Build apps, websites and systems. No licence required, many roads in.
Click through it
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 $100,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $62,000 at the lower end to about $160,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 5 years after high school, on the usual route.
$1,000 to $53,000 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
$100,000
Lower end
$62,000
Upper end
$160,000
Job Bank's national figures for software developers and programmers, 2023 to 2024: a median of $48.08 an hour, about $100,000 a year at 40 hours a week, with a lower end of $30 and an upper end of $76.92 an hour. These are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group.
$69,361 a year
The first step of the federal government's IT (information technology) grid, from December 22, 2024
That is the entry level for developers in the federal public service, with a raise each year up the grid. Private companies set their own pay, and co-op students are paid for their work terms before they graduate.
$52.40 an hour
The median in British Columbia, about $109,000 a year, the highest in Canada
Alberta and Ontario are next at $48.08. Prince Edward Island is the lowest, at $38.46. Stock options and bonuses are not in these wage figures.
Roughly, all in
$1,000 to $53,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a self taught route on no-cost material with a few paid courses, which genuinely does get people hired but takes longer and needs a portfolio to prove it. The high end is four years of computer science tuition at one of the pricier schools, such as Waterloo. A two or three year Ontario college diploma sits in between at roughly 5,500 to 10,500 dollars in tuition. Coding bootcamps vary widely in price. These are alternatives, not steps, so you pick one rather than paying for all of them.
Roughly $1,000 to $53,000 in all, depending on the route. Waterloo charges an Ontario student $13,126 for a first year of computer science; the University of Toronto charges about $6,100.
Remote or hybrid work
More common here than in almost any other field.
Stock options or RSUs (restricted stock units, company shares you receive over time)
Standard at startups and large tech companies.
Learning budgets and conferences
Flexible hours
Output matters more than clock time at most shops.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no single required route, but this is the most common one. Quebec has its own route: tap Quebec route to add it.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Take every math you can. Advanced Functions and Calculus are required for most computer science (CS) degrees. Computer science courses help but are not required.
Computer science or software engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
Four years. Choose a school with co-op: Waterloo, Toronto, UBC (University of British Columbia), McGill, Concordia and many others alternate study and paid work terms.
Internships and side projects
During school
Employers care more about what you have built than your grades. A GitHub with real projects matters.
First job
Final year
New grad hiring happens in the fall for the following summer. Apply early.
Plenty of working developers took none of the steps above.
College diploma
2 or 3 year programs at Seneca, BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology), SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology), Algonquin and others. Very job-focused.
Bootcamp
A short, intense course of a few months. Works best if you already have a degree in something else.
Self-taught
Possible, and common. Requires a strong portfolio and a lot of discipline.
Math, physics or engineering degree
Many developers came from adjacent fields.
Anyone can call themselves a software developer. The title software engineer is legally restricted in some provinces to licensed professional engineers, which is why many companies say developer instead. In practice nobody needs a licence to write code for a living.
Quebec adds a college stage after high school. A 3 year technical DEC (Diploma of College Studies) can take you straight to work, or a 2 year DEC leads to a 3 year bachelor's.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
The Computer Science Technology program needs Secondary IV math in the Technical and Scientific or Science sequence, or Secondary V Cultural, Social and Technical math.
Computer Science Technology DEC (Diploma of College Studies, 420.B0)
3 years
A 3 year CEGEP (public college) program of 2,670 hours. In English at Dawson, Vanier, John Abbott and Heritage. No tuition for full-time Quebec residents.
Pick a college whose electives fit
Years 2 and 3
Each college chooses its own options: web, mobile, games, connected devices, or networks and servers. Most end with an internship.
Work, or keep going
After the DEC
Graduates are hired as developers. Concordia's computer science degree and the ÉTS (École de technologie supérieure) software engineering degree both accept this DEC.
Or: 2 year DEC, then a bachelor's
About 5 years in all
Do a pre-university DEC with calculus and linear algebra, then computer science. McGill credits your CEGEP year, so its degree takes 3 years. Admission ranks your R-score (CEGEP grade score).
Only members of the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, the Quebec order of engineers) may use the title "engineer" or its short forms "Eng." and "ing.". So "software engineer" is a title for members only. Misuse is fined $2,500 to $62,500 for a person. Membership needs an accredited engineering degree, such as the 4 year software engineering degree at ÉTS (École de technologie supérieure), taught in French, then at least 24 months of supervised experience, an exam and proof of French.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Cloud certifications
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. A few hundred dollars each, well regarded.
A specialty
Machine learning, security, mobile and infrastructure roles pay above generalist rates.
Open source contributions
Public proof that you can work in a real codebase.
Working for a US company remotely
Some Canadian developers earn US salaries from home.
Hackathons
No cost, fun, and a good line on a first resume.
A master's degree
Only needed for research or machine learning roles.
Public speaking or writing
Blog posts and talks build a reputation faster than you would think.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
A short morning stand-up meeting with your team, then hours of focused work: writing code, reviewing other people's code, fixing bugs, and figuring out why something broke. Some meetings with designers or product managers. Most developers work on a small piece of a much larger system and rarely build something from scratch.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The University of Waterloo calls its co-op program North America's largest. Students alternate study terms with paid work terms.
Canada had 155,700 software developers and programmers in 2023, and only 18% of them were 50 or older.
In Quebec only members of the order of engineers may use the title. Breaking the law that protects it can bring a fine of $2,500 to $62,500 for a person and $5,000 to $125,000 for a company.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Software first, then the rest of the field. See every career in tech.
Last checked November 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.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.