Buy and sell stocks, bonds and currencies for a bank or investment dealer, using its money and its rules.
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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
$150,000
First years
$100,000
Vice president
$300,000
Total pay, salary plus bonus, on Toronto bank trading desks, as reported by employees on Blind, a forum for verified workers. Vice presidents report $130,000 to $140,000 base plus an 80% to 100% bonus, about $250,000 to $300,000. Treat these as reports, not a survey.
About $85,100 median
Job Bank: securities agents, investment dealers and brokers
This group mixes bank traders with retail brokers and dealers, and leaves out much of the bonus. Alberta has the highest provincial median, $57.29 an hour, about $114,600, because Calgary's energy companies trade oil, gas and power.
Analyst, associate, director, managing director
The usual ladder at a bank's capital markets arm
Base salary rises with each step, but the bonus changes most. It depends on what your desk made, so two traders at the same level can be paid very differently. A bad year can mean almost no bonus.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year degree at typical Canadian tuition, with co-op terms helping to pay for it. The high end is a pricier business or engineering program. The licence exams CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) requires come after a dealer hires you, and the employer usually pays for them, so they are not counted. No paid trading course is needed.
Apply for your province's student aid. Co-op terms at a bank cut the cost and are the best way in.
Benefits are near universal
Job Bank reports 89% of workers in this group get at least one non-wage benefit.
Bank pension and share plans
The big banks match some of what you put toward retirement or bank shares.
Paid exams and training
Dealers sponsor and pay for licence exams.
Job cuts in waves
Desks shrink when markets are quiet or software replaces people.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A degree, a co-op or summer internship, then CIRO approval once a dealer hires you.
High school
Grade 12
Math, data management and economics. Practise mental arithmetic.
Bachelor's degree
4 to 5 years
Commerce, economics, math, computer science or engineering.
Co-op or internship
1 to 4 work terms
Bank capital markets arms hire most graduates from their interns.
CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) approval
First few months
Your dealer sponsors you as a trader and you pass the required exams.
Trading on your own book
1 to 3 years
After training and supervision, you get your own risk limits.
Flow trader at a bank
Trades with the bank's clients, such as pension funds and insurers.
Sales trader
Takes client orders and works them into the market.
Market maker
Quotes buy and sell prices all day and earns the small gap between them.
Pension fund trader
Places trades for huge Canadian pension plans, trying not to move the price.
Advanced functions and calculus
Fast, confident math comes up in every interview.
Data management
Probability: trading is deciding with odds, not certainty.
Economics
Interest rates, the dollar and oil prices move Canadian markets.
Computer science
Most trading runs through software.
Trading at an investment dealer is a registered job. You need approval from CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) in the trader category, and you must follow its market rules, called UMIR (Universal Market Integrity Rules). Since January 1, 2026, CIRO uses a new proficiency model, and the old Trader Training Course no longer counts. Trading your own money from home needs no licence, and that is a different thing.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Fast mental math
Some trading firms start with a timed arithmetic test.
Probability and betting games
Interviews may ask you to make markets on dice or cards.
Coding
Python is expected on many desks.
A bank co-op term
The most common route onto a Toronto trading floor.
French
Montreal's banks, pension funds and dealers work in French.
Knowing one market well
Canadian bonds, stocks, currencies or energy each work differently.
Calm under pressure
Prices move while you think.
The CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) program
More useful on the buy side than on a bank desk.
Social media trading is usually day trading: your own money, your own risk, often with a course or signal group sold to you. Most people who try it lose money. A securities trader works for a dealer, trades the firm's money inside strict limits, is supervised by CIRO (Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization) rules, and is paid a salary. The job, the risk and the odds are not the same.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You arrive before 7 to read overnight news from Asia and Europe and check positions. The Toronto open at 9:30 is the busiest hour: clients call, prices jump and orders fill your screens. Midday is quieter, so you review risk and talk with research. The close at 4 is busy again. Then you check that every trade matched and plan for tomorrow.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Toronto Stock Exchange closed its trading floor on April 23, 1997 and went fully electronic, years before New York's exchanges cut back their floors.
In 2000, Goldman Sachs had 600 cash equity traders at its New York headquarters. By 2017 it had 2, backed by about 200 engineers running automated trading.
Alberta has the highest provincial median for securities traders on Job Bank, about $114,600 a year, well above Ontario's $87,200.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Money and finance first, then the rest of the field. See all business and money careers.
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.