Ultrasound scanning, from pregnancies to hearts. Good job prospects and good pay, but hard to get into and hard on the body.
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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 $87,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $73,000 at the lower end to about $106,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 5 years after high school, on the usual route.
$10,000 to $50,000 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, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good 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
$87,000
Lower end
$73,000
Upper end
$106,000
Job Bank's national figures for medical sonographers: $34.90 an hour at the low end, $42 at the median and $51 at the high end. That is about $73,000, $87,000 and $106,000 a year at 40 hours a week. Hospital jobs are unionized and paid on a grid.
$46 an hour in Alberta
The highest provincial median on Job Bank, about $96,000 a year at 40 hours a week
British Columbia ($44.41) and Saskatchewan ($44.07) come next. New Brunswick is the lowest, at $37.23, and Quebec's median is $38.50. Job Bank does not publish a starting rate.
77.5%
The share of sonographers in Canada who get at least one benefit on top of their wage
From Job Bank. Hospital jobs bring a pension and health plans. Short contracts in rural and northern clinics are paid contract by contract, with no official survey of the rates.
Roughly, all in
$10,000 to $50,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a two year direct-entry sonography program at a lower tuition Ontario college, the Sonography Canada exam and your first year of provincial registration. The high end assumes your program requires a prior health credential first, which adds two or three years of tuition before you even start, or a four year degree. From January 2027 the exam becomes a single exam per specialty at 1,100 dollars plus a 200 dollar application fee, replacing the separate core exam. Registration costs about 695 dollars every year in Ontario, and placements are unpaid.
Roughly $10,000 to $50,000 in all. A 2 year Ontario college program is about $8,000 to $23,000 in tuition. If you need a prior health credential first, budget for that too. From January 2027 the core exam folds into a single exam per specialty at $1,100 plus the application fee. Placements are unpaid.
A defined-benefit pension in hospitals
One that pays a set amount every month for life. HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) in Ontario. Private clinics usually offer a group plan instead.
Extended health and dental
On-call pay
Hospital sonographers cover evenings and weekends for emergencies.
Paid vacation and sick days
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two doors in: a direct-entry program, or a shorter program after another health credential. Quebec has its own route: tap Quebec route to add it.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Grade 12 physics, biology, math and English.
Get in
0 to 4 years
Some programs take you straight from high school into a 2 to 3 year diploma. Many others require a prior health diploma or degree, or 2 years of university science, and then run 1 to 2 years. Competition is intense either way.
Sonography program
1 to 3 years
Physics of ultrasound, anatomy, scanning labs, then months of full-time unpaid clinical placement. You learn generalist scanning, or cardiac, or both.
Write the Sonography Canada exams
During or after the program
A core exam plus a specialty exam, merging into one exam per specialty from January 2027. Passing gives you the CRGS (Canadian Registered Generalist Sonographer) or CRCS (Canadian Registered Cardiac Sonographer) credential.
Register where required
A few weeks
In Ontario that is the CMRITO (College of Medical Radiation and Imaging Technologists of Ontario). Elsewhere, employers require the Sonography Canada credential.
Physics
Required. Ultrasound is sound wave physics.
Biology
Required. You need to know anatomy cold.
Math
Any Grade 12 math.
English
You write a preliminary report on every scan.
Anything that builds 3D thinking
Art, drafting, even video games. You build a 3D picture from 2D slices.
Programs are accredited nationally. Some examples:
Mohawk, Conestoga, Georgian and St. Clair colleges
Ontario. All four take students from high school.
BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology)
British Columbia
NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology)
Alberta
Dalhousie, a 4 year degree
Nova Scotia
Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia require sonographers to register with a college or order, for example the CMRITO (College of Medical Radiation and Imaging Technologists of Ontario). Elsewhere there is no licence, but almost every employer requires the national Sonography Canada credential and continuing education to keep it. That makes the credential portable across the country. A sonographer does not diagnose. A radiologist or cardiologist reads the images and signs the report.
Quebec trains sonographers in a 3 year college program, and you need a permit from the OTIMROEPMQ (the Quebec order of medical imaging technologists) to work.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary IV math (the Cultural, Social and Technical option is enough) and Secondary IV Science and Technology or Applied Science and Technology. Missing two of these means your application is not considered.
Medical Ultrasound Technology DEC (Diploma of College Studies, 142.G0)
3 years
A 3 year CEGEP (public college) program with clinical courses in hospitals. In French at Ahuntsic, Rimouski and Sainte-Foy. In English only at Dawson, which takes about 24 students a year.
Open a student file with the order
Last year of the program
Create a student and future member profile on the OTIMROEPMQ (Quebec order of medical imaging technologists) portal. You need it to register for the admission exam.
Pass the admission exam
After graduating
Online, in French or English, in June or November. 150 multiple choice questions over about 7 hours, pass mark 60%. $836 plus tax, with 4 tries in all.
Work while you wait
Up to 1 year
With a job offer, a CEPT (candidate to the profession) attestation, issued at no charge, lets you work with some limits until you pass, for up to 1 year after your diploma or until 2 failed tries.
Show French, then take the oath
A few weeks
The permit needs proof of French, such as a Quebec high school diploma, or the OQLF (Quebec French language office) exam. Then you pay your dues, join the order's roll and take the oath.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Cardiac (echocardiography)
Scanning hearts. Its own credential, and cardiology labs are always hiring.
Vascular
Blood vessels and blood flow. The CRVS (Canadian Registered Vascular Sonographer) credential.
High-risk obstetrics
Detailed fetal scans in maternal-fetal medicine units.
Musculoskeletal
Tendons, joints and sports injuries. Growing in private clinics.
ARDMS (American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography)
The US credential. Opens jobs south of the border.
A prior health credential
X-ray technologists and nurses have an edge in admissions.
Comfort with physics
Good hands and posture habits
You will need them: strain injuries to the shoulder, wrist and neck are a known risk of the job.
Volunteer in a hospital
Shows you can handle sick and anxious people.
Ultrasound machine companies hire experienced sonographers to demo equipment and train clinic staff. Regular hours and a lot of travel. There is no official pay figure for these jobs. It is also a way out of scanning for people whose shoulders have had enough.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
A full list of patients in a dim room. A 20-week pregnancy scan, a gallbladder, a thyroid, a leg with a suspected clot, then an urgent call from the emergency department. Each scan is 20 to 45 minutes with the probe pressed hard against the patient and your arm held out. You take the images, write a preliminary report, and hand it to the radiologist. When the patient asks what you saw, you are not allowed to say.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
Canada had about 9,600 medical sonographers in 2023, and 37% of them were 50 or older, so many will retire in the next 15 years.
From January 2027 Sonography Canada drops its separate core exam. Each specialty (generalist, cardiac, vascular) gets one exam of 180 to 210 questions, at $1,100 plus a $200 application fee.
Ultrasound sends high-frequency sound into the body and listens for the echoes, the way bats and submarines find things. No radiation is involved, which is why it is the go-to scan in pregnancy.
Pregnancy scans are the famous part, but sonographers also scan hearts, livers, kidneys, thyroids and blood vessels, and guide needles for biopsies.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Diagnostics and lab first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
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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