Launch League

Technology · Leading & Selling

IT manager: what the job actually is

Running the people, budget and systems that keep an organisation's technology working, usually after years of doing the technical work.

Published Last reviewed How we research and correct this

IT manager: quick facts

IT manager salary in Ontario: the median pay is $66.67 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024). Its three-year outlook in Ontario is limited.

Median pay in Ontario
$66.67 an hour
Pay range (low to high)
$45.07 to $107.69 an hour
Job outlook, 2025-2027
Limited
People working in it in Ontario
71,350
Usually needs
Management

Source: Job Bank wages (updated 19 November 2025) and job prospects (updated 10 December 2025), NOC 20012. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

  • Leading the team that plans, builds and runs an organisation's computer systems, and answering for it when they fail. Job Bank groups several jobs under this NOC, including IT, application development and systems managers.
  • It is a management job. The skills that get you there are technical, but the skills you use daily are budgets, hiring, priorities, vendors, deadlines and explaining technical trade-offs to people who do not want to hear them.
  • Job Bank says employers typically want a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, business administration, commerce or engineering, plus multiple years of related technical and supervisory experience. It says the occupation is not regulated in Canada.
  • You rarely get this job straight out of school. You get it after years as a developer, analyst, network or support specialist, and then as a team lead.
  • Job Bank's Ontario outlook for the group is Limited. It says employment decline will lead to the loss of some positions, with a moderate number of openings through retirement. It also points to greater use of advanced technology and cybersecurity concerns as trends.

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. 8:00 — Read the overnight alerts and the incident summary. One system was down for twenty minutes and three people have already emailed you about it.
  2. 8:30 — Review the dashboard of open requests and decide what gets staff attention today and what waits.
  3. 9:00 — Team standup. You mostly listen, and ask who is blocked and by what.
  4. 10:00 — A budget meeting. You explain why the licence renewal costs more than last year and what happens if you do not renew.
  5. 11:30 — A one-to-one with a team member who wants to move to a different role. You discuss what you can offer.
  6. 12:30 — Lunch at your desk, reviewing a security report from an outside vendor.
  7. 13:30 — A meeting with a department head who wants a new system by next month. You explain what is possible, what it costs and what will be dropped to do it.
  8. 15:00 — Interview a candidate for a vacant position. You are listening for judgement more than for tools.
  9. 16:30 — Write a short summary for senior management on risks and priorities. You rewrite it three times to remove jargon.
  10. 17:30 — Last email check. Something will break at some point tonight, and your phone will tell you.

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 technology and you also like helping a team do good work, and you are willing to do less hands-on work to get that.
  • You can explain a technical decision clearly to someone who is not technical.
  • You are comfortable with budgets, priorities and saying no to a request.
  • You can stay calm when a system fails and everybody wants answers.
  • You are in this for the long term, with years of technical experience before the title.
You may hate this if
  • You want to keep writing code or fixing systems yourself. As you move up, you do less of it, and some people find that a loss.
  • You dislike meetings. A lot of the day is meetings, budgets and conversations about priorities.
  • You are uncomfortable being on call and being blamed. When a system fails, the manager answers for it, even if the cause was somebody else's decision.
  • You want a field with lots of openings at the top. Job Bank rates the Ontario outlook as Limited with some positions lost, and the job is reached after years of other work.
  • You do not like managing people. Hiring, feedback and difficult conversations are the centre of the work, not an extra.

The route in

How you actually get there in Ontario

  1. Start in a technical role

    Job Bank says managers in this group generally have several years of experience in areas such as systems analysis, data administration, software engineering, network design or programming. Roles such as IT support technician or software developer, which have their own pages on this site, are where most people begin.

  2. Get the education Job Bank describes

    Job Bank says employers typically look for a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, business administration, commerce or engineering. Search ontariouniversitiesinfo.ca and ontariocolleges.ca for programs, and ask about co-op, which is how many people get their first technical job.

  3. Take on leadership early

    Lead a small project, mentor a junior colleague, or run a team's tools. Job Bank lists supervisory experience as part of the requirement, and this is how you build it.

