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Medical radiation technologist: what the job actually is

Taking the X-ray, CT, MRI, nuclear medicine and radiation therapy images and treatments that doctors depend on.

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Medical radiation technologist: quick facts

Medical radiation technologist salary in Ontario: the median pay is $45.00 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024). Its three-year outlook in Ontario is good. The job usually needs a college diploma, or an apprenticeship of two or more years.

Median pay in Ontario
$45.00 an hour
Pay range (low to high)
$35.00 to $52.04 an hour
Job outlook, 2025-2027
Good
People working in it in Ontario
9,150
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 32121. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

  • Operating the imaging and treatment machines that look inside people or treat them with radiation, and doing it safely. Patients, colleagues and you are all protected by the same procedures.
  • In Ontario, the College of Medical Radiation and Imaging Technologists of Ontario (CMRITO) regulates five specialties: radiography, radiation therapy, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance and diagnostic medical sonography. Each has its own protected title.
  • Radiography is X-ray and CT. Radiation therapy delivers treatment for cancer and involves seeing the same patients repeatedly. Nuclear medicine uses small amounts of radioactive material for imaging. Magnetic resonance is MRI. They are different jobs.
  • The work is technical, but it is mostly about people. A patient who is frightened, hurt or unable to lie still has to be positioned correctly before the machine is of any use.
  • You are not the one who interprets the results. A radiologist or a physician reads the images. Your job is that the images are good and that nobody is exposed to more than they need to be.

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. 7:00 — Handover from the night team. Which machines are down, who is waiting in the emergency department, what is booked.
  2. 7:20 — Quality checks on the machine before the first patient. A test that is boring and has to be done.
  3. 7:45 — First patient. You confirm who they are, ask the safety questions and explain what you need from them.
  4. 8:00 — Position, shield, step out, expose, check the image. If it is not good enough, you do it again and tell the patient why.
  5. 9:30 — A patient from the emergency department on a stretcher, in pain. Positioning takes patience and a lot of small adjustments.
  6. 11:00 — CT scan with contrast. Check the patient's history, set up the injection with a nurse, watch for reactions.
  7. 12:30 — Lunch, interrupted once by a call to the emergency department.
  8. 13:30 — Portable X-ray on a ward with a machine on wheels, working around beds, lines and visiting family.
  9. 15:00 — Write the technical notes, enter the dose information and clear the images to the radiologist's list.
  10. 16:30 — Handover to the next shift. The department does not stop when you do.

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 are interested in how machines see inside the body and you like being the person who operates them well.
  • You can be calm and kind with someone frightened or in pain while your attention stays on getting the position right.
  • You like jobs where there are clear safety procedures, and you follow them every time even when you are rushed.
  • You want options inside one field: X-ray, CT, MRI, nuclear medicine or radiation therapy lead to quite different working lives.
  • You prefer technical hospital work over hands-on nursing care.
You may hate this if
  • You do not like shift work. Hospital imaging runs around the clock, and evenings, nights and weekends are part of many positions.
  • You dislike physical work. You lift, turn and position patients, and you stand for most of the day.
  • You do not like working with a radiation safety routine every single time. Shielding, dose awareness and distance are habits you keep for the whole career.
  • You find urgent trauma and sick patients hard. Emergency and ward imaging means seeing people at their worst, quickly.
  • You want the interpretive part of medicine. The images are read by someone else, and you rarely hear how a case turned out.
  • You do not like repeating the same procedure many times in a shift. Parts of the job are routine by design.

The route in

How you actually get there in Ontario

  1. Finish high school with sciences and maths

    Sheridan College lists an Ontario Secondary School Diploma with Grade 12 English, Grade 11 or 12 maths and Grade 11 or 12 Biology or Physics, each with a minimum mark, for its diagnostic imaging programme. Other colleges and universities have different requirements, so check each.

  2. Complete an approved programme in your specialty

    CMRITO requires successful completion of a medical radiation and imaging technology programme in the specialty that meets its approval criteria, with a list of approved programmes on its site. Sheridan's programme is an Ontario College Advanced Diploma with specialties including X-ray/CT and MRI and more than 1,300 supervised clinical hours.

