Complete Canadian Salary Guide
Get annual base salary benchmarks for technology professionals across Canada, in Canadian dollars.
What Canadian tech talent actually costs
Compensation benchmarks for software, data, cloud, AI and security professionals across Canada — built from real placements and market data, not scraped job boards.
Every figure in this guide comes from active searches DevEngine conducted for its clients, positions we filled, and aggregated market data over the past 12 months. All figures are annual base salary in Canadian dollars.
Base salary is only part of what an employee costs. These numbers are exclusive of variable compensation — bonuses, commissions and equity — as well as employee benefits, paid time off, and the mandatory employer contributions set by federal and provincial legislation: CPP, EI, applicable provincial health and payroll taxes, and workers' compensation premiums. Model those separately when you budget the total cost of employment.
The table below shows the junior-to-senior range for the most requested roles. The full guide covers 48 roles across seven categories, with figures for every seniority level and a leadership section split by enterprise versus small and mid market.
How we define seniority
Junior
2+ years of experience
Developers with 2+ years of industry experience and still-fresh memories of their computer science degree — eager to code, learn and contribute from day one.
Intermediate
5+ years of experience
Up-and-coming IT professionals with 5+ years of experience, plenty of enthusiasm and ideas to help your team build new features and improve the product.
Senior
7+ years of experience
IT professionals with at least 7+ years of industry experience, strong communication skills and a proven track record of working within complex, regulated or enterprise environments.
Ready to put these numbers to work? DevEngine helps Canadian organizations hire and scale technology teams — explore IT contract staffing, direct hire or all of our services in Canada. If you are weighing a Canadian hire against a nearshore one, our LATAM salary guide covers the same roles in Latin America, and our articles on the costs of hiring tech talent break down what drives the difference.
Snapshot of annual base salaries in Canada
CAD, junior (2+ years) to senior (7+ years). Base salary only — excludes bonuses, benefits and employer contributions. Source: DevEngine placements and market data, past 12 months.
| Role | Category | Annual base salary (CAD) |
|---|---|---|
| Full-Stack Developer | Web & Software Development | $76,000 – $133,000 |
| Front-End Developer (React/Angular/JS) | Web & Software Development | $68,000 – $107,000 |
| Backend Engineer (Go/Node/Python/Ruby) | Web & Software Development | $87,000 – $137,500 |
| Data Engineer | Data Engineering & Analytics | $66,000 – $138,000 |
| Data Analyst | Data Engineering & Analytics | $59,000 – $117,000 |
| Cloud Architect | Cloud & Infrastructure | $125,000 – $174,000 |
| DevOps Engineer | Cloud & Infrastructure | $70,000 – $163,000 |
| AI Engineer | AI/ML Engineering & Data Science | $80,000 – $175,000 |
| Data Scientist | AI/ML Engineering & Data Science | $81,000 – $160,000 |
| Project Manager | Project & Product Management | $66,000 – $135,000 |
| Security Engineer | Security & QA | $80,000 – $151,000 |
| QA Engineer (Automation) | Security & QA | $60,000 – $100,000 |
Ranges span junior to senior profiles. The downloadable guide breaks each role down by seniority and adds the remaining roles, including architects, MLOps, SRE, network and systems engineering, business analysis and the full leadership section.
Canadian salary questions, answered
How much does it cost to hire a software developer in Canada?
Based on DevEngine's placements and aggregated market data over the past 12 months, annual base salaries for Canadian tech professionals range from roughly $59,000 for a junior data analyst to $175,000 for a senior AI engineer. A full-stack developer ranges from $76,000 (junior) to $133,000 (senior), and a data engineer from $66,000 to $138,000. All figures are in Canadian dollars. The full guide breaks all 48 roles down by seniority level.
What do these salary figures include?
These are annual base salaries only. They are exclusive of variable compensation (bonuses, commissions, equity), employee benefits, paid time off, and mandatory employer contributions prescribed by federal and provincial legislation — including CPP, EI, applicable provincial health and payroll taxes, and workers' compensation premiums. Budget for those separately when modelling the total cost of employment.
Where does this salary data come from?
The figures are based on active searches DevEngine conducted for its clients, positions we filled, and aggregated market data — all over the past 12 months. That combination makes it a first-hand benchmark of what Canadian employers are actually paying, rather than a survey of advertised ranges.
How do Canadian salaries compare to hiring in Latin America?
They are not directly comparable as published, because the two guides measure different things. The Canadian figures are annual base salaries before benefits and employer contributions, while our LATAM guide reports all-inclusive hourly rates that already cover compensation, DevEngine's services and operational overhead. To compare properly, add employer costs and overhead to the Canadian base figure first.
What does the full guide include that this page doesn't?
The downloadable guide covers all 48 roles across seven categories — Web & Software Development, Data Engineering & Analytics, Cloud & Infrastructure, AI/ML Engineering & Data Science, Project & Product Management, Security & QA, and Leadership — with junior, intermediate and senior figures for each. The Leadership category (CIO, CTO, CISO, VP of Engineering, IT Director and Enterprise Architect, split by enterprise versus small/mid market) appears only in the guide.