  4. Move into a management role

    The step from team lead to manager normally means an internal promotion or a move to another employer. There is no licence: Job Bank says the occupation is not regulated, though employers may value certifications.

Where this comes from: Job Bank — Requirements for computer and information systems managers in Ontario · Ontario Universities' INFO — program search · ontariocolleges.ca — program search

The money

IT 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.

$45.07
Low (hourly)
$66.67
Median (hourly)
$107.69
High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 20012. 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 — IT 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 decline will lead to the loss of some positions.
  • A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements.

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

  • Greater use of advanced computer technology by organizations
  • Prevalence, growing concern, and rising costs of cybersecurity breaches
  • The growing use of cloud technology should also support job openings
  • However, for some specializations, the pace of job growth may be affected by recent restructuring in the technology sector

Who hires for it

  • Employed by all major sectors of the economy, but with the leading share in computer systems design and related services
  • Financial institutions, and public administration, mainly federal government departments
71,350
people work in this job in Ontario
27%
are women (48% across all jobs)
7%
are self-employed (15% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Computer and information systems managers job prospects in Ontario (NOC 20012). 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 maths, computer science and business courses, because the degrees Job Bank names are in computer science, business, commerce and engineering.
  • Lead something: a club, a team, a school tech crew. Running a group and a budget, even a tiny one, is the closest practice for this job.
  • Help with the technology at school or at a local club, such as setting up a projector, a shared drive or a website. Notice whether the people part or the technical part interested you.
  • Read the pages for software developer and IT support technician on this site, since most managers began in roles like those.

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 small tech project for a group and write the plan

About 90 minutes
  1. Pick one small tech problem for a real group you belong to: a messy shared folder, a club mailing list, an unreliable sign-up sheet. Ask two of its members what bothers them about it.
  2. Write a one-page plan with the problem, two possible fixes, what each would cost in money and time, and which you would choose and why. Use plain words, with no jargon.
  3. Show the plan to one member and ask what they would do differently. Notice whether you defended it or listened.
  4. Ask someone who manages a technology team what the best part of their week is and what the worst part is.

What it tells you. If writing the plan and talking to the people was the part you liked more than the fix, management may suit you. If you only wanted to go and do the fix, the better route is probably a senior technical role, which Job Bank's own description suggests is a different job from this one.

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 miss about the hands-on technical work?”
  2. “How did you go from specialist to manager, and how long did it take?”
  3. “What percentage of your week is meetings?”
  4. “How do you decide what to say no to?”
  5. “What is the hardest part of managing technical people?”
  6. “What would you tell someone who is early in a technology career?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Not directly. The role is a management position inside an organisation. The skills are portable, though: experienced IT managers can become independent consultants or start managed IT services businesses, which look after the technology of smaller organisations for a monthly fee. That means finding clients, signing contracts and carrying the risk yourself.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does an IT manager make in Ontario?

The median pay for an IT manager in Ontario is $66.67 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $45.07 to $107.69 an hour. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for an IT manager in Ontario?

Job Bank rates the employment outlook for this work in Ontario as limited for 2025-2027 (updated 10 December 2025). Employment decline will lead to the loss of some positions. A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements. A lower rating means more competition for each opening, not that no one is hiring.

What do you need to become an IT manager in Ontario?

Job Bank says this work is classed as a management occupation. The usual route in Ontario, in order: Start in a technical role; Get the education Job Bank describes; Take on leadership early.

Where does an IT manager work in Ontario?

Employed by all major sectors of the economy, but with the leading share in computer systems design and related services. Financial institutions, and public administration, mainly federal government departments. (Job Bank.)

How many people work as an IT manager in Ontario, and how many are women?

Job Bank counts about 71,350 people working in this job in Ontario. 27% 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.

Tech and engineering jobs: who is hiring 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

software developer it support technician cybersecurity specialist web developer data scientist

Read next

University vs college vs apprenticeship Figuring out what fits you Careers that match your strengths 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.