Lay ceramic, porcelain and stone tile on floors, walls and showers. A 3 to 4 year paid apprenticeship with real money for fast, precise hands.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Journeyperson
$72,000
1st-year apprentice
$50,000
Fast piecework or union
$92,000
Union setters on commercial towers and experienced piecework setters who lay a lot of square feet a day sit at the top. Alberta and the Toronto and Vancouver areas pay the most.
$24 to $28 an hour
First-year apprentice, mostly mixing, cutting and carrying
Your first year is a lot of hauling boxes of tile and mixing thin-set. The rate rises each year as you get trusted to set tile yourself.
$35 to $44 an hour
Journeyperson rate, or the equivalent on piecework
Much residential tile work is paid per square foot, not per hour. A fast, clean setter on a subdivision can beat the hourly rate. A slow day, a bad layout or a callback comes out of your pocket.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is a paid apprenticeship, so there is no tuition to find. The low end is somebody whose employer covers the classroom blocks, who builds a hand tool kit slowly, and who pays the roughly 150 certificate exam fee at the end. The high end is paying for all three school blocks yourself, a fuller set of hand tools, and buying your own wet saw when you start working independently. Employers supply saws and mixers while you are an apprentice, and the Canada Apprentice Loan is interest free for up to 4,000 per school block.
Employers supply saws and mixers while you are an apprentice. The federal Apprenticeship Incentive Grant closed in March 2025, so check the Government of Canada apprenticeship page for what is open now.
Union pension and health plan
BAC (the bricklayers and allied craftworkers union) covers tile, marble and terrazzo workers on many commercial jobs.
Indoor work
Bathrooms and lobbies do not care that it is minus 20 outside.
Easy path to self-employment
A truck, a wet saw and a few builders who trust you.
Visible, finished work
You leave every job looking at something you made.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship: mostly on the job, with short college blocks.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12. Math and shop classes help. Ontario students can start early through OYAP (the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program).
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A tile contractor, a flooring company or a union hall that will register you as an apprentice. Many people start as a helper first.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With your provincial trades authority: Skilled Trades Ontario (where the trade is called Terrazzo, Tile and Marble Setter), Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training, or SkilledTradesBC.
Work and study
3 to 4 years
About 5,500 hours in Ontario: 4,780 on the job plus 720 hours in class, usually three blocks of about 8 weeks at a college.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam. Add the interprovincial Red Seal endorsement to work in any province.
Math
Layout is geometry: centring a pattern in a room, working out cuts, calculating square footage.
Shop or technology classes
Comfort with saws and measuring tools.
Art or design
Pattern, colour and grout lines are the visible part of the job.
In Ontario, tilesetter (registered as Terrazzo, Tile and Marble Setter) is a voluntary trade. You do not need a licence to set tile for pay. The Certificate of Qualification and the Red Seal endorsement are proof of training that union and commercial employers look for, and they help you charge more when you go out on your own. Alberta and BC also treat it as voluntary. The Red Seal is recognized in every province.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Large-format porcelain and slab
Tiles and slabs the size of a door. Hard to handle, in demand, and paid accordingly.
Natural stone and marble
Expensive material, so builders pay for someone who will not waste it.
Waterproofing systems
Shower membranes and shower pans. A failed shower is the most common callback, so this skill is valued.
Terrazzo and mosaic
Lobbies, transit stations and restoration work.
Pre-apprenticeship or flooring program
A short college program that gets you sponsored faster.
Driver's licence
You carry heavy material between sites.
Good knees and a strong back, and the sense to protect them
Knee pads and a kneeling stool from day one, not after the pain starts.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
7am on site. Check the floor is flat, then snap chalk lines so the pattern is centred and the cuts are hidden at the edges. Mix thin-set, spread it with a notched trowel, set tile, check level, repeat for hours on your knees. Cuts go through the wet saw. Next day you grout, clean and caulk. On a subdivision you might do a full kitchen floor a day.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Tilesetter is one of the Red Seal trades. Pass the interprovincial exam and your certificate is good from BC to Newfoundland.
Porcelain and stone contain crystalline silica. Breathing the dust from dry cutting can scar your lungs over a career. Wet saws and respirators are not optional.
A good setter spends the first hour with a chalk line and a calculator so the room ends with even cuts at both walls. Most ugly tile jobs are layout mistakes, not skill mistakes.
Last checked September 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.