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Psychiatrist: what the job actually is

A medical doctor who diagnoses and treats mental illness, and can prescribe medication as well as use talk-based treatment.

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Psychiatrist: quick facts

Psychiatrist salary in Ontario: Job Bank reports one figure for the whole group of specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine, not for psychiatrist alone. For that group the median pay is $295,785 a year (reference period 2023-2024). The group's three-year outlook in Ontario is good. The job usually needs a university degree.

Median pay in Ontario
$295,785 a year
Pay range (low to high)
$110,998 to $599,836 a year
Job outlook, 2025-2027
Good
People working in it in Ontario
14,650
Usually needs
Usually a university degree

Source: Job Bank wages (updated 19 November 2025) and job prospects (updated 10 December 2025), NOC 31100. Pay varies by region and experience.

The work

What this job actually is

  • A physician who specialises in mental illness. You assess a person's mood, thinking and behaviour, work out what is going on, and decide on treatment, which can include medication and therapy.
  • A psychiatrist is a medical doctor first. That is the main difference from a psychologist, whose route runs through a doctoral degree in psychology rather than medical school. Our psychologist page is at /careers/jobs/psychologist.
  • Because you are a physician, you also look at the body: other illnesses, side effects, and how a physical problem can look like a mental one.
  • Job Bank reports one pay figure and one outlook for all specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine, not for psychiatry alone. The pay on this page is the figure for that whole group.
  • Settings include hospitals, clinics and private offices. You might see people in crisis in an emergency department one week and long-term patients in an office the next.

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 notes and referral letters, especially the ones marked urgent.
  2. 8:30 — A first assessment. You listen for most of an hour to someone describing their worst months, and you take careful notes.
  3. 9:45 — Phone call to the family doctor who sent the referral, to agree on who does what next.
  4. 10:30 — A follow-up with someone whose medication is working but whose side effects are not. You adjust the plan together.
  5. 11:30 — A conversation with a person who does not agree they are unwell. You hold your position and stay kind, and neither is easy.
  6. 12:30 — Lunch with a colleague, talking over a hard case. Nobody in this job works well in isolation.
  7. 13:30 — A short appointment with a long-standing patient. Fifteen minutes of checking in is the treatment.
  8. 15:00 — Team meeting with nurses and social workers about a patient being discharged.
  9. 16:30 — Charting and letters. If it is not written clearly, the next person cannot act on it.
  10. 17:30 — Home. The skill that takes longest to learn is leaving it at the door.

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 curious about why people think, feel and behave as they do, and you can listen without hurrying to fix it.
  • You like medicine and want to apply it to the mind as well as the body.
  • You can sit calmly with strong emotion, including anger and despair.
  • You are comfortable with uncertainty. Mental illness rarely has a single test that gives the answer.
  • You like working with a team, including nurses, social workers and psychologists.
You may hate this if
  • You want visible, quick results. Progress is often slow, partial and uneven, and some patients do not improve as you hoped.
  • You do not want the long route. After a bachelor's degree and medical school, Job Bank says four to five years of specialty residency training are required for this group.
  • You get worn down by other people's pain. Taking it home is a real risk and needs planning.
  • You dislike disagreement. Some patients refuse treatment, and some situations involve hard decisions about safety.
  • You prefer procedures to conversation. Much of the work is talking, listening and writing.
  • You are uneasy about the stigma around mental illness. It can reach the people who treat it as well.

The route in

How you actually get there in Ontario

  1. Do a university degree and get into medical school

    Job Bank says a bachelor's degree is usually required, and graduation from an approved medical school. Each medical school sets its own rules, so read the requirements of the ones you might apply to. Our family physician page lists the Ontario schools.

  2. Match into a psychiatry residency

    Job Bank gives four to five years of specialty residency training for this group, with two more years of subspecialty training possibly needed. We did not read the entry requirements for a psychiatry residency specifically, so ask a medical school or a resident.

  3. Pass the Royal College examinations

    Job Bank says the certifying examinations of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada are required. The CPSO also asks for Parts 1 and 2 of the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination.

  4. Get licensed by the CPSO

    Licensing by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is compulsory. The CPSO says a certificate holder may only practise in the areas where they are educated and experienced.

Where this comes from: Job Bank — Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine, requirements in Ontario · CPSO — Independent practice certificate requirements

The money

Psychiatrist 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.

$110,998
Low (a year)
$295,785
Median (a year)
$599,836
High (a year)

Ontario, NOC 31100. 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. Job Bank reports this one by the year rather than by the hour, because the income is commission and the hours behind it are nothing like fixed.

Source: Job Bank — Psychiatrist 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 a moderate number of 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

  • Increased need for health-related services to support the growing and aging population in Ontario
  • Greater demand on the health care system because of the backlog of medical procedures and patient care needs
  • Major investments in health care facilities
  • Initiatives to improve home and community-based patient care services
  • Demand may be greater in rural and northern communities of Ontario

Who hires for it

  • Hospitals
  • Offices of physicians
  • Almost 60% of specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine are self-employed
14,650
people work in this job in Ontario
43%
are women (48% across all jobs)
59%
are self-employed (15% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine job prospects in Ontario (NOC 31100). 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 senior biology, chemistry, English and psychology if your school offers it. Medicine asks for science, and psychiatry asks you to write and read well.
  • Volunteer where you listen to people, such as a peer-support programme, a seniors' centre or a youth organisation, if your age allows.
  • Read one good book by a person who has lived with a mental illness, and notice what helped them, and what did not.
  • Learn the difference between a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a social worker, and say it out loud to someone else.

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.

Put psychiatrist and psychologist side by side

About 60 minutes
  1. Open our psychologist page and the Job Bank requirements page for specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine. Write the two routes as two lists, starting from the end of high school.
  2. Under each list write what the person is allowed to do that the other cannot. Use only what the pages state, and mark anything you are guessing.
  3. Ask yourself which half you would hate to give up: the medical training and the ability to prescribe, or the research and testing route. Write down your answer before you read anything else.

What it tells you. If you chose the medical side and the longer route still felt worth it, psychiatry is a real option and you should start building the grades and the science background. If you chose the psychology route, or the whole picture looked too long, psychology, social work and counselling roles on this site reach people in a similar way with different training.

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 does a first appointment with a new patient look like?”
  2. “How do you decide when medication is the right answer and when it is not?”
  3. “What do you wish people understood about mental illness?”
  4. “How do you stop the job following you home?”
  5. “What made you choose psychiatry over another specialty?”
  6. “What would you tell a student about the length of the training?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Yes, in the sense that many physicians in this group are self-employed. Job Bank says a large share of specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine are, and private practice is one way psychiatrists work. Hospitals and clinics also hire, so ask a psychiatrist how they chose.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

Quick answers

Questions people ask about this job

How much does a psychiatrist make in Ontario?

Job Bank reports one figure for the whole group of specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine, not for a psychiatrist alone. For that group the median pay is $295,785 a year (reference period 2023-2024, updated 19 November 2025). The range Job Bank publishes runs from $110,998 to $599,836 a year. Pay varies by region, employer and experience.

What is the job outlook for a psychiatrist 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 a moderate number of 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 psychiatrist in Ontario?

Job Bank says this work usually needs a university degree. The usual route in Ontario, in order: Do a university degree and get into medical school; Match into a psychiatry residency; Pass the Royal College examinations.

Where does a psychiatrist work in Ontario?

Hospitals. Offices of physicians. Almost 60% of specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine are self-employed. (Job Bank.)

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

Job Bank counts about 14,650 people working in this job in Ontario. 43% of them are women, compared with 48% across all jobs. That describes who does the work today, not who can.

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

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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.