Assess, diagnose and treat mental health problems. A long road to a doctorate, then good pay and real independence.
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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.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $110,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $78,000 at the lower end to about $161,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
6 to 11 years after high school, on the usual route.
$30,000 to $122,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Good 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
$110,000
Lower end
$78,000
Upper end
$161,000
Job Bank (the Government of Canada job site) puts the national median at $52.88 an hour, about $110,000 a year at 40 hours a week, from its 2023 to 2024 figures. The range runs from $37.65 to $77.43 an hour, about $78,000 to $161,000 a year. In private practice you pay your own overhead.
$58 an hour
The Job Bank median in Alberta, the highest of any province
Ontario is $51.82 and Quebec $50. New Brunswick is lowest at $45.10. In private practice, rent, insurance and no-shows come out of your fees.
Roughly, all in
$30,000 to $122,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year psychology degree at about $7,000 a year followed by a funded PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), where tuition is covered and you receive a stipend, leaving only the national licensing exam and the first year of provincial registration. The high end is a pricier undergraduate degree plus a PsyD (Doctor of Psychology) program at $10,000 to $20,000 a year, which is rarely funded. Provincial registration runs $1,000 to $1,500 a year once you are licensed and never stops. The funded route trades tuition for roughly six years of stipend level income, which the numbers here do not show.
The undergrad is the main cost, about $28,000 to $40,000. A funded PhD means little new debt, but 6 years of low income.
Defined-benefit pension
One that pays a set amount every month for life. Hospitals, school boards and universities offer them.
Extended health and dental
Public-sector jobs. In private practice you buy your own.
Control over your schedule
Private practice psychologists set their own hours and caseload.
Clients can use insurance
Most workplace health plans cover psychologists, so private clients can afford to come.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
The full route is a doctorate. A few provinces register psychologists with a master's degree, which cuts 4 years off.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
English, biology and math. Psychology is a science degree at most universities, so keep the sciences.
Honours psychology degree
4 years
Four years. Get research experience in a professor's lab by third year and keep your GPA above 3.7. Grad school admission depends on it.
Doctorate (PhD or PsyD) in clinical or counselling psychology
5 to 7 years
Typically 5 to 7 years, with a master's earned along the way. Coursework, research, a thesis and supervised practicum hours. Admission is very competitive.
Internship
1 year
A full-time, paid year in a hospital or clinic, usually the final year of the doctorate, matched through a national system.
EPPP (the national psychology licensing exam) and registration
1 to 2 years
Write the EPPP, complete a period of supervised practice in most provinces, pass a provincial ethics exam, then register with your provincial college.
Biology
The brain is an organ. Most programs want it.
Math, especially data management
Statistics is a huge part of the degree and the research.
English
You will write reports for the rest of your career.
Chemistry
Required for a science stream at some universities.
The title psychologist is protected in every province. Ontario, BC (British Columbia), Quebec, Manitoba, New Brunswick and PEI (Prince Edward Island) require a doctorate. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador register psychologists with a master's degree. Ontario, Manitoba and PEI give master's graduates the title psychological associate instead. A doctorate transfers between provinces more easily than a master's. Psychologists in Canada cannot prescribe medication. That is a psychiatrist's job.
Clinical psychology doctorates are small programs. A few examples:
University of Toronto, Western, York, Queen's, Waterloo
Ontario
UBC (University of British Columbia), Simon Fraser
British Columbia
University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Manitoba, University of Saskatchewan
Prairies
McGill, Concordia, Université de Montréal, Dalhousie, Memorial
Quebec and Atlantic Canada
Quebec requires a doctorate to become a psychologist, and you can start it straight after a 3 year bachelor's.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
If you want to keep the science route open, take Secondary V math (Technical and Scientific, or Science), chemistry and physics.
DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year pre-university CEGEP (public college) program. At Dawson, Social Science (300.A0) has a psychology profile. Science (200.B1) is another common choice.
Bachelor's in psychology
3 years
3 years, 90 credits at Université de Montréal. Your marks here decide whether you get into a doctorate.
Doctorate in psychology
4 years or more
At least 4 years, with practicums and a full-year internship. McGill asks for at least 700 practicum hours and a 1,600 hour internship. Montréal admits students straight from the bachelor's.
Ethics course and French
Before the permit
Take an ethics course of at least 45 hours. Show French with a Quebec high school diploma, 3 years of full-time study in French, or the OQLF (Office québécois de la langue française) exam.
Permit from the order
After the doctorate
The Ordre des psychologues du Québec (the Quebec order of psychologists) issues your permit. It covers psychotherapy and assessing mental disorders, with no separate permit needed.
Since 2006 the Quebec order has required a doctorate. Psychologists who got their permit with a master's before 2006 can still practise. Recognized doctorates are offered in English at McGill and Concordia, and in French at Montréal, Laval, Sherbrooke and the Université du Québec campuses in Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Chicoutimi and Gatineau. Counting CEGEP (public college), plan on about 9 years after Secondary V.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Neuropsychology
Assessing brain injury and dementia. Extra supervised training.
Forensic psychology
Court assessments and correctional work. Correctional Service Canada is a large employer.
Child and adolescent
School boards and children's hospitals are always short of people.
Assessments for insurers and lawyers
Independent examinations. The work is adversarial.
Volunteer on a crisis or distress line
Research assistant in a psychology lab
Almost required for a funded PhD spot.
Comfort with statistics
A second language
French opens federal and Quebec jobs.
If 10 years of school is too much, a 2-year master's in counselling leads to registered psychotherapist or counselling therapist work in most provinces. Job Bank's median for psychotherapists is $34 an hour, against $52.88 for psychologists, and you cannot formally diagnose in most provinces, but you can be seeing clients 6 years after high school.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Hospital psychologist: two or three assessment or therapy sessions in the morning, a team meeting with psychiatrists and social workers, then report writing. The reports take longer than the sessions. Private practice: back-to-back 50-minute sessions, 5 or 6 a day, with notes in between. Many split the week: 3 days in a hospital, 2 days private.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counts about 24,900 psychologists in Canada in 2023, and 41% of them are 50 or older. It sees a strong risk of a shortage over 2024 to 2033.
The EPPP (the psychology licensing exam) is the same test used across the US and in every Canadian province except Quebec. It has about 225 multiple-choice questions.
Provincial health plans do not cover private psychologists. Hospital psychology costs you nothing but the waits are long. That gap is why private practices are so busy.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Mental health first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
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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