Launch League

Finance & accounting · Leading & Selling

Financial manager: what the job actually is

Running the money side of an organisation: the books, the budget, the cash and the people who keep them straight.

Published Last reviewed How we research and correct this

Financial manager: quick facts

Financial manager salary in Ontario: the median pay is $61.54 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024). Its three-year outlook in Ontario is limited.

Median pay in Ontario
$61.54 an hour
Pay range (low to high)
$40.87 to $91.35 an hour
Job outlook, 2025-2027
Limited
People working in it in Ontario
36,600
Usually needs
Management

Source: Job Bank wages (updated 19 November 2025) and job prospects (updated 10 December 2025), NOC 10010. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

  • Being responsible for an organisation's finances: producing accurate reports, setting and tracking budgets, managing cash, and answering to owners, boards, lenders and auditors.
  • Job Bank's group is financial managers. It covers accounting and audit managers as well as investment, treasury and corporate finance managers, and it reports one wage and one outlook for all of them.
  • Job Bank says several years of experience in accounting, auditing, budgeting, financial planning or similar work are required, plus a bachelor's degree in business administration, economics, commerce or a related field. A master's degree may be required for some jobs.
  • Job Bank says this occupation is not regulated in Canada, so no licence is compulsory. It lists designations such as CPA, CA, CMA and CGA for accounting roles and CFA, CFP or CIM for investment and treasury roles as useful.
  • A lot of the job is people and judgement, not arithmetic. You explain numbers to people who do not want to hear them, and you decide what is worth worrying about.
  • Job Bank's Ontario outlook for this group is on this page. It is Limited, which means few new openings, so this is not a job you can count on being easy to land.

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 — Read the overnight bank balances and the list of payments due this week.
  2. 8:30 — Meet your accounting team. A month-end close is late because one system did not match another.
  3. 9:30 — Review a draft budget from a department head who has asked for more money than last year, again.
  4. 11:00 — Call the bank about a credit line renewal and what they will want to see.
  5. 12:30 — Eat at your desk while reading a note from the auditors.
  6. 13:30 — Explain a cost overrun to the owner or senior team, using as little jargon as you can.
  7. 15:00 — Approve payroll, check a tax remittance is on its way and sign off a supplier dispute.
  8. 16:30 — Update the cash forecast, because a customer said they will pay late.
  9. 17:45 — Make a list for tomorrow. Quarter-end is close and the list is longer than the day.

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 knowing exactly where an organisation stands and being the person who can see the whole picture.
  • You are careful and calm, and an error in a number bothers you until it is fixed.
  • You can explain a hard idea in plain words to someone who is busy and slightly annoyed.
  • You are willing to spend years in accounting or analysis roles first, and be patient about getting to the manager's seat.
  • You like being trusted with sensitive information and can keep it to yourself.
You may hate this if
  • You dislike deadlines that do not move. Month-end, quarter-end and year-end come on a fixed date whether or not you are ready.
  • You do not want to be the person who says no to spending. Finance is often the department that tells everyone else what they cannot do.
  • You want to be hired straight out of school into a manager's job. Job Bank describes years of experience first, and its outlook for this group is Limited.
  • You dislike being responsible for other people's mistakes. If your team gets a number wrong, it is your name on the report.
  • You want variety. Much of the work follows the same cycle every month and every year.

The route in

How you actually get there in Ontario

  1. Get a degree in business, economics or commerce

    Job Bank says a bachelor's degree in business administration, economics, commerce or a related field is required. Check ontariouniversitiesinfo.ca for Ontario degree programmes, and look for ones with a co-op option so you meet employers early.

  2. Work in accounting, audit, budgeting or analysis

    Job Bank says several years of experience in accounting, auditing, budgeting, financial planning and analysis or similar financial work are required. Nobody is hired as a financial manager first. You earn the right by being reliable at the work underneath.

  3. Consider a professional designation or a master's degree

    Job Bank says this occupation is not regulated in Canada and lists CPA, CA, CMA and CGA for accounting roles, and CFA, CFP and CIM for investment and treasury roles. It also says a master's in business administration may be required. Read the current steps for any designation on its own official site before planning around it, as we could not verify them for you.

