Launch League

Healthcare · Building & Making

Dental technician: what the job actually is

Making the crowns, dentures and appliances a dentist prescribes, in a lab, working to the shape of one person's mouth.

Published Last reviewed How we research and correct this

Dental technician: quick facts

Dental technician salary in Ontario: the median pay is $29.41 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2024). Its three-year outlook in Ontario is moderate. The job usually needs a college diploma, or an apprenticeship of two or more years.

Median pay in Ontario
$29.41 an hour
Pay range (low to high)
$20.94 to $41.74 an hour
Job outlook, 2025-2027
Moderate
Usually needs
Usually a college diploma, or an apprenticeship of two or more years

Source: Job Bank wages (updated 19 November 2025) and job prospects (updated 10 December 2025), NOC 32112. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

  • Designing and making dental devices from a prescription: crowns, bridges, dentures, orthodontic appliances. You do not see the patient. You see a model or a digital scan of their mouth and a set of instructions.
  • Job Bank reports one pay figure and one outlook for the whole group, dental technologists and technicians, not for each title.
  • In Ontario this is a regulated profession. Job Bank names the College of Dental Technologists of Ontario as the regulator and says registration is compulsory.
  • The work is a mix of hand skill and technology. The ontariocolleges.ca page says programmes include 3D technology for creating dental prostheses, along with lab work and clinical placements.
  • It is not the dental assistant's job, which is chairside next to the dentist, and it is not the dentist's. The dental technician works in a lab, usually without meeting the patient.

A Tuesday

What a normal day looks like

Not a good day or a bad one. The ordinary version, which is what you would actually be living.

  1. 7:45 — Check the day's cases against the prescriptions from the dental offices. Each case has a name, a shade and a deadline.
  2. 8:00 — Pour and trim a model of a patient's teeth from an impression. Plaster dust, and a small error here carries through everything that follows.
  3. 9:00 — Build up a crown. Layer by layer, in the right shade, to match the teeth on either side of it.
  4. 10:30 — Scan a model and design a bridge on the screen. You adjust the thickness of a contact point by a fraction of a millimetre.
  5. 12:00 — Lunch, away from the bench.
  6. 12:45 — Finish and polish a partial denture. It must fit a mouth you have never seen.
  7. 14:00 — A dentist's office phones. The crown is too high on one side. You adjust it and send it back.
  8. 15:00 — Check the finished work against the prescription. The one you almost did not catch is the reason you check every one.
  9. 16:00 — Pack the cases and clean your area. Materials and equipment are expensive, and so are mistakes.
  10. 16:30 — Order supplies and note what is still outstanding for tomorrow.

Honestly

Who loves this, and who should not do it

The second list is the useful one. Nearly every careers page leaves it out, which is why nearly every careers page reads like an advert.

You may like this if
  • You like making small, precise things with your hands, and you do not mind that nobody sees them once they are in a mouth.
  • You like art and anatomy together: shape, colour, how a tooth should look.
  • You are comfortable alone at a bench for hours, with deadlines and a stack of cases.
  • You like working with both hand tools and software.
  • You would rather make something for a person than talk to the person.
You may hate this if
  • You need to talk to people all day. Much of the work is at a bench or a screen and you rarely meet the patient.
  • Fine, repetitive, detailed work strains your eyes, hands or neck. This is hours of close concentration.
  • You dislike deadlines that depend on other people. A late impression from an office is your late crown.
  • You dislike being checked. Every case is measured against a prescription, and a poor fit comes back with your lab's name on it.
  • You want certainty about demand. Job Bank rates the outlook as Moderate and says employment growth will lead to only a few new positions, with several unemployed workers with recent experience in the group.

The route in

How you actually get there in Ontario

  1. Finish high school with sciences and an eye for detail

    Programme requirements differ by college, so read the admission page for each. Art, design, technology and science courses all help, because the work combines drawing, materials and anatomy.

  2. Complete a dental technology programme at an Ontario college

    Job Bank says a college programme in dental technology, or four or more years of on-the-job training under a registered dental technologist or technician, is required. The ontariocolleges.ca page describes college programmes with lab work and clinical placements, and says graduates who complete one year of supervised work experience may write the registration exam. We could not read the length and entry requirements of an individual programme, so check each college's page.

  3. Register with the College of Dental Technologists of Ontario

    The College's routes-of-entry page lists approved Canadian programme graduates, internationally educated applicants, labour mobility applicants and an experiential route through a pilot assessment. It says applicants complete a Knowledge-Based Assessment or Performance-Based Assessment, and a Jurisprudence and Ethics exam. Read the page for the current requirements and for how the experiential route works.

Where this comes from: Job Bank — Dental technologist requirements in Ontario · College of Dental Technologists of Ontario — Routes of entry · ontariocolleges.ca — Dental and denturism programmes

The money

Dental technician salary in Ontario

Job Bank's own figures, quoted rather than summarised, with the period they describe — so you can tell how old they are and go and check them.

