Cut, shape and set natural stone on walls, monuments and century-old buildings. A craft trade with a paid apprenticeship.
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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.
An apprenticeship: you are hired by a sponsor, paid while you learn on the job, and go to class for a few weeks at a time. Every fact here is from Skilled Trades Ontario (STO) and the Ontario government. See every Ontario trade side by side
You are paid from your first day. Over the 4,880 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $87,596 before tax while you train, and most sponsors pay more as your skills grow.
The trade on Skilled Trades Ontario's site(opens in a new tab)
You are paid from your first day. Over the 5,340 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $95,853 before tax while you train, and most sponsors pay more as your skills grow.
The trade on Skilled Trades Ontario's site(opens in a new tab)
Still in high school? In Grade 11 or 12, with at least 14 credits and age 15 or older, you can start an apprenticeship through co-op placements and earn credits at the same time. Ask your school's OYAP recruiter, guidance counsellor or co-op teacher. Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP)(opens in a new tab)
Not ready to find a sponsor? Free pre-apprenticeship programs (up to a year at a college or community agency, tools and books covered, with a work placement) get you ready and in front of employers. Employment Ontario helps you apply. Pre-apprenticeship training(opens in a new tab)
Ontario sets no percentage of full pay for apprentices. Your sponsor agrees your wage with you, and it can never be below the minimum wage: $17.95 an hour from 1 October 2026. Source (opens in a new tab)
The median pay is about $83,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $54,000 at the lower end to about $101,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
3 to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,800 to $7,700 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 New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec. 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
$83,000
Lower end
$54,000
Upper end
$101,000
Job Bank's national median is $40 an hour, about $83,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The low is $25.78 and the high is $48.78 an hour. Job Bank pools stonemasons with bricklayers under one code, so these are masonry-wide figures. Heritage and carving work is not measured separately.
$27.96 to $30.11 an hour
First-period apprentice bricklayer-mason on Quebec construction sites, by sector (August 2026)
These are the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec) collective agreement rates. Apprentice pay is a share of the journeyperson rate and rises with each level you pass. Many people start as a mason's labourer or on a landscaping crew building stone walls, which is paid too. In Ontario no share is set in law: your sponsor agrees your rate, often in a union or company agreement, and it can never be below the minimum wage.
$41.85 an hour in Alberta
The highest provincial median on Job Bank for masonry, about $87,000 a year at 40 hours a week
Quebec is next at $40.89. Nova Scotia is lowest at $31. On Quebec construction sites a journeyperson bricklayer-mason earns $46.59 to $50.18 an hour under the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec) agreements (August 2026). Many stonemasons eventually run their own small business, where income depends on reputation.
Roughly, all in
$1,800 to $7,700
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Bricklayer is a Red Seal trade, so the apprenticeship is paid work and the school blocks are the only real bill. The low end is Ontario, where Level 1 class is free for classes from January 2026 and the first certificate exam try is free once your apprenticeship is complete, so you pay for two blocks at the cheaper rate and buy chisels and hammers gradually. The high end is the same three blocks at the top of the provincial range plus grinders, levels and a fuller kit bought up front. The Canada Apprentice Loan charges no interest, and EI (Employment Insurance) applies during class, but the federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed on March 31, 2025, so check the Government of Canada apprenticeship page for what is current.
About $1,800 to $7,700 in all, and most apprentices finish with no debt. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed on March 31, 2025. The new federal Red Seal Completion Bonus pays $5,000 if you finish your apprenticeship and get certified in a Red Seal trade on or after April 1, 2025. Applications open November 16, 2026.
Union pension and health plan
BAC (the bricklayers' union) covers stone work on union commercial and institutional sites.
Overtime at premium rates
Owning the business
Small stone companies with two or three masons are common, often doing custom work.
EI (Employment Insurance) in the off-season
Outdoor stone work slows in deep winter, though interior and shop work continues.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Most stonemasons come through the bricklayer apprenticeship and specialize in stone. A few go through a heritage school.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 with math and a shop or art class. Some provinces let you start through a high school apprenticeship program.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A masonry or restoration contractor, a landscaping company that builds stone walls, or the union hiring hall. Starting as a labourer is the usual way in.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
In Ontario the trade is called Brick and Stone Mason (401A). Elsewhere it is Bricklayer. Register with your provincial trades body.
Work and study
3 years
About 5,600 hours in Ontario: roughly 4,880 on site plus three in-school levels totalling 720 hours. Ask for a sponsor that does stone, not just brick.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam and add the Red Seal endorsement to work anywhere in Canada.
