Build machines that sense, move and decide. Mostly code, some hardware, and no separate licence box for it.
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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 $95,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $62,000 at the lower end to about $151,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$37,800 to $75,000 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.
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
$95,000
Lower end
$62,000
Upper end
$151,000
Job Bank's national figures for robotics engineers, who it counts with mechanical engineers, 2023 to 2024: a median of $45.67 an hour, about $95,000 a year at 40 hours a week, with a lower end of $30 and an upper end of $72.49 an hour. Computer engineers have a median of $52.50 an hour, about $109,000.
$52.88 an hour
The Job Bank median in Alberta, the highest of any province
Saskatchewan is $50 and Ontario $46.42. Manitoba is lowest at $42.82. New grads usually start as an EIT (engineer-in-training) or robotics developer.
Roughly, all in
$37,800 to $75,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Robotics is not its own licence, it is the same accredited engineering degree as any other branch, so the cost matches. The low end is a four year degree at a cheaper university, the EIT (Engineer in Training) years and the licence fees at the end. The high end is a higher fee program plus the professional practice exam, the P.Eng (Professional Engineer) application and parts for your own projects. Yearly dues of roughly 300 to 500 dollars continue for your whole career, and nearly all the robotics specific learning is online at no cost.
Robotics runs on the same accredited degree as any engineer, so the costs match. Most of the extra learning is online at no cost.
Health and dental
Stock options
At startups. Worth something only if the company is.
Hybrid schedules
For software-heavy roles.
Pension
At automakers, universities and government labs.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Degree, supervised experience, exam, licence. The licence is optional in practice for many robotics jobs.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Advanced Functions, Calculus, Physics and Chemistry are required for admission. Mechatronics programs want marks in the 90s.
Accredited engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
Mechatronics at Waterloo, McMaster, Ontario Tech or Simon Fraser, or robotics engineering at Sherbrooke. Mechanical, electrical or computer engineering with a robotics option works just as well.
Engineer-in-training
About 4 years (2 in Quebec)
Register as an engineer-in-training (EIT) with your provincial regulator. Robotics is not a separate discipline, so your experience counts under mechanical, electrical or software.
Professional practice exam
During your EIT years
A law and ethics exam, written during your first years of work.
P.Eng (professional engineer) licence
After 4 years (2 in Quebec)
Many robotics jobs never require it, but you need it to call yourself an engineer.
Calculus and Advanced Functions
Required.
Physics
Required.
Computer science
Python or C++ before university is a real advantage.
Technology or shop
Build things. Robotics is hands and code.
Only licensed professional engineers can use the title. But no province has a robotics discipline, so you earn your P.Eng (professional engineer) through the mechanical, electrical or software work you do as an engineer-in-training (EIT). Many robotics jobs, especially software ones, never require it, which is why the title robotics developer exists. Regulators: Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), APEGA (Alberta's regulator), Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC). Ontario closed its engineer-in-training program to new applicants in 2023: there you work, log your 4 years of experience and then apply.
Ontario
Waterloo, McMaster and Ontario Tech (mechatronics), Toronto (mechanical or computer engineering with a robotics minor).
Quebec
Sherbrooke (robotics engineering), Polytechnique Montréal, McGill.
BC (British Columbia)
Simon Fraser (mechatronic systems, Surrey campus), UBC (University of British Columbia) mechanical with a mechatronics option.
Alberta
Alberta and Calgary, mechanical with a mechatronics option.
Quebec students reach university after a 2 year CEGEP (public college) diploma, Sherbrooke has a full robotics engineering degree, and the title engineer belongs to members of the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, the Quebec order of engineers).
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Take Secondary V math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence, plus Secondary V chemistry and physics. All three are required for the Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies).
Science DEC at a CEGEP
2 years
The 2 year Science program (200.B1). In English at Dawson and the other English colleges. Engineering schools look for its calculus, physics and chemistry courses and your R score (the Quebec college ranking mark).
Bachelor's in robotics engineering
5 years with co-op
Université de Sherbrooke's génie robotique (robotics engineering), in French: 120 credits over 5 years, including five paid 4 month work terms. Other routes are listed below.
Become a CPI (candidate to the engineering profession)
Before or right after graduating
Apply to the order once you have 60 university credits or your degree, $180. Joining the program costs $520 plus tax, half price within 6 months of graduating.
24 months of supervised work, then the exam
At least 2 years, at most 5
Work under an engineer you declare to the order. Paid internships done after 60 credits can count. Add 25 to 30 hours of online training ($345) and a multiple choice exam ($285, 60% to pass).
Show French, get the permit
End of the program
A Quebec high school diploma counts, even from an English school. Otherwise you pass the 3 hour exam of the Office québécois de la langue française (the Quebec French language office), which costs nothing. Then the order issues your permit.
Concordia University, in English
Mechanical Engineering with the Systems and Mechatronics elective group, which includes mechatronics, microcontrollers and control system design.
ÉTS (École de technologie supérieure), in French
Génie de la production automatisée (automated production engineering), with robotics and mechatronics among its themes and three paid 4 month internships.
Starting from a technical DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
ÉTS admits many technical DECs directly into automated production engineering, including the electronics programs (243) and Computer Science Technology (420.B0).
In Quebec, a job title with the word engineer in it, such as robotics engineer, is only for members of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (the Quebec order of engineers). The order says students and candidates still in its admission program cannot use one either. Until you hold the permit, pick a title like robotics designer.
Things you don't need, but that help.
ROS (Robot Operating System)
The open-source software most research and warehouse robots run on. Learn it before you graduate.
Machine learning and computer vision
Robots that see and learn.
PLC (programmable logic controller) and industrial automation
Factory robots, and the ticket into auto plants.
Master's in robotics
Toronto, Waterloo and McGill have strong labs. Needed for research jobs, not for industry.
FIRST Robotics (a high school robotics competition)
Employers and universities notice it.
A portfolio of robots you built
Code on GitHub, videos of them moving.
Co-op at a robotics company
Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal and Vancouver have clusters of them.
Soldering and 3D printing
Cheap skills that make you useful on day one.
A modern robot is mostly code. Perception, motion planning, control loops and testing take more hours than machining parts. Many robotics engineers end up with a software developer's job description, and some move fully into software. If you hate programming, robotics is not for you.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
At a robotics company: stand-up meeting at 9, then a morning debugging why a warehouse robot stops at one doorway. Pull the sensor logs, tweak the navigation code, run it in simulation, then test on the real robot in the lab. Afternoon: review a teammate's code, meet a mechanical engineer about a new gripper, write up test results. Some weeks include a trip to a customer's factory to install and tune.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Canadarm2 and the Dextre robot hand, built in Brampton, Ontario, keep the International Space Station running. They are on the back of the $5 note. Canadarm3 is being built for the Gateway station that will orbit the moon.
Clearpath Robotics was started in 2009 by four University of Waterloo engineering graduates building research robots. It grew into one of the biggest makers of self-driving warehouse robots and was bought by Rockwell Automation in 2023.
Kinova, near Montreal, builds lightweight robotic arms that mount on wheelchairs and sit in research labs around the world. Robotiq, in Lévis, makes the grippers on thousands of factory robots.
The word robot comes from a Czech word for forced labour, from a 1920 play. The first industrial robot arm went to work in 1961, unloading hot metal parts at a General Motors plant.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Engineers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in engineering.
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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