Investigate serious crimes instead of answering calls. Not an entry job: you become a police officer first, then earn your way 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
$116,000
Detective constable
$80,000
Detective sergeant or senior investigator
$139,000
Job Bank's national median for police detectives is $55.77 an hour, about $116,000 a year full time. Detectives are paid on the same grid as other officers, a rank or step above first-class constable, so the exact figure depends on the service. BC and Alberta pay at the top; overtime on major cases adds a lot.
$94,000 to $134,000
Constable pay you must reach before promotion
Vancouver constables start at $93,690 and reach $133,847 after four years. Detective ranks sit above that. Toronto and Calgary are similar.
$20,000 or more a year
Homicide and major crime units run long hours
Major investigations do not stop at the end of a shift. Ontario's public salary disclosure shows many detectives well above $150,000 with overtime.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
You become a detective by already being a salaried police officer, so the promotion itself costs nothing. Police college and the investigation courses are paid for by your service while you draw a wage, which is why the low end is zero. The high end is a university degree paid for up front, which is what Quebec expects of investigators and what some services prefer elsewhere. The real price here is years of shift work and competing internally for a limited number of seats.
You are a salaried officer the whole way. There is no tuition for becoming a detective.
Defined-benefit police pension
Retire in your 50s.
Health, dental, extended leave
Union
Police associations negotiate the grid.
More day shifts
Many investigative units work weekdays, with on-call.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Become a constable first. Then years of patrol, then selection and courses.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Then the same path as any police officer: requirements, testing, hiring, police college.
Get hired as a police officer
1 to 3 years including waiting
Testing, background, fitness, then Ontario Police College (13 weeks) or your province's academy. Quebec requires a college police diploma first.
Patrol
3 to 5 years
Job Bank lists several years as a police officer as the requirement. Most services want 3 to 5 years on the road before you can apply to investigative units.
Selection and courses
Months to a year
Apply to a unit, interview, then courses in general investigation, interviewing and major case management through your provincial police college or the Canadian Police College in Ottawa.
Detective rank
After 5 to 10 years total
Some services promote to detective constable or detective; others treat it as an assignment. Either way, seniority and results decide who stays.
A degree
Criminology, psychology, accounting for fraud, computer science for cybercrime.
Strong report writing
Investigations live or die on the paperwork.
Patience in interviews
Court experience
Testifying well matters.
Detectives are sworn police officers under provincial police acts or, in the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), federal law. There is no separate detective licence. Quebec is the exception in requiring a university credential in police investigation. Moving services usually means re-applying as an experienced officer, and investigative courses transfer informally.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Homicide and major crimes
Sex crimes and child exploitation
High demand, heavy toll.
Fraud and financial crime
Accounting skills prized.
Cybercrime
Online fraud, ransomware, hacking. The fastest growing area.
Forensic identification
Vancouver runs a 2-year understudy program in fingerprints, photography and DNA collection.
Undercover or drug unit experience
Languages
Comfort with technology
Phones and video are the evidence now.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
A homicide callout at 2am, then a day of scene work, canvassing, seizing video and interviews. Or a quieter fraud file: bank records, spreadsheets and a suspect interview you planned for a week. Every step is documented for disclosure to the defence. Court appearances, Crown meetings and case management paperwork take up a large share of most weeks.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
After a 1990s review of how police handled the Paul Bernardo investigation, Ontario made major case management mandatory for serious crimes, so different police services share information through one system.
A 1991 Supreme Court of Canada decision, Stinchcombe, requires police and prosecutors to hand over all relevant evidence to the defence. Detectives spend a large share of their time organizing that disclosure.
Vancouver's forensic identification unit trains officers for two years as understudies in evidence collection, fingerprints, photography and DNA before they work scenes on their own.
Quebec is the only province where police investigators need a university credential in police investigation, on top of the college police diploma every Quebec officer needs.
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.