Install and fix the fibre, cable and cell equipment that keeps Canada online. A college diploma or on-the-job training, then a company van.
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.
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 4,000 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $71,800 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 $70,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $45,000 at the lower end to about $89,000 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.
$1,000 to $19,000 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
$70,000
Lower end
$45,000
Upper end
$89,000
Job Bank's national median is $33.80 an hour, about $70,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The low is $21.63 and the high is $42.86 an hour: the bottom and top of the range for everyone in the group. Many people start as contract installers paid per job, who are not measured separately.
$38.00 an hour
The median in Saskatchewan, about $79,000 a year, the highest in Canada
Alberta ($37.05) and British Columbia ($36.71) are close behind, and Quebec has the highest upper end, $44.70. Ontario's median is $33.00, and the four Atlantic provinces sit at $30.00. Overtime during storms and outages is paid on top.
Roughly, all in
$1,000 to $19,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is the apprenticeship route, where the work is paid, the school blocks cost a few hundred dollars each, and you buy a basic set of tools. The high end is a two year college diploma in telecommunications or electronics paid up front, a full tool and safety kit, and one industry certification bought yourself. Many employers pay for certifications once you are hired, which is why they sit at the top of the range rather than in the base cost. This is not a Red Seal trade, so the federal Canada Apprentice Loan is not available.
Cheap to enter by the apprenticeship or installer route. Not a Red Seal trade, so the Canada Apprentice Loan does not apply.
Company van, phone and tools
Standard for carrier-employed technicians.
Pension and benefits at the big carriers
Bell, Telus and Rogers technicians have health plans and pension or savings plans.
Union representation
Many Bell technicians are represented by Unifor; other carriers have their own unions.
Overtime
Outages and storms mean paid overtime.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Three doors in: a college diploma, an apprenticeship, or starting as an installer and learning on the job.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 with math, physics and any computer or electronics class.
Training
Several months to 2.5 years
A 2-year college diploma in telecommunications, electronics or network technology; or the Network Cabling Specialist apprenticeship in Ontario (about 4,600 hours: 4,000 on the job plus 600 in school); or a carrier's own training program after being hired as an installer.
Field technician
1 to 3 years
Install and repair internet, television and phone service, then move to fibre, business services or network equipment.
Certifications and specialties
Ongoing
Fibre splicing, structured cabling certifications, tower climbing and rescue, or network vendor certificates.
Physics
Signals, light in fibre, radio waves.
Math
Signal loss, power budgets and measurements.
Computer studies or networking
Every service ends at a router.
English
You explain problems to customers all day.
No province requires a licence to install or repair telecom equipment. Ontario has a voluntary Network Cabling Specialist trade (631A) with a Certificate of Qualification, and Job Bank notes employers typically want a college diploma, an apprenticeship of two or more years, or equivalent experience. Industry certifications such as those from BICSI (the international cabling standards body) and fibre-splicing certificates are what employers actually look for. Anyone working at heights on towers needs climbing and rescue training.
In Quebec there are two school routes: a vocational diploma for installers and repairers, or a 3 year technical DEC (Diploma of College Studies) at a CEGEP (public college) for technologists.
Secondary IV or V courses
Secondary IV or V
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) needs Secondary IV language, second language and math. The DEC needs a high school diploma with Secondary IV TS (Technical and Scientific) or SN (Science) math, or Secondary V CST (Cultural, Social and Technical) math.
DEP in Installation and Repair of Telecommunications Equipment (5266, or 5766 in English)
About 18 months
1,800 hours of cabling, network connection, antennas, radio and phone systems. In French in five regions, in English at the Pearson Electrotechnology Centre in Montreal.
Or DEC in Electrical Engineering Technology: Networks and Telecommunications (243.F0)
3 years
Inforoute FPT (the Quebec vocational training site) lists 13 colleges, and Dawson College also offers it in English. Fibre, wireless and data networks, for technologist jobs installing, maintaining and troubleshooting networks.
Get hired
After graduating
Installer, cable technician or line technician. Inforoute FPT (the Quebec vocational training site) lists averages of $33 an hour for installers and repairers and $34 for cable distribution technicians.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Fibre optic splicing and testing
Fibre is replacing copper everywhere.
Tower technician
Climbing cell towers to install 5G antennas. Dangerous, certified work.
Central office or data centre technician
Indoor work on the big switching and routing equipment.
Business and enterprise services
Installing and supporting connections for companies, hospitals and schools.
Driver's licence with a clean record
You are in a van all day. Carriers check.
Working at heights and ladder training
Poles, roofs and towers.
Customer service skills
Carrier technicians are rated by customers after every visit.
A networking certificate
Basic networking knowledge opens the door to network technician roles.
Telecom technicians who learn routers, switches and networking move into network technician and network administrator jobs at carriers, data centres and large companies. It is indoor work, and it uses the same understanding of how signals get from one place to another.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Pick up the van at 7:30am and check the day's jobs on a tablet: a new fibre install, two internet repairs and a business phone move. At the first house, run fibre from the pole to the home, terminate it, set up the modem and television boxes, and show the customer how it works. A repair call turns out to be a squirrel-chewed cable at the pole. Between jobs, dispatch adds an outage call. Finish around 4:30pm, later in a storm.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The federal government aims to connect 98% of Canadians to high-speed internet by 2026 and 100% by 2030, with the $3.225 billion Universal Broadband Fund launched in 2020. In 2022, 93.5% of Canadians had access.
Job Bank reports that 96.7% of telecom technicians get at least one benefit on top of their wage, such as health coverage or a pension plan.
Job Bank counts about 25,900 telecom technicians in Canada in 2023, and 30% of them are 50 or older.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Electrical and energy 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.
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.