Design studies, measure things properly, and say how sure you actually are.
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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 $106,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $65,000 at the lower end to about $161,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 6 years after high school, on the usual route.
$28,000 to $72,000 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.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$106,000
Lower end
$65,000
Upper end
$161,000
Job Bank's national median is $51 an hour, about $106,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The low is $31.25 and the high is $77.33 an hour. Job Bank groups statisticians with mathematicians and actuaries, so the figures cover all three. Government is a common first employer.
$67,476 to $80,814 a year
New methodologists usually start at level 2 of the mathematical statistics group, at rates from October 1, 2024
Promotion to level 3, at $82,148 to $96,779, typically comes after 16 to 24 months, based on performance. A bachelor's degree is enough to apply.
$56.41 an hour in Manitoba
The highest provincial median on Job Bank, about $117,000 a year at 40 hours a week
Quebec is next at $51.98 and Ontario at $51.28. Newfoundland and Labrador is lowest at $40.11. Senior biostatistician and lead methodologist roles sit near the top of the range, and most want a master's degree.
Roughly, all in
$28,000 to $72,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year statistics degree at a lower tuition province, with no software to buy because the main tools, R and Python, cost nothing. The high end adds a master's degree, which most research and senior government analyst jobs expect. Co-op work terms inside a statistics degree often cover a large share of the tuition, and master's students are frequently paid a teaching assistant stipend, so what people actually pay is usually well under the high figure. Professional accreditation through the Statistical Society of Canada is optional and charged yearly.
One of the cheapest research careers to enter. Co-op work terms in a statistics degree often cover most of the tuition.
Government pension
A large share of Canadian statisticians work for federal or provincial agencies with defined-benefit pensions, which pay a set amount every month for life.
Paid co-op terms
Statistics students are heavily recruited for work terms, including by Statistics Canada.
Remote-friendly
Most of the job is analysis, and most of it can be done from anywhere.
Demand across sectors
Health, insurance, government, technology and agriculture all need the same skills.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A bachelor's degree gets you in. A master's degree is the standard ticket for senior research work.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus, advanced functions and data management if your school offers it. Add computer science.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Statistics, or mathematics with a statistics major. Pick a co-op program if you can, since work terms decide your first job.
Learn the tools properly
During the degree
R, Python and databases. Employers test this, not your grade in theory courses.
Master's degree
1 to 2 years
Statistics or biostatistics. This is what most postings above the entry level ask for, and many programs are 12 to 16 months.
Accreditation, if you want it
Later, optional
The Statistical Society of Canada grants the Professional Statistician (P.Stat) designation after a degree plus several years of practice.
Calculus and advanced functions
Required for entry to a statistics degree.
Data management
Ontario and some other provinces offer a course that is essentially first-year statistics.
Computer science
You will write code every day of this career.
Biology or social science
Statisticians are hired to work on someone else's subject, so knowing one helps.
You do not need a licence to work as a statistician in Canada. The Statistical Society of Canada offers a voluntary accreditation, Professional Statistician (P.Stat), for people with a statistics degree and several years of supervised practice. It matters most in consulting and expert-witness work, and few other employers ask for it. Your degree, your code and your portfolio of analyses do the real work.
After 2 years at a CEGEP (public college), a Quebec statistics degree takes about 3 years, and Quebec has its own voluntary title next to the national one.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V physics, chemistry and math in the TS (Technical and Scientific) or SN (Science) sequence. These are the entry courses for the CEGEP (public college) science program.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies) (200.B1)
2 years
2 years of calculus, linear algebra and the sciences. Université Laval also accepts the Science, Computer Science and Mathematics DEC, or any DEC plus the college math courses.
Bachelor's in statistics
3 to 3.5 years
Université Laval's statistics and data science degree is 90 credits over 3 to 3.5 years, with up to three paid internships of 12 to 15 weeks. Taught in French.
Master's degree
1 to 2 years
Statistics or biostatistics. What most postings above entry level ask for, in Quebec as elsewhere.
A title, if you want one
Later, optional
P.Stat (Professional Statistician) from the Statistical Society of Canada, or stat. ASSQ (the Quebec association's title) with at least 24 university credits in statistics. Neither is required.
Université Laval, Quebec City
Statistics and data science in French, with a statistics or a data science concentration and a final project on real data.
Université de Montréal
A 90 credit mathematics degree with a statistics orientation, in French, with a co-op option.
Concordia University, Montreal
Statistics in English, honours (66 credits) or specialization (60 credits), with an optional co-op of paid 12 to 16 week work terms.
Quebec has no ordre professionnel (professional order) for statisticians, so there is no permit and no French exam to work. The Association des statisticiennes et statisticiens du Québec (the Quebec association of statisticians) is a voluntary group, not an order. Members with at least 24 university credits in statistics can use the title stat. ASSQ (for the association's initials). Actuaries are the neighbouring job that Quebec law does mention.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Biostatistics
Designing and analysing clinical trials. Regulated, careful work.
Survey methodology
Sampling and weighting for national surveys. Statistics Canada is a major employer of this skill.
Machine learning
Statistics is the honest half of this field. Statisticians who code move into it easily.
Actuarial work
A related path with its own professional exams.
R and Python, to a real standard
Not a course grade. Build and share something.
SQL (a database query language)
Nearly every job asks for it and almost no degree teaches it well.
A subject you know well
Health, sport, climate or economics. Statistics is always about something.
Plain-language writing
Your analysis is useless if the decision maker cannot follow it.
Statistics Canada runs the Census of Population every five years, and the work around it runs for years before and after. Each cycle brings term and student jobs, and Statistics Canada also recruits statistics graduates every year through its own methodologist program. Co-op terms there are a common way for a Canadian statistics student to get real government experience on a resume.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Meet the person with the question, usually a doctor, policy analyst or product manager. Work out what they can actually measure. Clean the data, which takes longer than anything else. Fit models, check assumptions, and write up what the result does and does not show. Push back when someone wants a stronger claim than the data supports. That last part is most of the job.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Statistics Canada reached a 98% collection response rate in the 2021 Census of Population, and over 84% of households answered online. Statisticians spend years designing the questions and the sampling behind each census.
Since 2003 Health Canada has applied an international guideline, ICH (International Council for Harmonisation) E9, on how clinical trials are designed and analysed. An update on what a trial is really measuring followed in 2020. Biostatisticians do this work.
Job Bank's high figure for statisticians in Manitoba is $112.82 an hour, about $235,000 a year at 40 hours a week. That is the highest top end of any province. The national high is $77.33.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Physics, space and numbers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in science and environment.
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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