$20.94
Low (hourly)
$29.41
Median (hourly)
$41.74
High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 32112. Reference period 2024, last updated by Job Bank on 19 November 2025. Wages vary a lot by region inside Ontario and by how long you have been doing it — the low figure is roughly where you start, not what the job is worth.

Source: Job Bank — Dental technician wages in Ontario

Where it is heading

The outlook for the next three years

Job Bank publishes a three-year outlook for every job in every province. It is the closest thing to an honest forecast, and it moves, so read it as a weather report rather than a verdict.

Ontario, 2025-2027

Moderate3 out of 5 stars

  • Employment growth will lead to a few new positions.
  • Several positions will become available due to retirements.
  • There are several unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation.

What that rating means: how many openings Job Bank expects in Ontario for this kind of work against how many people are likely to be looking — not whether it is a good job. A “limited” rating means more competition for each opening; it does not close the door, and it can change before you are ready to walk through it.

What is changing in this work

  • Demand for dental services is influenced by dental insurance coverage rates, population growth, household incomes, and public awareness of oral hygiene
  • Public-sector investments in affordable dental care should support job prospects
  • Increased popularity of cosmetic, aesthetic and orthodontic procedures may also support employment opportunities in this occupation
  • The aging population is expected to increase the demand for geriatric dental care

Who hires for it

  • Medical equipment and supplies manufacturers
  • Dental offices
39%
are women (48% across all jobs)
25%
are self-employed (15% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Dental technologists and technicians job prospects in Ontario (NOC 32112). Outlook updated by Job Bank on 10 December 2025; read by us on 5 October 2026.

Before you leave school

Things you can do now

  • Take visual art, design and technology courses. Sculpting a small shape to match a model is a core skill.
  • Take senior biology. You need to know what a tooth is, and why it is shaped the way it is.
  • Make something small and exact: a model kit, a carved piece, a piece of jewellery. Notice whether you enjoyed getting it right.
  • Ask your guidance office whether a dental lab would take a job-shadow or a short co-op placement.

Test it

Do this before you decide anything

Reading about a job tells you almost nothing. This is designed to be done alone, this week, for free.

Carve a tooth-sized shape and phone one dental lab

About 90 minutes
  1. Find a picture of a molar. Using a bar of soap, modelling clay or an eraser and a plastic knife, carve or sculpt the shape as exactly as you can. Time it.
  2. Look at what you made next to the picture. Write down the three places where it is wrong, and whether you wanted to fix them.
  3. Search for a video of a dental technologist building a crown or a denture. Watch the whole process, including the dull parts.
  4. Phone one dental lab and ask whether a technologist could answer one email question about the work. Do not ask for a job.

What it tells you. A yes is wanting to fix the places where your shape was wrong, and finding the video absorbing and not slow. That is a reason to look at college programmes and ask a lab about a shadow day. A no is losing patience with the carving or wanting more contact with people; dental assistant and dental hygienist are chairside jobs in the same field.

Better than any article

Questions for somebody who does this job

Most people say yes to a teenager who asks good questions. These are the ones that get real answers rather than encouragement.

  1. “What do you make most often, and what is the hardest case you have done?”
  2. “How much of your work is by hand and how much on a screen?”
  3. “How do you handle a case that comes back to you?”
  4. “How did you get your first job after the programme?”
  5. “What would you tell a student who loves art and science but does not want a patient-facing job?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Yes, it can be done. Job Bank's workforce figures for this group show a share of self-employed people, and independent dental labs exist. A lab needs registration, equipment, materials and dentists who will send you work, so ask a lab owner how they found their first clients.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does a dental technician make in Ontario?

The median pay for a dental technician in Ontario is $29.41 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $20.94 to $41.74 an hour. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for a dental technician in Ontario?

Job Bank rates the employment outlook for this work in Ontario as moderate for 2025-2027 (updated 10 December 2025). Employment growth will lead to a few new positions. Several positions will become available due to retirements. There are several unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation. A lower rating means more competition for each opening, not that no one is hiring.

What do you need to become a dental technician in Ontario?

Job Bank says this work usually needs a college diploma, or an apprenticeship of two or more years. The usual route in Ontario, in order: Finish high school with sciences and an eye for detail; Complete a dental technology programme at an Ontario college; Register with the College of Dental Technologists of Ontario.

Where does a dental technician work in Ontario?

Medical equipment and supplies manufacturers. Dental offices. (Job Bank.)

Health careers in Ontario: outlook and pay What can you do with your degree?

Not sure this is the right list to be reading

Start from yourself, not from the job.

Future Finder is free, takes about ten minutes, needs no account and stores nothing. It will tell you which kinds of work you lean toward, and which of these pages are worth your time.

Try Future Finder — freeAll jobs

Parent of a teenager weighing this up? Career coaching for teens gets them talking to people who do the work, anywhere in Ontario.

If this appeals, look at these too

dental assistant dental hygienist dentist machinist

Read next

What to do after high school University vs college vs apprenticeship Career aptitude tests for teens All careers guides

Wages and training requirements change. Every figure on this page is linked to the body that publishes it, and the review date above says when we last checked. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.