Cut, bend and install the ducts, roofing and metal that make buildings breathe. A licensed trade in Ontario with a 5-year apprenticeship.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Journeyperson
$68,000
1st-year apprentice
$45,000
Union journeyperson or foreman
$95,000
Union members, for example SMART (Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers) Local 30 in Toronto, earn at the top with a pension. Non-union residential duct installers earn the least.
$18 to $24 an hour
First-year apprentice
Union apprentices start at a set percentage of the journeyperson rate and climb every year. Rates are usually highest on union commercial and industrial jobs in the big cities.
$35 to $47 an hour
About $70,000 to $95,000 a year full time
Commercial and industrial jobs pay more than residential. Overtime is common on hospital and tower projects with tight deadlines.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is a paid apprenticeship of four to five years, so there is no tuition year to fund. The low end is three cheap in school blocks, a basic kit of snips, seamers and hammers and the certificate exam. The high end is pricier blocks and a fuller tool set built up across the apprenticeship. The Canada Apprentice Loan covers up to 4,000 dollars per block interest free and EI (Employment Insurance) fills the wage gap during class, and union training centres often cover course costs outright.
The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant and Apprenticeship Completion Grant closed on March 31, 2025; check the Job Bank site for what is current. Union training centres often cover course costs.
Union pension and benefits
SMART (Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers) locals run defined-benefit pensions and full health coverage.
Overtime at time and a half or double time
Travel and living-out allowances
On industrial jobs away from home.
Shop and field options
Fabricate indoors in winter, install on site in summer. Many companies let you move between the two.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A 5-year apprenticeship in Ontario, about 4 years in most other provinces.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 with math. Geometry matters more here than in any other construction trade. OYAP (Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program) lets Ontario students start in high school.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A sheet metal or mechanical contractor, or apply to a union local such as SMART (Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers) Local 30 in Toronto.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With Skilled Trades Ontario, or your provincial trades authority. In Ontario you must be registered to legally work in the trade.
Work and study
5 years in Ontario
9,000 hours in Ontario: 8,280 on the job plus 720 in school, taken as three college or training-centre blocks of about 8 weeks. Pattern layout, fabrication, welding, installation and reading mechanical drawings.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. The Red Seal endorsement lets you work in any province.
Math
Geometry and trigonometry. You turn 3D shapes into flat patterns every day.
Drafting or technological design
Reading mechanical drawings is half the job.
Shop classes
Metalwork and welding.
Physics
Airflow and pressure are why ducts are shaped the way they are.
In Ontario, sheet metal work is a compulsory trade: you must be a registered apprentice or hold a Certificate of Qualification from Skilled Trades Ontario to do the work, and employers can be fined for using unlicensed people. It is also a compulsory certification trade in Alberta. The Red Seal endorsement, earned by passing the interprovincial exam, lets you move between provinces without re-testing.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Welding tickets from the CWB (Canadian Welding Bureau)
Stainless and aluminum welding for kitchen exhaust, hospital and food-plant duct.
Architectural sheet metal
Standing-seam metal roofing, copper and zinc cladding, flashing. Skilled, visible work that specialty roofers pay well for.
Air balancing and testing
Measuring and adjusting airflow after install. A path toward technician and estimator jobs.
Foreman and estimator roles
Running crews or pricing jobs from drawings, often the next step after 10 years in the field.
Comfort with heights
Rooftop units and ceiling duct on lifts and scaffolds.
Driver's licence
Sites change every few months.
Working at heights and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials) certificates
One-day courses every site requires.
Spatial thinking
If you can picture a shape from a drawing, this trade will suit you.
Some sheet metal workers stay in the shop full time, running plasma cutters, brakes and coil lines to build duct and fittings from drawings. Indoors, steady hours, no weather. The rate is often a little lower than field work, and the field side has more overtime, so people choose based on the life they want.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Shop days: cut and bend duct and fittings on a plasma table, shear and brake, then seam and assemble them. Field days: on a construction site by 7am, hanging duct runs from the ceiling on a scissor lift, fitting them to rooftop units and diffusers, sealing joints, reading the mechanical drawings to stay clear of pipes and wires. Roofing crews spend the day outside fitting metal panels and flashing. Loud, dusty and physical, with a lot of overhead work.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The copper roofs on Canada's Parliament buildings are sheet metal work. Architectural sheet metal workers cut and fit every panel, and the copper turns green over decades.
Pattern development, drawing a 3D fitting flat so it can be cut and folded, is the same geometry you learn in high school. Sheet metal workers use it daily, on paper and on the computer.
Every hospital, office tower and mall has kilometres of duct hidden above the ceiling. If it is wrong, the building is stuffy, loud or unhealthy, and nobody can see why.
At about 9,000 hours, sheet metal is one of the longest apprenticeships in Ontario, as long as electrician and plumber and longer than most trades.
Last checked September 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.