Design the roads, intersections, transit lines and signals that decide how a city moves.
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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.
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 $101,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $67,000 at the lower end to about $150,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$36,500 to $86,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
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
$101,000
Lower end
$67,000
Upper end
$150,000
Job Bank lists transportation engineer inside its civil engineers group, with a national median of $48.56 an hour, about $101,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The low is $32 and the high is $72.12 an hour. Principal consultants and municipal engineering managers are the roles near the upper end.
$64,162 a year
The first step for a new engineering graduate in the federal public service
The federal entry-level engineering grid from October 1, 2025 rises every 6 months to $75,195. The next level starts at $81,945. Cities and consulting firms set their own pay. Most people start as an EIT (engineer-in-training) doing traffic counts, signal timing reviews and drawing checks.
$61.75 an hour
The median in the Northwest Territories, the highest in Canada
Among the provinces, Alberta ($51.69) and Newfoundland and Labrador ($51.15) are highest. Ontario's median is $48.08, Quebec's is $49.74 and Prince Edward Island's is the lowest, at $36.30.
Roughly, all in
$36,500 to $86,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year civil engineering degree at a cheaper public university, the professional practice exam at about 250, and the first year of the P.Eng (professional engineer) licence. The high end is a five year program at up to 17,000 a year with the same fees. Work terms during the degree are paid, and cities and provincial ministries hire students every summer, so the real out of pocket cost is often well under the number shown. Traffic and safety courses after you qualify are normally paid by an employer, and licence dues run about 300 to 500 a year for your whole career.
Roughly $36,500 to $86,000 in total. Co-op terms are paid, and cities and ministries hire students every summer for counts and inspections.
Public sector pension
City and provincial jobs come with one.
Steady work
Roads need rebuilding whatever the economy is doing.
Overtime or time in lieu
For night counts, construction inspection and evening meetings.
Paid licence fees and training
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no transportation engineering degree in most of Canada. You do civil engineering and specialize.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus, Advanced Functions, Physics and Chemistry, usually with a minimum around 70% in each.
Accredited civil engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
Take the transportation stream: traffic, highway design, pavements, transit planning.
Work terms
During the degree
Traffic counts, construction inspection, drafting. Most consulting firms hire their juniors out of their own co-op pool.
Engineer-in-training
About 4 years (2 in Quebec)
About four years of supervised experience (24 months in Quebec) registered with your provincial regulator.
P.Eng (professional engineer) licence
After about 4 years (2 in Quebec)
Pass the law and ethics exam, submit your experience record, and you can seal road and intersection designs.
Calculus and Advanced Functions
Required for civil engineering admission.
Physics
Required. Braking distances and sight lines are physics.
Chemistry
Required at most schools, and useful for pavement and concrete courses.
Data or statistics
Optional, but traffic work is mostly counting and modelling.
You need a provincial P.Eng (professional engineer) licence to seal a design. What goes in that design comes largely from national guides published by the TAC (Transportation Association of Canada), including the geometric design guide for roads and the manual that sets how signs, signals and pavement markings must look. Provinces and cities add their own standards on top. Knowing those books well is most of what makes a senior engineer senior.
Any accredited civil engineering program with a transportation stream will do.
Ontario
Waterloo, Toronto, McMaster, Queen's, Ottawa, Carleton, Western and Toronto Metropolitan.
Quebec
Polytechnique Montréal, McGill, Laval, Sherbrooke and Concordia.
West
University of British Columbia, Alberta, Calgary, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Atlantic
Dalhousie, New Brunswick and Memorial.
Quebec students reach university after a 2 year CEGEP (public college) diploma, so the civil engineering degree takes about 4 years, and the licence comes from the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, the Quebec order of engineers) through its own program and exam.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Take Secondary V math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence, plus Secondary V chemistry and physics. All three are required for the Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies).
Science DEC at a CEGEP
2 years
The 2 year Science program (200.B1). In English at Dawson and the other English colleges. Engineering schools look for its calculus, physics and chemistry courses and your R score (the Quebec college ranking mark).
Bachelor's in civil engineering
About 4 years
About 4 years for CEGEP graduates, with transportation courses in the later years. In French at Polytechnique Montréal. In English at McGill, or Concordia's civil infrastructure option.
Become a CPI (candidate to the engineering profession)
Before or right after graduating
Apply to the order once you have 60 university credits or your degree, $180. Joining the program costs $520 plus tax, half price within 6 months of graduating.
24 months of supervised work, then the exam
At least 2 years, at most 5
Work under an engineer you declare to the order. Paid internships done after 60 credits can count. Add 25 to 30 hours of online training ($345) and a multiple choice exam ($285, 60% to pass).
Show French, get the permit
End of the program
A Quebec high school diploma counts, even from an English school. Otherwise you pass the 3 hour exam, at no cost, of the Office québécois de la langue française (the Quebec French language office). Then the order issues your permit.
McGill University, in English
Civil Engineering. It strongly recommends Traffic Engineering and Simulation, with urban transportation planning and transportation safety and design as further choices.
Concordia University, in English
Civil Engineering, civil infrastructure option, with Highway and Pavement Design and Transportation Planning and Design.
Polytechnique Montréal, in French
Génie civil (civil engineering) with a transportation systems course and a transportation orientation. An urban transportation concentration is run with ENTPE (École nationale des travaux publics de l'État), a public works engineering school in France.
Quebec's transport ministry
The ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable (the Quebec ministry of transport and sustainable mobility) works in all 17 regions of Quebec, lists engineer among its main jobs and points students to public service internships.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Traffic signal operations
Timing and coordinating signals across a corridor. Specialized work.
Road safety audits
Reviewing designs and crash records to find what will hurt someone. A recognized specialty.
Transit and active transportation
Bus lanes, light rail and protected bike lanes are where public money is going.
Traffic modelling software
Microsimulation skills make you useful on every large project.
A driver's licence
You will be visiting sites constantly, sometimes at night.
Public speaking
Residents show up to meetings angry about a road, and you have to explain it.
Mapping software
Geographic information system tools are used in almost every study.
Patience with data
Counts, crash records and travel times are the evidence for every recommendation.
Cities and provincial ministries give you a pension, normal hours and a say in policy, but long approval processes. Consulting gives you more projects and more variety, with timesheets and deadline pressure. A common pattern is a few years in consulting to learn quickly, then a move to a city for the stability once life gets busier.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning going through traffic counts and crash data for an intersection that keeps having collisions. Late morning drawing options: a roundabout, a left turn lane, a signal change. Afternoon at the site with a camera and a measuring wheel, watching how drivers and people walking actually behave, which is never what the drawing assumes. Some evenings you present at a public meeting and take the questions.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Canada, from the TAC (Transportation Association of Canada), guides road signs, traffic signals and pavement markings. It is why a stop sign in Halifax looks the same as one in Victoria.
Job Bank expects a moderate risk of a shortage of civil engineers, the group transportation engineers belong to, from 2024 to 2033. It counted about 65,600 in 2023, and rates the outlook good in Quebec, Saskatchewan and Nunavut.
Quebec's transport ministry works in all 17 administrative regions of the province, and engineer is one of its main jobs. Roads need engineers wherever they run.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Engineers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in engineering.
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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