Cut raw footage into something that holds attention. The last person who gets to decide what the story is.
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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 $72,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $42,000 at the lower end to about $104,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$2,500 to $43,000 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
$72,000
Lower end
$42,000
Upper end
$104,000
Job Bank counts video editors in its group of editors (NOC 51110, National Occupational Classification), which is mostly editors of articles, books and news. Its national median is $34.62 an hour, about $72,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The low is $20 and the high is $50 an hour. There is no separate official figure for film and video editors.
$40.00 an hour
The median in Quebec, about $83,000 a year, the highest in Canada
Newfoundland and Labrador is next at $35.89, and Nova Scotia's is the lowest, at $31.72. Most people start as an assistant editor or an in-house editor at an agency or a company.
About 14,000
People in Job Bank's editors group working in Canada in 2023
37% are 50 or older. Job Bank expects the number of jobs and the number of people looking for them to stay roughly in balance to 2033, with good prospects in Saskatchewan and Alberta and limited ones in Ontario and Quebec.
Roughly, all in
$2,500 to $43,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is teaching yourself with online tutorials and an editing program that costs nothing, where the only real spend is a computer strong enough to handle high resolution footage. The high end is a private film school program of about a year at close to 37,000 for domestic students, plus a capable machine and the software subscriptions. A two year public college diploma in film or post production sits in between at 4,000 to 8,000 a year. Employers watch your reel rather than your transcript, so this is one of the few screen jobs you can genuinely enter without paying for school.
Roughly $2,500 to $43,000 in all, computer included. This is one of the few screen jobs you can genuinely teach yourself. Employers watch your reel, not your transcript.
Salary
Post-production houses, broadcasters, agencies and large companies with in-house video teams.
Weekly rate
The standard on film and television productions, for the length of the cut.
Per project
Commercials, corporate video, weddings, social content.
Overtime
Paid on union productions when delivery deadlines get tight.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Learn the software, cut a lot of bad footage, build a reel, then get hired to assist.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Media arts and English. Edit anything: school sport, your friends' music, your own shorts.
Training or self-teaching
0 to 2 years
A 2-year college post-production diploma, a one-year film school, or online tutorials plus relentless practice.
Build a reel
3 to 12 months
Two to four minutes of your best cuts, plus one or two full pieces. This is the hiring decision.
Assistant editor
1 to 2 years
Media management, syncing, conforming and delivery on a real production. You learn workflow properly here.
Editor
About 2 to 4 years in
Cutting scenes yourself, then whole episodes or films, or leading an in-house team. Agencies and companies often hire in-house editors sooner.
Media arts
The software and the grammar of a cut.
English
Editing is storytelling with a mouse. Structure matters more than effects.
Music
Rhythm and timing are most of what separates a good cut from a bad one.
Computer studies
File formats, storage and colour spaces are a daily problem.
No licence and no exam. Anyone can edit for money. Film and television productions in Canada are largely union work, and on union productions editors have negotiated rates and hours. Which union covers editors depends on the province and the production. Corporate, agency and social video sits entirely outside that system, with faster turnarounds and no union rates.
Quebec's 3 year college film and TV (television) diploma includes editing, but it is taught in French, so English speakers usually go to university instead.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Edit anything you can. The college film and TV program has no specific high school course requirements.
Film and Television Techniques DEC (Diploma of College Studies, 589.C0)
3 years
A 3 year CEGEP (public college) program at Cégep de Jonquière, Cégep du Vieux Montréal and Collège Bart. Pre-production, shooting and post-production, including the final edit.
Or study in English
3 to 4 years
Concordia's BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Film Production, after a 2 year DEC. Apply by 1 March with a portfolio and a letter of intent.
Build a reel
3 to 12 months
Two to four minutes of your best cuts plus one or two full pieces, the same as anywhere else.
Film and TV crews
First years of work
Editing and post-production jobs on Quebec productions come under AQTIS 514 IATSE (the Quebec union of image and sound technicians). You start as a permittee and earn 1 credit per day worked.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Colour grading
A separate craft in film, and a useful add-on everywhere else.
Motion graphics
Titles, lower thirds, animated explainers. Constant demand.
Sound editing
Editors who deliver a clean mix save clients a whole hire.
VFX (visual effects) clean-up
Removing rigs, wires and logos. Bread and butter work in post-production houses.
More than one editing program
Film and television leans one way, agencies another. Knowing both widens your job pool.
Fast, tidy file management
The single thing assistant editors are judged on.
Documentary experience
Cutting a mountain of footage into one short film teaches structure like nothing else.
Membership in a professional group
Canadian Cinema Editors runs mentorship, a conference and a member directory.
A lot of paid editing in Canada now is short vertical video for brands, creators and marketing teams. The deadlines are brutal, but there is a lot of it and you can start at 18 with a laptop. Plenty of film editors funded their early years this way.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Footage arrives overnight. You back it up, sync the sound, and build a timeline while the shoot continues. Then hours in a dark room, cutting, watching, recutting, mostly alone with headphones on. The director comes in with notes in the afternoon and you rebuild a scene while they watch. Exports render while you eat. Deadlines land at the end of the day, so late finishes are common.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
On Quebec union film sets, AQTIS 514 IATSE (the Quebec film crew union) takes a 7.5% permit fee from the pay of crew who are not yet members. Joining costs $550 once and $300 a year, and the permit fees stop.
Quebec film producers officially recognize more than 150 different crew jobs, from editing to lighting, says AQTIS 514 IATSE (the Quebec film crew union).
Canadian Cinema Editors is a bilingual non-profit for post-production people across the country. It runs a mentorship program, the EditCon event and its own awards for editing.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Film, TV and music first, then the rest of the field. See every career in creative.
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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