  4. Move up one step at a time

    Typical steps are staff accountant or analyst, then senior, then supervisor, then manager. Each employer sets its own ladder, so ask where you work what the next step needs.

Where this comes from: Job Bank — Financial managers (NOC 10010), requirements · Job Bank — Financial managers (NOC 10010), outlook · ontariocolleges.ca — program search

The money

Financial manager 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.

$40.87
Low (hourly)
$61.54
Median (hourly)
$91.35
High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 10010. Reference period 2023-2024, 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 — Financial manager 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

Limited2 out of 5 stars

  • Employment growth will lead to a few new positions.
  • A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements.
  • There are a moderate number of 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

  • These professionals are employed in a range of roles across many sectors, and job prospects would usually be relatively stable
  • However, general operational shifts in financial services and recent job cuts to corporate roles in other sectors may constrain potential job growth in this occupation.

Who hires for it

  • Employed across all major sectors of the economy, with the leading share in the finance and insurance services industry, notably in banks
  • Other key employers are accounting, tax preparation and bookkeeping firms, and the manufacturing sector
36,600
people work in this job in Ontario
56%
are women (48% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Financial managers job prospects in Ontario (NOC 10010). 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 the maths, business and accounting courses your school offers, and ask whether it has a business co-op.
  • Be the treasurer of a club, team or fundraiser. Keep the receipts, report the balance and answer questions about it.
  • Learn to read a basic budget and a bank statement. Your own pay, your parents' permission allowing, is a fair place to start.
  • Ask a family friend or a teacher who works in finance what they actually do on a Monday.

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.

Run a one-week budget for something small and report it

About 90 minutes
  1. Pick something real that you spend or earn money on, such as your own spending money, a club's dues or a small sale, and write down every amount in and out for a week.
  2. Set a budget for the next week with a limit for each kind of spending and a reason for each limit.
  3. At the end of the week compare the budget to what really happened and note each gap and why it happened.
  4. Write three sentences to an imaginary boss explaining the result in plain words and what you would change.

What it tells you. If tracking the numbers and explaining the gaps felt satisfying, you have the temperament this job is made of, and the next step is a business or accounting course. If it felt like paperwork you wanted to be finished with, that is useful to know, and a job built on exactly this for years will feel the same.

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. “How many years did you work in other roles before you became a manager?”
  2. “What is the hardest conversation you have with other departments?”
  3. “How much of your week is deadlines, and how much is thinking?”
  4. “Which designation or degree actually mattered in your career, and which did not?”
  5. “What would you do differently if you were starting now?”
  6. “What do you wish you had learned about people earlier?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Not in the same form. Job Bank's snapshot does not show a notable share of self-employment for this group, and most financial managers work inside an organisation. Many people use the skills to run their own business or to work as an independent contractor for small ones, but that is a different job, so look at the accountant and business owner pages as well.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does a financial manager make in Ontario?

The median pay for a financial manager in Ontario is $61.54 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $40.87 to $91.35 an hour. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for a financial manager in Ontario?

Job Bank rates the employment outlook for this work in Ontario as limited for 2025-2027 (updated 10 December 2025). Employment growth will lead to a few new positions. A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements. There are a moderate number of 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 financial manager in Ontario?

Job Bank says this work is classed as a management occupation. The usual route in Ontario, in order: Get a degree in business, economics or commerce; Work in accounting, audit, budgeting or analysis; Consider a professional designation or a master's degree.

Where does a financial manager work in Ontario?

Employed across all major sectors of the economy, with the leading share in the finance and insurance services industry, notably in banks. Other key employers are accounting, tax preparation and bookkeeping firms, and the manufacturing sector. (Job Bank.)

How many people work as a financial manager in Ontario, and how many are women?

Job Bank counts about 36,600 people working in this job in Ontario. 56% of them are women, compared with 48% across all jobs. That describes who does the work today, not who can.

Where people come from

Which programs lead here?

In the 2021 Census, this job is one of the 12 most common for graduates of these programs. Each page shows what else they do, and which of those jobs have openings.

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

accountant financial analyst financial advisor bookkeeper business owner

Read next

What to do after high school University vs college vs apprenticeship Figuring out what fits you 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.