Build the moulds and dies that stamp and shape every car part. The most precise trade in the shop.
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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 7,280 hours on the job, even at the minimum wage you would earn at least $130,676 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)
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 $71,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $47,000 at the lower end to about $93,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 5 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,500 to $4,000 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
$71,000
Lower end
$47,000
Upper end
$93,000
Job Bank's national figures for tool and die makers, 2023 to 2024: a median of $34 an hour, about $71,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end is $22.50 an hour and the upper end is $44.65 an hour. Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo and the rest of the southern Ontario auto belt are where many of the shops are.
A share of the journeyperson rate
First-year apprentice
Apprentices are paid a percentage of the journeyperson rate, and it rises each year. 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.
$36.05 an hour
The median in British Columbia, the highest of the provinces Job Bank reports
Ontario, where most of the shops are, sits at the national median of $34. Quebec's median is $33.12 and Manitoba's is the lowest reported, at $31.62. Overtime before a new car model launches is paid on top.
Roughly, all in
$1,500 to $4,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The apprenticeship is paid work from the first day, so the cost is tools and fees rather than tuition. The low end is a precision measuring set at the cheaper end, with your employer covering the classroom fees. In Ontario the first school block is free from January 2026, and your first certificate exam is free once your apprenticeship is complete. The high end is paying the classroom fees for blocks 2 and 3 yourself, about 400 each, a fuller measuring set over four years, and one exam retry at 150 plus tax. The Canada Apprentice Loan lends up to 4,000 per block with no interest and EI (Employment Insurance) covers you during class, so most apprentices finish with no debt.
Roughly $1,500 to $4,000 in total. The old federal apprenticeship grants 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.
Steady indoor work
Tool rooms run year-round. No seasons, no site layoffs.
Health, dental and pension
Standard at auto parts plants and unionized tool rooms, less so at small shops.
Overtime at time and a half
Model launches and die tryouts mean long weeks.
Benefits are the norm
Job Bank reports that 89.2% of tool and die makers get at least one non-wage benefit, such as a pension, health coverage or paid leave.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
An 8,000-hour apprenticeship, about 4 years in Ontario. The first years are mostly machining.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 math and any shop or drafting class. OYAP (Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program) lets Ontario students start apprentice hours in Grade 11 or 12.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
Mould shops, die shops and the tool rooms inside auto parts plants, mostly in southern Ontario. A college tool and die or machining program makes it much easier.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
With Skilled Trades Ontario, or your provincial trades authority elsewhere.
Work and study
About 4 years
8,000 hours in Ontario: 7,280 on the job plus 720 in school, taken as three college blocks of about 8 weeks. Machining first, then grinding, fitting, heat treating and building complete dies and moulds.
Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal
After your hours
Pass the provincial exam and add the Red Seal endorsement. Eight provinces designate this trade for Red Seal, including Ontario, Quebec and BC (British Columbia); Alberta and Saskatchewan do not.
Math
Trigonometry and geometry are the trade. You calculate angles, clearances and shrink rates by hand.
Drafting or technological design
CAD (computer-aided design) drawings arrive daily and you must read them perfectly.
Shop classes
Machining and metalwork courses are a direct head start.
Physics
How metal flows, bends and springs back.
You do not need a licence to work as a tool and die maker in Ontario. Employers care whether you can build a die that runs a million parts without a flaw. The Certificate of Qualification and Red Seal endorsement still matter: they prove that level, help you move between provinces, and some union and plant jobs ask for them. It is mostly an Ontario and Quebec trade because that is where the car and parts plants are.
Your in-school blocks are set up when you register. Before you have a sponsor, a college program helps:
Cambridge, Ontario
Conestoga College's Mechanical Technician: Tool and Die/Tool Maker diploma, with an optional co-op.
Windsor
St. Clair College's Mechanical Technician diploma in CAD (computer-aided design) and CAM (computer-aided manufacturing), which the college says leads to the trades.
Quebec
Diemaking in Québec City, Sherbrooke and Montérégie, and toolmaking in Montreal, after a machining diploma.
In Quebec you take a machining diploma first, then a short specialization in toolmaking or diemaking, and the trade certificate is voluntary.
Secondary IV courses
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Machining needs 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 Machining (5371, or 5871 in English)
16 to 19 months
1,800 hours of blueprint reading, shop math and work on machine tools. Offered at many centres in French and at a few in English.
Specialize in diemaking or toolmaking
8 to 10 months
A 900 hour ASP (Attestation of Vocational Specialization). Diemaking (5041) is taught in Québec City, Sherbrooke and Montérégie. Toolmaking (5042) is at the École des métiers de l'aérospatiale de Montréal.
Workplace apprenticeship
3 years or more
With a certified mentor at your plant, who signs off four skills: making tooling parts, assembling, testing, and repairing tooling. It takes at least 3 years. One mentor can take two apprentices.
Quebec certificate and Red Seal
At the end
The Quebec toolmaker (outilleur) certificate is not required to work. Tool and die maker is a Red Seal trade, so the interprovincial exam can add the Red Seal.
Rosemount Technology Centre, Montreal
English Montreal School Board.
Pont-Viau vocational centre
Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board, north of Montreal.
Brome-Missisquoi Campus, Cowansville
Eastern Townships School Board.
The specializations in English
Diemaking is code 5541 and Toolmaking 5542. Ask the centre whether an English group is running.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Mould making
Plastic injection moulds for car interiors, packaging and medical parts. Often a second ticket, and Windsor is the centre of it.
CAD and CAM (computer-aided design and manufacturing)
Designing the tool as well as building it. The step toward design work.
CNC (computer numerical control) and wire EDM (electrical discharge machining)
Cutting hardened steel with a wire and a spark. Toolmakers who run these are hard to find.
Die tryout and troubleshooting
Making a new die actually produce good parts at the press. Senior work.
Extreme patience
A die can take months to build and days to fit by hand.
Good eyesight and steady hands
Your gauges measure differences of a few thousandths of a millimetre, and your hands have to work to them.
Basic computer comfort
Every modern tool room runs on software.
A college machining or tool and die program
Shops often look to graduates when they take on apprentices.
Many tool designers, plant managers and shop owners in the auto belt started as toolmakers. Once you understand how a die is built you can design one in CAD (computer-aided design), quote jobs, or open a small shop with two machines and one customer. The aging workforce is opening those seats fast.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In the tool room by 7am. Study the CAD (computer-aided design) model and drawings, then machine, grind and fit the steel blocks and components of a die or mould. Much of the day is slow, careful work: grinding a surface flat to a few thousandths of a millimetre, fitting parts by hand with a file and marking compound, checking with gauges. Near a launch you spend days at the press running tryout parts and shaving steel until the part comes out right.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Skilled Trades Ontario issued just 54 Certificates of Qualification for tool and die makers in 2025, in the province with the most shops. Few people finish this trade each year.
Windsor and Essex County have more than 250 machine, tool, die and mould makers, built up around the car plants on both sides of the Detroit River. The region's economic development agency calls it the largest tool and mould cluster in North America.
Job Bank counted about 11,700 tool and die makers in Canada in 2023. 45% of them were 50 or over, and the median retirement age was 64, so many are close to retiring.
Toolmakers talk in tenths: ten-thousandths of an inch, about 0.0025 mm (millimetres). A good tool room can grind and measure steel to that.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Metal and machining 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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