Math
Measuring, geometry for arches and corners, estimating stone quantities.
Visual arts
Carving and shaping stone is sculpture with a deadline.
History
Heritage work means understanding how buildings were made 150 years ago.
Physical education
Stone is heavier than brick. Fitness is the biggest filter.
There is no separate stonemason licence in Canada. The Red Seal Bricklayer trade covers natural stone, and Ontario names it Brick and Stone Mason, a non-compulsory trade there. Bricklayer is a compulsory trade in Nova Scotia, whose rules name stone, and in New Brunswick. On Quebec construction sites you need a competency certificate from the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec). Elsewhere you can legally work without a certificate, but union sites, public restoration contracts and better employers usually want one.
Willowbank School of Restoration Arts, Queenston, Ontario
A three-year Diploma in Heritage Conservation with hands-on craft training on a national historic site.
College masonry programs
Pre-apprenticeship and in-school levels at colleges across the country, delivered as part of the bricklayer apprenticeship.
Union training centres
BAC (the bricklayers' union) locals run stone and restoration courses for members.
In Quebec, stone work on construction sites falls under the bricklayer-mason trade (briqueteur-maçon), you take a vocational diploma first, and the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) decides who can work on a site.
Secondary III courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Masonry: Bricklaying takes a high school diploma, or age 16 with Secondary III done. From 18, the general development test is another way in.
DEP in Masonry: Bricklaying (5303, or 5803 in English)
About 8 months
900 hours of brick, block and stone walls and finishing joints. In French in many regions, in English at the Riverside board centre in Montérégie and the École des métiers de la construction de Montréal.
Apprentice competency certificate
Weeks
Issued by the CCQ. You need the DEP, an employer registered with the CCQ who guarantees at least 150 hours of work within 3 months, the 30 hour site safety course and a $100 fee.
Work as an apprentice
About 4,650 hours
Three periods of 2,000 hours, 6,000 in all. The DEP counts for its hours plus a 50% bonus, about 1,350, which leaves about 4,650 hours of paid site work. Ask for an employer that does stone.
Qualification exam
Near the end
Set by the CCQ, multiple choice, up to 3 hours. You can sit it once 85% of your apprenticeship hours are done. Pass and you become a journeyperson (compagnon).
Quebec also has a separate DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Stone Cutting (Taille de pierre, 5178). It is 1,440 hours of drawing, geology, splitting and shaping stone for arches, stairs and columns, and it is listed at the Le Granit vocational centre in the Estrie region. It needs Secondary III language courses but no math. Graduates cut stone in workshops and quarries. On construction sites, the CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec, the Quebec construction commission) counted 5,228 bricklayer-masons in 2025.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Heritage restoration
Repointing, replacing and carving stone on century-old churches, courthouses and forts. Slow, skilled and steady in Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal, Kingston and Halifax.
Stone carving and lettering
Monuments, ornament and repairs to carved detail. A rare skill.
Dry stone walling
Walls built with no mortar at all. A niche with its own guilds and competitions.
Red Seal endorsement
One extra exam, recognized across Canada.
Pre-apprenticeship masonry program
A college semester that gets you sponsored faster.
Driver's licence
Sites and quarries are rarely on a bus route.
Working at heights and WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials training)
One-day courses employers expect.
Drawing skills
Sketching a repair or a carving before you cut is part of the craft.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start at 7am. Set up scaffold and mortar boards. Pick and cut stone to fit, with a chisel and hammer or a diamond saw, then set it in the wall, checking line and level constantly. On a restoration you cut out failed mortar, replace a cracked block with one you have carved to match, and keep the old work intact. On a landscape job you build a dry stone wall by eye, stone by stone. Dust, weather and heavy lifting all day. Clean up and cover the work by 3:30pm.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Architect John Pearson left some 3,000 blank stone blocks on the outside of Parliament's Centre Block for carvers to finish. About 180 are still blank. Since 1936 a Dominion Sculptor has led the carving.
The fortifications around Old Québec run for 4.6 km and make it the only fortified city north of Mexico. In 2016 Ottawa put $15 million into the Citadel, including new masonry on four retaining walls.
The CCQ (Commission de la construction du Québec) rates job prospects for bricklayer-masons as very good. The trade's official description covers cut stone and masonry restoration as well as brick.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Construction first, then the rest of the field. See every career in skilled trades.
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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