Post-secondary teaching and research assistants salary in Canada
$53,352CAD/YR
Post-secondary teaching and research assistants in Canada earn a median of $53,352 a year, about $27.00 an hour.
SOURCE·Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wage data·Open Government Licence – Canada·REVIEWED 2025
What $53,352 is actually worth
Move this wage out of Canada and it converts to $37,825. Spend it where it was earned and it buys what $42,327 buys in the United States. Those are two answers to two different questions, and the distance between them is the thing worth reading — here it is a factor of 1.12.
At the exchange rate At local prices The disagreement
The hollow marker is the exchange-rate reading: what the money is worth if it leaves. The solid marker is the purchasing-power reading: what it is worth if it stays. The hatched span between them is the disagreement, and it is what every single-country salary site leaves out.
SOURCE·European Central Bank reference rates (via Frankfurter) and World Bank PPP conversion factor PA.NUS.PRVT.PP·FX 2026-07-29·REVIEWED PPP 2025
How Canada arrived at this figure, and what it is not
- Employment and Social Development Canada publishes Job Bank wage data for the reference period 2025. We take the occupation row as released and change nothing in it.
- 2021 Census wage distributions by NOC and economic region
- Where the agency publishes a distribution we carry the whole distribution, because a single average throws away the part of the answer people are actually asking about.
- The wage is then read twice: converted at the European Central Bank reference rate for 2026-07-29, and divided by the World Bank purchasing-power conversion factor for CAN. Both readings are printed; neither is presented as the answer.
- Countries measure pay differently. A tax return, an employer payroll survey, a PAYE sample and a household survey are four different instruments, and gaps of a few per cent between countries are the instruments, not the wages.
converted = CAD 53,352 / FX(CAD->USD) adjusted = CAD 53,352 / PPP(CAN) disagreement = adjusted / converted
Where it pays more in Canada
Median pay for this occupation by area, highest-employing first.
| Area | Median | vs national |
|---|---|---|
| Montérégie | $65,149 | +22% |
| Northeast | $64,220 | +20% |
| Outaouais | $63,746 | +19% |
| Kingston--Pembroke | $63,291 | +19% |
| Yukon Territory | $62,698 | +18% |
| Kitchener--Waterloo--Barrie | $59,715 | +12% |
| Calgary | $59,280 | +11% |
| Vancouver Island and Coast | $59,280 | +11% |
| Mauricie | $58,826 | +10% |
| London | $58,628 | +10% |
| Ottawa | $58,213 | +9% |
| Laval | $57,304 | +7% |
| Ontario | $56,751 | +6% |
| Northwest | $56,454 | +6% |
| Hamilton--Niagara Peninsula | $56,059 | +5% |
| Stratford--Bruce Peninsula | $54,775 | +3% |
| Prince Edward Island | $54,715 | +3% |
| Quebec | $53,352 | +0% |
| Alberta | $53,352 | +0% |
| Lethbridge--Medicine Hat | $53,352 | +0% |
| Muskoka--Kawarthas | $51,475 | -4% |
| Toronto | $51,376 | -4% |
| Chaudière-Appalaches | $51,119 | -4% |
| Southern | $51,040 | -4% |
| British Columbia | $50,665 | -5% |
Regional figures come from the same release as the national one. Where an area is missing, the source suppressed it for sample-size reasons rather than reporting an unreliable estimate.
Every figure this page rests on
| Reading | CAD | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Median | $53,352 | The middle earner |
| Mean | $58,569 | Pulled up by top earners |
| 25th percentile | $39,520 | — |
| 75th percentile | $73,112 | — |
| Hourly | $27.00 | Median at 38 hrs/week |
Employment and Social Development Canada · 2025
SOURCE·Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wage data·Open Government Licence – Canada·REVIEWED 2025
What people ask next
- How much do post-secondary teaching and research assistants earn in Canada?
- The median is $53,352 a year, about $27.00 an hour, according to Employment and Social Development Canada, Job Bank wage data 2025.
- Is that figure before or after tax?
- Before. Every figure on this page is gross pay as the statistics agency published it — income tax, social contributions and any deductions come off afterwards, and they differ enough between countries that we do not model them.
- Why is the US-dollar figure different depending on where I read it?
- Because there are two of them. $53,352 converts to $37,825 at the exchange rate on 2026-07-29, and buys what $42,327 buys in the United States once Canada's price level is accounted for. The first answers "what could I wire abroad", the second answers "how well does someone live on this".
Related occupations in Canada
- Business development officers and market researchers and analysts $86,944
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