Alter, fit and make clothing by hand and machine. No licence, learn in a shop or at college, with a Job Bank median of about $40,000 a year.
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The median pay is about $40,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $32,000 at the lower end to about $54,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 3 years after high school, on the usual route.
$500 to $18,000 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
$40,000
Lower end
$32,000
Upper end
$54,000
Job Bank's national median is $19 an hour, about $40,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The low is $15.50 and the high is $26 an hour: the bottom and top of the range for employed tailors. What shop owners and bespoke tailors earn is not measured separately.
$20.00 an hour
The median in British Columbia and Ontario, the highest in Canada
British Columbia's upper end reaches $35 an hour, the top of any province. New Brunswick's median is the lowest, at $17.00. Entry work is alterations at a dry cleaner, department store or bridal shop, and some shops pay per piece.
You set the prices
Alteration shops charge per piece
An alterations shop needs a machine, a serger, a press and a storefront. Owners keep the whole price, but rent and slow months are on them. There is no official figure for what shop owners earn.
Roughly, all in
$500 to $18,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Tailoring is not a designated trade, so there are no apprenticeship loans or grants, but there is also no required school. The low end is learning on the job, paid from your first day, with your own shears and a basic machine. The high end is a college fashion or sewing program over two or three years plus a good machine and a full set of tools. Most tailors finish with no training debt, and the real cost is the time it takes for your speed to come up.
Tailoring is not a designated trade, so apprenticeship loans and grants do not apply. Most tailors have no training debt.
Flexible, often part time
Easy to combine with family or another job.
Work from home
Many tailors run a home studio.
Employee discount
At department stores and menswear shops.
Health and dental
Rare outside large retailers.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Sewing skill is what gets you hired. Learn it at home, in a shop, or at college.
High school
Grades 10 to 12
Sewing and fashion classes if your school has them. Sew for yourself and friends. Take in a thrift-store jacket.
Alterations job or college
1 to 3 years
Dry cleaners and department stores hire helpers who can already hem and take in seams. Or take a college fashion program that teaches sewing and patternmaking, such as Fanshawe's 3 year Fashion Design advanced diploma in London, Ontario.
Learn fitting
1 to 2 years
Pinning a garment on a person and knowing what to change. This is what separates a sewer from a tailor.
Menswear, bridal or bespoke
3 to 10 years
Suits and wedding dresses are where the most skilled work is. Bespoke tailors train for many years under a master.
Your own shop
5 years and up
An alterations storefront or a home studio with regular clients.
Fashion, textiles or sewing
Where offered.
Art
Proportion, line, drawing a garment.
Math
Measuring, pattern drafting, pricing.
Business
Most tailors end up self-employed.
Job Bank lists tailoring and dressmaking as unregulated in every province and territory. There is no licence, no exam and no apprenticeship certificate. Employers hire on a sewing test: hem a pair of pants, take in a jacket, replace a zipper, all clean and fast.
In Quebec you can train for this work at a public vocational centre, through a diploma in made-to-measure clothing and alterations.
Secondary IV courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) takes a high school diploma, or age 16 with Secondary IV language, second language and math. From 18, the general development test is another way in.
DEP in Mode et confection de vêtements sur mesure (5345)
About 14 months
Fashion and made-to-measure clothing. 1,470 hours of machine work, fitting clients, adjusting patterns, skirts to coats and jackets, alterations and repairs, and running a small business.
Where it is offered
Several start dates
The Limoilou vocational centre in Quebec City, École des métiers spécialisés de Laval, and École des métiers des Faubourgs-de-Montréal, which has day and evening groups.
Work in a shop
Years
Graduates work as tailors, dressmakers and pattern makers. Inforoute FPT (the Quebec vocational training site) lists an average of $18 an hour for dressmakers and $27.91 for clothing pattern makers.
Your own shop
When you open
If you trade under a name that does not include your own first and last name, you must register with the Registraire des entreprises (the Quebec business registry).
Things you don't need, but that help.
Bridal alterations
Complex and seasonal. Bridal shops need tailors every spring.
Menswear and suit tailoring
Jackets are the hardest alteration. Menswear stores look for people who can do them.
Pattern drafting
Making a garment from measurements. Opens custom and costume work.
Costume for theatre, film and dance
Costume shops at theatres such as the Stratford Festival, and on film and dance productions.
Leather and outerwear repair
A specialty few tailors take on.
An industrial sewing machine at home
Faster and stronger than a home machine.
Customer service
Fittings are personal. People are nervous about their bodies.
A sample book
Photos of before and after alterations.
A second language
Many shops serve immigrant communities.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Open at 9 or 10am. A rack of tagged garments: hem four pairs of pants, take in two dresses, shorten jacket sleeves, replace a coat zipper. Fittings between: pin a suit on a customer, mark it with chalk, book the pickup. Sew, press, bag, tag. Standing at the press, then seated at the machine. Spring is wedding and grad season, and the pile gets tall.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counts about 12,600 tailors and dressmakers in Canada in 2023, and 64% of them are 50 or older. It expects supply and demand to stay roughly balanced through 2033.
The Stratford Festival in Ontario keeps more than 50,000 costume pieces in a warehouse it calls one of the largest in the world, and rents them out to other productions.
Job Bank rates 3-year job prospects for tailors good in Saskatchewan, moderate in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, and limited in Ontario and Quebec.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Personal, food and outdoor trades 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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