Smooth walls, ornate ceilings and exterior stucco. A three-year Red Seal apprenticeship with almost no tuition.
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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 4,920 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $88,314 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 $69,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $48,000 at the lower end to about $91,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 3 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$500 to $3,200 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.
Limited 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
$69,000
Lower end
$48,000
Upper end
$91,000
Job Bank's national median is $33 an hour, about $69,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($23) and upper end ($43.75) are the bottom and top of the range for everyone in the group. Job Bank groups plasterers with drywall finishers under one code, so these figures cover both.
$38 an hour
The Job Bank median in Quebec, the highest of any province
Ontario is next at $35.48. Newfoundland and Labrador is lowest at $25. Apprentices earn less while they learn, and in Ontario the rate is agreed with your sponsor, never below the minimum wage. Piecework (paid per square foot) is common in housing.
Roughly, all in
$500 to $3,200
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The apprenticeship is paid work, so there is no tuition year to find money for. The low end is Ontario, where Level 1 class is free for classes from January 2026 and the first certification exam try is free once your apprenticeship is complete, so you pay only for a basic set of trowels, hawks and floats. The high end is paying for the classroom level yourself, buying a fuller kit including stilts, and the same exam. The Canada Apprentice Loan charges no interest and Employment Insurance can cover you during classroom blocks, so most apprentices finish with no debt, though the federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed on March 31, 2025.
Most apprentices finish with no debt. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed on March 31, 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
Plasterers on union commercial sites are usually covered by the plasterers' and cement masons' union or the painters' union.
Overtime at premium rates
Year-round work
Most plastering is indoors, so unlike masons or roofers you are not laid off every winter.
Owning the business
A van, tools and a good reputation are enough to run a small finishing company.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
One of the shorter apprenticeships in construction. Mostly on the job.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 with math and a shop class. Some provinces let you start through a high school apprenticeship program.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A drywall and plaster contractor, a stucco company or a union hiring hall. Starting as a taper's helper is the usual way in.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
The trade is called Drywall Finisher and Plasterer in Ontario, BC (British Columbia) and the Atlantic provinces, and Plasterer in Quebec.
Work and study
About 3 years
About 5,400 hours in Ontario: roughly 4,920 on the job plus one in-school level of 480 hours.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. Add the Red Seal endorsement, recognized in the provinces that designate the trade.
Math
Measuring areas, mixing ratios, estimating material.
Construction technology or shop
Any hands-on class.
Visual arts
Ornamental plaster is sculpture. Texture and finish are judged by eye.
Chemistry
Gypsum, lime and cement all set differently, and timing is everything.
Drywall Finisher and Plasterer has been a Red Seal trade since 2012. The Red Seal program lists it as designated in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec, and the endorsement is recognized in those provinces without retesting. In Ontario and the rest of Canada it is voluntary: you can work without a certificate, but union sites and bigger contractors want one. Quebec is the exception: there the trade, simply called Plasterer, needs a competency certificate from the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec) on construction sites.
In Quebec you take a short vocational diploma first, and the construction commission decides who can work on a site.
Secondary III courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) needs Secondary III language of instruction, second language and math, or a high school diploma. You can start at 16.
DEP in Plastering
About 8 months
Program 5392, 810 hours, which replaced the older program 5286. Taught in French. An English version (5892) is announced but not offered yet.
Apprentice competency certificate
Weeks
From the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec). You need the DEP, an employer who guarantees 150 hours of work within 3 months, the 30 hour site safety course and a $100 fee.
Work as an apprentice
About 2 to 3 years
Three periods of 2,000 hours, 6,000 in all. DEP hours count one and a half times, so the diploma covers 1,215 hours of it.
Qualification exam
End of apprenticeship
3 hours, 60 questions, 60% to pass. Half the marks are on joint taping, the rest on stucco, acrylic systems and restoration work.
Red Seal
Optional
Quebec is part of the Red Seal program for this trade, under the title Plasterer. It makes it simpler to work in the other provinces that designate the trade.
Figures from the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec) trade sheet, which rates the job outlook as excellent.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Ornamental and heritage plaster
Cornices, medallions and restoring lath-and-plaster in old homes, theatres and churches. Rare skills.
Stucco and EIFS (exterior insulation and finish systems)
Exterior wall finishes. Big in western Canada.
Fireproofing and acoustic spray
Commercial and industrial work with specialized equipment.
Red Seal endorsement
One extra exam, recognized in the six provinces that designate the trade.
Pre-apprenticeship program
A college semester in drywall and plaster gets you sponsored faster.
Driver's licence
You move between jobs with a van full of tools.
Working at heights and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials training)
One-day courses employers expect.
Painting or drywall experience
The trades overlap, and many crews do all three.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start at 7am. Mask and prep the room, mix a batch of plaster, then work fast because it sets in under an hour. Trowel a base coat, then a finish coat, working off stilts on ceilings. On a commercial job you might be spraying fireproofing or hanging a suspended plaster ceiling. On a heritage job you are repairing a cracked 1890s cornice by hand. Sand, clean tools, done by 3:30pm.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Quebec's construction commission counted 4,116 plasterers working on sites in 2025, and only 354 new apprentices that year. It rates the job outlook as excellent.
Job Bank counts about 27,500 drywall finishers and plasterers in Canada in 2023. 28% of them are 50 or older.
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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