Shape how the public sees a company, a charity or a politician. Writing under pressure, every day.
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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 $74,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $43,000 at the lower end to about $119,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$8,000 to $48,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence 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
$74,000
Lower end
$43,000
Upper end
$119,000
Job Bank's national median is $35.58 an hour, about $74,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($20.50) and upper end ($57.44) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group.
$52.67 an hour
The Job Bank median in Nunavut, the highest in Canada
Among the provinces Newfoundland and Labrador ($37.18) and Ontario ($37.02) are highest, and Manitoba is lowest at $28.85. Most people start as a communications or account coordinator.
Roughly, all in
$8,000 to $48,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a two year college diploma at about $4,000 a year, which is a normal way into agency and in house communications work. The high end is a four year university degree at up to $10,000 a year, sometimes with a one year graduate certificate stacked on top. Student membership in CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society) is under $100 a year and the accreditation exam later in your career is a few hundred dollars. Unpaid or low paid internships are common at the start, so budget for a few months of thin income that these numbers do not include.
Unpaid or low-paid internships are common at the start. Budget for a few months of that.
Government pension
Federal and provincial communications jobs are unionized with defined-benefit pensions.
Health and dental
Standard at corporate and government employers. Rare when freelancing.
Remote and hybrid work
Most of the job is writing and calls, so working from home is common.
Freelance side income
Many PR (public relations) people take on extra clients for press releases and campaigns.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A degree or diploma in communications, then internships, then a job you grow into.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
English marks matter most. Join the school paper, yearbook or student council.
Post-secondary
2 to 4 years
A 4-year degree in public relations, communications or journalism, or a 2-year college diploma. Many take any degree and then a 1-year graduate certificate in PR (public relations).
Internships and volunteering
During school
Write for a charity, run social media for a club, help a campaign. Employers hire on writing samples.
Coordinator job
1 to 3 years
Drafting releases, building media lists, monitoring coverage. Expect 1 to 3 years here.
Specialist and beyond
Ongoing
Own accounts or a company's messaging. Some later earn the APR (Accredited in Public Relations) mark from CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society).
English and writing
The whole job is words. Clear, fast, correct.
Media studies
How news gets made and why.
Business or marketing
You will work for business goals.
Drama or public speaking
You will pitch, present and sometimes stand in front of cameras.
Anyone can call themselves a public relations specialist. There is no licence. The CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society) runs a voluntary APR (Accredited in Public Relations) program for experienced members, and the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) has its own certification. Employers notice these but almost never require them. Your portfolio and references matter more.
Nova Scotia
Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax offers a Bachelor of Public Relations with co-op.
Ontario
Seneca, Humber and Centennial run 1-year graduate certificates. Toronto Metropolitan University and Carleton offer communications degrees.
Quebec
In French, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) has a bachelor's and Université de Montréal a certificate. In English, McGill's School of Continuing Studies runs a certificate.
West
Mount Royal University in Calgary has a public relations degree. Kwantlen and BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) run diplomas.
Quebec adds a CEGEP (public college) step between high school and university. As elsewhere, there is no licence.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
You need the Secondary School Diploma for CEGEP. Writing in both French and English is worth practising now.
Pre-university DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year program, often Social Science (300.A1) or Arts, Literature and Communication (500.A1). It is the usual way into a Quebec university.
Bachelor's degree in French
90 credits, full or part time
UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) offers a BA (Bachelor of Arts) in strategic communication and public relations: 90 credits, with a 6 credit internship. Admission needs a DEC and a French writing test.
Or a certificate in English
Full or part time
McGill's School of Continuing Studies runs a 30 credit Certificate in Public Relations and Communication Management, on weekday evenings. It asks for a DEC.
Coordinator job
Varies
Internships and writing samples get you hired. Company posts and ads aimed at Quebec must be in French by law, so French writing matters.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Crisis communications
Handling a scandal, a recall or a lawsuit.
Investor relations
Talking to shareholders and analysts for public companies. Needs some finance knowledge.
French
Federal government and national brands need bilingual communicators.
Data and analytics
Proving that a campaign moved the numbers, not just got coverage.
APR (Accredited in Public Relations)
From CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society). Needs about 5 years of experience, a written and an oral exam.
A portfolio site
Releases, articles, campaign results. Even class projects count at the start.
Student membership in CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society)
Cheap, and the events are where junior jobs get filled.
Many PR (public relations) people spend a few years as press secretaries or communications staff for politicians. The hours are brutal and the jobs vanish after an election, but the contacts and the crisis experience open doors at agencies and big companies afterward.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning scan of the news for anything about your client or company. Then writing: a press release, a speech, a statement, a post. Calls with reporters to pitch a story or answer a question. A planning meeting for a launch or event. When something goes wrong, the day stops and you are drafting a response within the hour. Agencies juggle several clients at once. In-house teams go deep on one organization.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society) was founded in 1948, before TV (television) broadcasting started in Canada in 1952. It has local societies across the country and welcomes students as members.
The federal government is one of the largest employers of communications staff in the country. Every department, agency and minister's office has people writing and answering media questions.
Job Bank counts about 233,600 people in Canada in 2023 in the group that covers advertising, marketing and PR (public relations) specialists. Only 18% 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.
Marketing and sales first, then the rest of the field. See every career in business and money.
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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