Education · Helping & Teaching

Professor: what the job actually is

Teaching university students and doing research in your field, in a job where the teaching is only part of what you are judged on.

Published October 6, 2026Last reviewed October 6, 2026How we research and correct this

Professor salary in Ontario: the median pay is $64.10 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024). Its three-year outlook in Ontario is moderate. The job usually needs a university degree.

Median pay in Ontario: $64.10 an hour
Pay range (low to high): $33.65 to $101.44 an hour
Job outlook, 2025-2027: Moderate
People working in it in Ontario: 27,200
Usually needs: Usually a university degree

Source: Job Bank wages (updated 19 November 2025) and job prospects (updated 10 December 2025), NOC 41200. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

Teaching at a university and, for most professors, doing research in a specialised field. Many are judged on both, and the research is often what decides whether you are hired and promoted.
Job Bank reports one set of figures for university professors and lecturers together. Its requirements page says a doctoral degree is required for professors and a master's degree for lecturers, so the group includes jobs with different entry points and the pay and outlook describe all of them.
Much of the work is invisible to students: preparing courses, marking, supervising graduate students, writing papers, applying for research funding and sitting on committees.
Your subject can be anything a university teaches, from chemistry to history to nursing. Job Bank says licences or certifications may be needed for those teaching in regulated fields such as medicine, engineering, architecture, psychology or law.
It is a different job from teaching in a school, and it needs a different route. The teacher page covers the school route.

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.

7:45 — Read the draft chapter a graduate student sent you last night, writing questions in the margin.
9:00 — Office hours. Two students want an extension, one wants to know if the exam is hard, and one asks a question that changes how you will teach next week.
10:00 — Teach a lecture. The slides were finished at 1 a.m., and the discussion is better than the slides.
11:30 — Committee meeting about the department's course requirements. It is long, and it matters.
13:00 — Lunch at your desk, answering email from students, colleagues and administrators.
14:00 — Work on a research grant application. The question is whether your idea is worth funding, and the deadline is not flexible.
15:30 — Marking. Forty essays with the same mistake in the second paragraph.
17:00 — Meet a graduate student who is stuck. You listen more than you talk.
20:00 — At home, writing, since the quiet time for research is evenings and weekends.

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.

How you actually get there in Ontario

Get a bachelor's degree in a subject you will not get tired of
You will spend years with one subject. Compare programmes on ontariouniversitiesinfo.ca, and try to get research experience as an undergraduate, since graduate programmes look for it. Western University's chemistry department, for example, says that you must have research experience to be considered for admission, which may be part of your degree or a summer research experience.
Do graduate study
Job Bank says a doctoral degree in the field of specialization is required for university professors and a master's degree for lecturers. Western's chemistry page describes the usual route as a thesis-based master's degree followed by a PhD, with direct entry to the PhD for outstanding applicants who hold a four-year bachelor's degree. Other departments set their own rules, so read the page for each programme.
Complete the PhD and any further research training
The PhD is a research project that ends in a thesis. After it, many people take short research positions at universities before a permanent job comes up. Job Bank's page for biologists says post-doctoral research experience is needed for academic and research institution jobs. Ask people in your own field whether the same holds there.
Know the other entry point
Job Bank says university lecturers need a master's degree in the field of specialization. Lecturer and sessional teaching jobs can be an entry into university teaching with a shorter route, and the contract terms differ from a professor's, so ask about them before you plan around them.

Where this comes from: Job Bank — University professors and lecturers: requirements in Ontario · Job Bank — University professors and lecturers: outlook in Ontario · Western University Chemistry — PhD admission requirements (an example of one department)

The money

Professor 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.

$33.65: Low (hourly)
$64.10: Median (hourly)
$101.44: High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 41200. 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 — Professor 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 decline will lead to the loss of some positions.
Several 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.

27,200: people work in this job in Ontario
44%: are women (48% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — University professors and lecturers job prospects in Ontario (NOC 41200). 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 senior courses in the subject you love, and the courses that teach you to write an argument. Research is mostly writing.
Go to a public lecture at a nearby university or college, which many put online for free, and watch how the person handles questions.
Look at the school's course of study for one department at a university you might attend, and read what the professors' research pages say they work on.
Tutor a younger student in your best subject. Teaching someone is the quickest way to find out whether you like explaining.

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.

Read a professor's research page and a paper abstract

About 60 minutes

Choose a subject you like, and find the web page of one professor at an Ontario university who works in it. Read what they say they research and what they teach.
Find one paper or abstract that they wrote. Read the abstract and write down in one sentence what question they were asking.
Write down three questions about it that you would want to ask them, and then try to write one email as if you were a student asking about their course, without sending it.
Explain the research to someone in two minutes, as you would explain it to a classmate.

What it tells you. If the reading made you want to know more and you enjoyed explaining it, you have the curiosity that carries people through a doctorate. If it felt like homework you wanted to be done with, or you wanted the teaching without the research, a job teaching in a school or a college may suit you better.

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.

“How is your time divided between teaching, research and committee work?”
“How long did your PhD and the years after it take, and what was hard?”
“How did you find your first permanent job?”
“What would you tell someone who wants to teach but not do research?”
“What do you wish you had known before starting graduate school?”
“What does a lecturer's job look like compared with a professor's?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Not really in the usual sense, since professors are employed by a university. Some consult for organisations or start companies from their research, and that is a separate activity alongside the job. Job Bank's snapshot does not publish a self-employment figure for this group.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does a professor make in Ontario?

The median pay for a professor in Ontario is $64.10 an hour, according to Job Bank (reference period 2023-2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $33.65 to $101.44 an hour. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for a professor in Ontario?

Job Bank rates the employment outlook for this work in Ontario as moderate for 2025-2027 (updated 10 December 2025). Employment decline will lead to the loss of some positions. Several 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 professor in Ontario?

Job Bank says this work usually needs a university degree. The usual route in Ontario, in order: Get a bachelor's degree in a subject you will not get tired of; Do graduate study; Complete the PhD and any further research training.

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

Job Bank counts about 27,200 people working in this job in Ontario. 44% 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 — free All 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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