A licence you can get in weeks, a job you can get at 18, and a way into policing if you want 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 $44,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $34,000 at the lower end to about $65,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 1 year after high school, on the usual route.
$205 to $450 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a licence, certificate or registration in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Yukon. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited 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
$44,000
Lower end
$34,000
Upper end
$65,000
Job Bank's national median is $21 an hour, about $44,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($16.55) and upper end ($31.45) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. That page is titled for guards handling explosives, but the median matches the general guard rate: Alberta's alis service reports an average of $21.49 an hour for security guards in 2023.
$19.42 an hour
Average starting wage in Alberta, 2023 Alberta Wage and Salary Survey
Many first jobs are static guard posts at night, often part time. The median starting wage in the same survey is $18 an hour.
$65,199 a year
Average for security guards in health care in Alberta, 2023
In the same Alberta survey, guards in public administration averaged $59,289 a year and those in retail $43,260.
Roughly, all in
$205 to $450
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Few licensed jobs cost less to enter. The low end is a basic 40 hour course, the provincial licence fee and a criminal record check at your local police service. The high end is the same three items from pricier providers in a province that charges more. The licence fee is not refunded if your application is refused, so sort out any record issues before you pay it.
About $205 to $450 in all, and a few weeks, is the whole entry cost.
Flexible and part-time shifts
Easy to combine with school, which is why so many students do it.
Uniform and equipment provided
Some benefits, best at the bigger employers
Job Bank reports that 79% of guards get at least one non-wage benefit. Hospitals, transit agencies and unionized sites are the likeliest to add full health coverage and a pension.
Paid downtime
Many posts are quiet. People study for other qualifications on shift.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Weeks, not years. The licence is the only real gate.
Be 18 and eligible to work
Right away
Ontario requires you to be at least 18, legally entitled to work in Canada, and clear of the offences listed in its licensing regulation.
Take the basic training course
1 to 3 weeks
An approved provider teaches the legal powers of a guard, use of force, report writing, emergency response and first aid. Usually about 40 hours, in class or online.
Pass the provincial test
1 day
Ontario issues a training completion number, then you write the mandatory test for security guards.
Get your criminal record check and apply
2 to 6 weeks
Ontario charges $80 for the licence and it expires two birthdays after it is issued.
Get hired and trained on site
Days
Agencies hire constantly. Site-specific training happens in your first days.
English
Incident reports get read by lawyers, insurers and police.
Law or civics
Knowing what you can and cannot legally do keeps you out of court.
A second language
Valuable in big-city sites and hospitals.
Staying calm
The whole job is de-escalating people who are angry, drunk or in crisis.
You cannot legally be paid to guard property in any province or in Yukon without a licence. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no security licence. Ontario licenses under its private security legislation through the Ministry, Alberta under the Security Services and Investigators Act, and every other province has its own equivalent. Licences do not transfer: moving provinces means applying again. The licence is also the thing you can lose, which is why use of force and reporting rules are drilled so hard in training.
In Quebec the training must be a 70 hour course at a school service centre or school board, and the licence comes from the BSP (Bureau de la sécurité privée, the private security board).
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
The licence rules do not ask for a diploma. What counts is your age, a clean record and the 70 hour course.
Take the 70 hour guarding course
70 hours
30 hours on the job and the law, 24 on emergency procedures, 16 of workplace first aid. In English, the English Montreal School Board offers it days or evenings.
Turn 18 and keep a clean record
Before applying
The licence needs good character and no conviction linked to private security work unless pardoned. You also need citizenship, permanent residence or a work permit.
Apply for the BSP agent licence
Weeks
In the guarding category, with your course certificate. In 2026 a new licence costs $69.50 plus $119 for the security check.
Keep it active
Every year
Every year you pay $69.50 in licence fees plus $18 for ongoing security monitoring.
In Quebec, pay, hours, holidays and benefits for security guards are set by the Décret sur les agents de sécurité (the security guards decree), a collective agreement given the force of law. The Comité paritaire des agents de sécurité (the security guards joint committee) enforces it, so every agency has to pay at least the decree rate.
Things you don't need, but that help.
First aid at a higher level
Some Alberta employers ask for CPR Level 3 with AED (automated external defibrillator) training.
Use of force and handcuff certification
Required for hospital, courthouse and transit work.
Driver's licence and clean abstract
Needed for mobile patrol jobs, which drive between sites.
Private investigator licence
Same licensing system in most provinces, different work.
Police foundations diploma
Common for people using guard work as a stepping stone.
Mental health first aid
A large share of incidents are crises, not crimes.
Computer and camera system skills
Control room jobs are indoors and warmer.
Plenty of police officers, corrections officers, border officers and private investigators started as guards. It pays while you study, it gives you real reports and incidents to talk about in an interview, and it shows a hiring panel you can handle conflict. If that is your plan, choose posts with real incidents over quiet ones, and keep your reports clean.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Sign in, take a radio, read the pass-down log from the last shift. Then patrols on a set route, checking doors and cameras, logging everything. Most of a shift is uneventful. The rest is the opposite: a shoplifter, a medical emergency, a fight in a parking garage, someone sleeping in a stairwell in winter. You write it all up before you go home.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counts about 104,200 people working as security guards and in related jobs in Canada in 2023, against about 79,800 police officers. Alberta alone counts about 14,525 in the guard group.
Job Bank puts the median retirement age for security guards at 68, against 58 for police officers. About 35% of guards are 50 or older, so many people do this job late in their working life.
An Ontario security guard licence expires two birthdays after the day it is issued, so the first one lasts between one and two years depending on when you apply.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Military and security first, then the rest of the field. See every career in law and public safety.
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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