  3. Pass the national exam

    Ontario graduates must pass the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists (CAMRT) examination for their specialty, or the Sonography Canada exam for sonography.

  4. Register with CMRITO

    The College lists steps that include an online profile, a jurisprudence course, an application with documents and fee, verification of your programme, the exam and the registration fee. Specialties carry protected titles: MRT(R), MRT(T), MRT(N), MRT(MR) and DMS.

  5. Work, then add a second specialty or move up

    Many technologists begin in radiography and add CT or MRI. Others move into teaching, supervision or equipment support. Most work is in hospitals and diagnostic laboratories.

Where this comes from: CMRITO — Regulated professions and registration · CMRITO — Registration requirements · CMRITO — Ontario graduates · Sheridan College — Diagnostic Imaging Technology · Job Bank — Medical radiation technologist requirements

The money

Medical radiation technologist 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.

$35.00
Low (hourly)
$45.00
Median (hourly)
$52.04
High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 32121. 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 — Medical radiation technologist 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

Good4 out of 5 stars

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

  • Prevalence of chronic illnesses is adding to the need for diagnostic services
  • Increased demand to meet the health care needs of a growing and aging population

Who hires for it

  • Hospitals
  • Medical and diagnostics laboratories
9,150
people work in this job in Ontario
76%
are women (48% across all jobs)
5%
are self-employed (15% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Medical radiation technologists job prospects in Ontario (NOC 32121). 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 Grade 11 and 12 Biology and Physics if you can, and a maths course at university or college level. They are the common prerequisites.
  • Ask your school about a co-op placement in a hospital or imaging setting. Even short exposure tells you whether you can handle the environment.
  • Get first aid and CPR. Every clinical placement in imaging asks for it.
  • Read the list of approved programmes on the CMRITO site and look at the admission page of two of them, so you know what marks you are working toward.

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.

Compare the five specialties and read what the College asks

About 80 minutes
  1. Read the CMRITO page on its five specialties and choose the one you find most interesting and the one you find least interesting. Write one sentence on why.
  2. Watch a video made by a working technologist or a college programme about a day in your top-choice specialty. Note what they say about shifts, lifting and patients.
  3. Read one Ontario college's admission page for an imaging programme and check your current marks and courses against it.
  4. Phone a hospital's volunteer office and ask whether there is a way to see the diagnostic imaging department as a volunteer or student visitor. Writing down their answer is the experiment, even if it is no.

What it tells you. A yes is wanting to keep reading about your top specialty and finding the lifting and shift descriptions manageable. That is a good reason to look at programme dates. A no is that the day-in-the-life video bored you or the shift pattern is a dealbreaker; that is useful information and costs you nothing.

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. “Which specialty are you in, and why did you choose it over the others?”
  2. “What is the hardest part of positioning a patient who is in pain?”
  3. “How do you handle shift work over many years?”
  4. “What does radiation safety look like in practice, day to day?”
  5. “What surprised you most when you started working?”
  6. “If you were choosing a programme again, what would you look for?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Rarely. Most technologists work in hospitals and diagnostic facilities, and the equipment is expensive and controlled by the facility. Private clinics and mobile services exist, but they are run by owners with significant capital and medical oversight, so treat self-employment as a long-term possibility after experience, not a plan for the start.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does a medical radiation technologist make in Ontario?

The median pay for a medical radiation technologist in Ontario is $45.00 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $35.00 to $52.04 an hour. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for a medical radiation technologist in Ontario?

Job Bank rates the employment outlook for this work in Ontario as good for 2025-2027 (updated 10 December 2025). Employment growth will lead to several new positions. A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements. There are a small 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 medical radiation technologist 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 maths; Complete an approved programme in your specialty; Pass the national exam.

Where does a medical radiation technologist work in Ontario?

Hospitals. Medical and diagnostics laboratories. (Job Bank.)

How many people work as a medical radiation technologist in Ontario, and how many are women?

Job Bank counts about 9,150 people working in this job in Ontario. 76% of them are women, compared with 48% across all jobs. That describes who does the work today, not who can.

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.

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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.