting rust off steel and spraying epoxy on bridges, water towers and refineries. It also means respirators, heights and travel.
Roughly, all in
$1,300 to $4,050
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is a paid apprenticeship, so there is no tuition to find, only three short in school blocks at a few hundred dollars each. The low end is Ontario, where Level 1 class is free for classes from January 2026, so you pay the cheaper rate for the other two blocks and build a hand tool kit slowly. Your first certificate exam try is free there once your apprenticeship is complete. The high end is the pricier blocks, a fuller kit of brushes, rollers and hand tools, and the certificate exam at the end. Employers supply ladders, sprayers and lifts, the Canada Apprentice Loan charges no interest on up to $4,000 a block, and EI (Employment Insurance) covers you while you are in class, so most apprentices finish with little or no debt.
Employers supply ladders, sprayers and lifts. Most apprentices finish with little or no debt. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 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.
Union pension and health plan
IUPAT (the painters' union) locals in Ontario, Alberta and BC (British Columbia) run pension and benefit plans for commercial and industrial painters.
Indoor work all winter
Interior repaints and new condo units keep going in January.
Low tool costs
The cheapest tool kit of any construction trade.
Easy to go self-employed
A van, ladders and a good reputation are enough to start.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship: mostly on the job, with short college blocks.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12. Art, math and shop classes help. Ontario students can start early through OYAP (the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program).
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A painting contractor, a condo builder or a union hiring hall that will register you as an apprentice.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With your provincial trades authority: Skilled Trades Ontario, Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training, or SkilledTradesBC.
Work and study
About 3 years
About 6,000 hours in Ontario: 5,280 on the job plus 720 hours in class, usually three blocks of about 8 weeks at a college.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. Add the interprovincial Red Seal endorsement to work in any province.
Math
Measuring wall area, mixing ratios and pricing a job.
Art
Colour theory and a steady hand are the job.
Chemistry
Primers, solvents and coatings react with each other and with the surface.
Shop or technology classes
Shows employers you can use tools safely.
In Ontario, painter and decorator (registered as Painter and Decorator, Commercial and Residential) is a voluntary trade. Anyone can legally paint for pay without a licence there, and Alberta and British Columbia also treat it as voluntary. Quebec is the exception: on construction sites you need a competency certificate from the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec). The Certificate of Qualification and the Red Seal endorsement are what prove you are trained, and union, commercial and industrial employers usually want them.
In Quebec the trade is called painter (peintre), you take a short vocational diploma first, and the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) decides who can work on a site.
Secondary III courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Building Painting needs a high school diploma, or age 16 with Secondary III language, second language and math. From 18, the general development test is another way in.
DEP in Building Painting (5336, or 5836 in English)
About 7 months
900 hours of surface preparation, paints and coatings, wallpaper and drywall joint filling. Offered in French across Quebec. The English program runs mainly at Construc-Plus in the Laurentides.
Apprentice competency certificate
Weeks
Issued by the CCQ. You need the DEP, an employer registered with the CCQ who guarantees at least 150 hours of work within 3 months, the 30 hour site safety course and a $100 fee.
Work as an apprentice
About 4,650 hours
Three periods of 2,000 hours, 6,000 in all. The DEP counts for its hours plus a 50% bonus, about 1,350, which leaves about 4,650 hours of paid site work.
Qualification exam
Near the end
Set by the CCQ, up to 3 hours of multiple choice, in French or English. You can sit it once 85% of your hours are done. Pass and you become a journeyperson (compagnon).
Red Seal, if you want it
Any time after
Quebec takes part in the Painter and Decorator Red Seal under the title Painter. A separate interprovincial exam: 4 hours, 70% to pass.
In 2025 the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) counted 6,863 painters active on sites, working for 1,899 employers, and admitted 608 new apprentices, below the 2021 to 2024 average of 732 a year. It rates job prospects as excellent. Collective agreement rates from August 2026 run from $25.69 to $47.89 an hour. In 2025 a journeyperson who worked at least 500 hours averaged $67,002, and an apprentice who worked at least one hour averaged $26,843.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Industrial coatings and abrasive blasting
Spray-applied epoxy and urethane on steel.
Working at heights and swing stage training
Needed for condo exteriors, bridges and water towers.
Wallcovering and specialty finishes
Wallpaper, faux finishes and plaster effects for high-end homes and hotels.
Lead and asbestos awareness
Homes built before the 1980s can have lead paint. Employers want you trained to handle it safely.
Pre-apprenticeship program
A short college program that makes a contractor more willing to sponsor you.
Driver's licence
You move between job sites with a loaded van.
Patience and a steady hand
Cutting a clean line by brush, without tape, is a skill customers pay for.
Painting has the lowest start-up cost of any construction trade, so many journeypersons go out on their own. The catch is that anyone can compete with you, including people with no training, so prices are tight. You win work on reputation, clean lines and showing up on time, not on a licence.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
7am start. Cover the floors, tape the edges, fill holes and sand. Prime, then two coats: cut the edges by brush, roll the rest. On a condo tower it is the same unit layout over and over, fast. On an industrial job you might spend the morning blasting rust off steel and the afternoon in a respirator spraying epoxy. Clean the brushes, load the van, home by 4.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Painter and Decorator has been a Red Seal trade since 1964 in every province and territory, so a certified painter can move from Halifax to Calgary without re-qualifying.
In 2025, 1,945 women worked as painters on Quebec construction sites, 28.3% of the trade, the Quebec construction commission reports.
Job Bank counted about 39,200 painters and decorators in Canada in 2023, and 39% of them were 50 or older.
Ontario students can bank apprenticeship hours before graduating through OYAP (the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program), a co-op placement with a real contractor.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Construction 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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