Technology · Creating & Designing

Web developer: what the job actually is

Building the pages and tools people use in a browser, and then fixing them when they break on somebody's old phone.

Published October 5, 2026Last reviewed October 5, 2026How we research and correct this

The work

What this job actually is

Building websites and web applications: the part you see, the part that stores things, and the part that connects them.
Much of the day is making something work in different browsers, on different screens, for people with different needs, including people who rely on screen readers.
You work from someone else's design and someone else's requirements, and you tell them honestly when what they asked for will not work as drawn.
A lot of the work is maintaining sites that already exist, written by people who left. You read more than you write.
The tools change quickly. What you learned in a programme will be partly out of date in a few years.

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.

9:00 — Open the site. Somebody reports that the form does not submit on their phone.
9:30 — Reproduce it. It only fails on one older browser. You borrow a device to see it yourself.
10:30 — Fix it, then discover the fix broke the layout somewhere else.
11:15 — Meeting with the designer. The mock-up has a text size that does not fit on a small screen. You find a compromise.
12:15 — Lunch, and a scroll through a new tool everyone says changes everything. Maybe.
13:00 — A client wants one small change. It touches four pages.
14:00 — Check the page against accessibility basics: can you reach everything with a keyboard, is the contrast readable, does every image say what it is.
15:00 — Review a teammate's changes and leave three comments that are kinder in writing than they were in your head.
16:15 — Speed check. The page is slow because of one enormous image nobody resized.
17:00 — Push the changes, watch them go live, hold your breath for a minute.

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

Read the outlook first, and plan around it
Job Bank rates the 2025-2027 outlook for web developers and programmers in Ontario as Very limited. It says employment decline will lead to the loss of some positions, not many positions will become available due to retirements, and there are several unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation. It also notes that advanced software is simplifying some steps in web development and that recent restructuring in the technology cluster globally may affect job growth, while the need for businesses to have a website will still create some work. Read together: entry-level competition is stiff, and the people who stand out are the ones who can show finished work and have already worked with a team.
Choose a programme with a work placement
ontariocolleges.ca describes web design and development programmes covering HTML, CSS and JavaScript, responsive design, UI and UX design principles and web frameworks, and says many include work placements with local organisations. Universities offer computer science degrees that lead to similar work. A co-op or placement term is the single most useful thing to look for.
Build a portfolio of finished, live things
No licence is needed. Employers look at what you have built. Two or three live projects, one for a real person who is not a relative, with a short note on what you decided and why, will carry more weight than a list of courses.
Keep a second string
Because the field is tight, many people pair web skills with something else: design, writing, a business, or a different technical area such as security or data. The two together are more employable than either alone.

Where this comes from: ontariocolleges.ca — Web Design & Development programs · ontariocolleges.ca — Computer - Security programs (IT field overview)

The money

What it pays 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.

$21.63: Low (hourly)
$40.00: Median (hourly)
$56.41: High (hourly)

Ontario, NOC 21234. 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 — Web developer 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

Very limited1 out of 5 stars

Employment decline will lead to the loss of some positions.
Not many positions will become available due to retirements.
There are several 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

The need for business operations to have a website to market products and services will create employment
However, the pace of job growth may be affected by the availability of advanced software which is simplifying the steps in web development, as well as recent restructuring in the technology cluster globally

Who hires for it

Various industries, but half employed in computer systems design and related services
Public administration, largely federal government departments
Finance and insurance, mainly banks

11,450: people work in this job in Ontario
26%: are women (48% across all jobs)
21%: are self-employed (15% across all jobs)

Source: Job Bank — Web developers and programmers job prospects in Ontario (NOC 21234). 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 any computer science or media course on offer, and the strongest maths you can cope with.
Build a one-page site for something real, such as a club, a team or a family event, and put it live. A site with a real visitor teaches more than a tutorial.
Ask your guidance office about co-op placements in an office with a website or IT team.
Find out what the web design and development programmes at two Ontario colleges list as admission requirements, so you know what to take in Grade 12.

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.

Build and publish a one-page site tonight

About 120 minutes

Choose something you care about and write a heading and three short paragraphs about it in a plain text file.
Wrap it in basic HTML using any free tutorial, then add a little CSS so it is readable on a phone as well as a laptop. Open it on both.
Change one thing that is wrong at phone width. Note how long you spent on it.
Show it to one person and ask where they got stuck. Fix the first thing they mention.

What it tells you. If the fiddly bit, fixing the thing that looked wrong on the phone, was the part you enjoyed, this is a good sign. If you wanted the design handed to you and only enjoyed the first ten minutes, you may be a better designer or writer than a developer. If you gave up when it did not work, notice whether that was boredom or frustration, because they point in different directions.

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 did you get your first web job, and how long did it take?”
“How much of your work is new building versus maintaining old sites?”
“How do you keep your skills current without burning out?”
“What would you do differently if you were starting today, given how competitive it is?”
“Which other skills made you more employable than web skills alone?”
“What does a good junior portfolio look like to you?”

Could you own one of these?

The part other career sites never mention

Yes, and it is more common here than in most jobs on this site, because a developer needs little more than a laptop. Contract and freelance web work for small businesses is a real route, and Job Bank's own figures show a higher share of self-employment in this occupation than in the workforce as a whole. The hard part is not building the site; it is finding customers and pricing your time properly. Be aware, too, that Job Bank notes advanced software is making some steps simpler.

Business 101 is free and teaches that part

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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