Person on computer sitting on stack of money

Miriam Groom

15 April 2026 • Estimated reading time : 20 mins

What employers are actually paying — and what candidates are expecting — across Canada’s three biggest tech markets.

If you’ve tried to fill an IT position in the past twelve months, you’ve probably noticed that salary conversations have gotten harder. Candidates are more informed, their expectations have shifted, and the gap between what a company budgets and what the market actually demands has widened for a lot of roles.

Part of the challenge is that most available salary data treats Canada as a single market. It isn’t. A senior software developer in Vancouver is benchmarking their ask against US tech giants with offices down the street. A cybersecurity analyst in Montreal may be weighing a bilingual premium on top of their base expectations. And a data scientist in Toronto is operating in one of the most competitive hiring markets in North America. The numbers look very different depending on where you’re hiring.

This guide breaks down 2026 salary benchmarks for the most in-demand IT roles across Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver — by experience level, with context on what’s actually driving those differences. Whether you’re building a compensation framework, pressure-testing an offer before it goes out, or trying to understand why your last search stalled at the negotiation stage, these numbers give you a practical starting point.

Data in this article is drawn from the Robert Half 2026 Canada Salary Guide, Glassdoor city-level data (March 2026), the Motion Recruitment 2026 Toronto Tech Salary Guide, and Kovasys. Where ranges differ between sources, we’ve noted the variance rather than averaged it out — because that spread itself tells you something useful.

Why National Averages Don’t Work for IT Hiring

Most compensation benchmarking tools default to a national figure. That’s fine for a broad budgeting conversation, but it breaks down fast when you’re making an actual offer to an actual person in a specific city.

Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal each have distinct labour market dynamics — different industry concentrations, different talent pool sizes, and different competitive pressures. A salary that’s competitive in Montreal can come across as an insult in Vancouver, where the cost of living is significantly higher and US employers are actively recruiting the same candidates you’re after.

According to the Robert Half 2026 Canada Salary Guide, nearly all IT departments — 98% — are planning major digital transformation initiatives over the next two years. That sustained demand is keeping specialized tech talent scarce even as broader economic uncertainty has softened other parts of the job market. Thirty-one percent of technology managers say finding the right talent to execute those strategies is their top priority this year. When everyone is competing for the same pool of cloud architects, DevOps engineers, and cybersecurity professionals, city-specific pay data isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a hiring necessity.

Understanding the Three Markets

Before diving into role-by-role numbers, it’s worth understanding what makes each city’s tech market behave differently. These aren’t just cost-of-living differences — they reflect distinct employer ecosystems, talent supply conditions, and competitive pressures.

Toronto

Toronto is Canada’s largest and most competitive tech market. It’s home to over 337,000 IT workers and consistently ranks among the top tech talent markets in North America. The city’s strength lies in enterprise tech, financial services, insurance, and a rapidly growing startup and scale-up ecosystem. That concentration of large employers means candidates have more options — and more leverage.

Toronto also faces the most direct competition from US remote employers. Senior professionals here are routinely fielding USD-denominated offers, which has pushed compensation expectations up at the mid and senior levels faster than many domestic employers have adjusted. According to Glassdoor’s March 2026 data, senior software engineers in Toronto earn between $109,503 and $178,675, with top earners exceeding $235,000 — a range that overlaps directly with US market rates. If your offer is landing well below expectations in Toronto, that’s often the reason.

Vancouver

Vancouver punches above its weight in tech. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Electronic Arts, and a long list of US-backed companies have major offices or development centres in the Greater Vancouver Area, creating a local market that behaves more like a satellite of Silicon Valley than a secondary Canadian city. That proximity effect is real: it pulls compensation upward, particularly for software engineering, cloud, and product-adjacent roles.

The talent pool is smaller than Toronto’s, which concentrates competition further. Employers who rely on national averages to set Vancouver salaries frequently find themselves outbid — not by local competitors, but by companies headquartered three time zones away.

Montreal

Montreal is a different kind of market, and a genuinely compelling one for employers who understand it. Nominal salaries are consistently lower than Toronto and Vancouver — but that gap narrows considerably when adjusted for cost of living, and it doesn’t reflect a lower quality of talent. Montreal has one of the strongest AI research ecosystems in the world, anchored by Mila and a cluster of major tech labs. It’s also a hub for gaming (Ubisoft, EA, Warner Bros.), aerospace, pharmaceutical, and fintech companies.

Two factors make Montreal’s market distinctive. First, bilingualism commands a real premium — particularly in cybersecurity and enterprise roles where client-facing work requires French and English fluency. Second, the presence of large, high-quality university programs (McGill, Polytechnique, Université de Montréal, Concordia) produces a steady pipeline of technical talent that keeps the market comparatively balanced. For employers willing to think carefully about total compensation rather than just base salary, Montreal offers strong value.

What Candidates Are Weighing Beyond Base Salary

Salary is still the anchor of any offer, but Canadian IT professionals have become more sophisticated about evaluating total compensation — and more willing to walk away when the full package doesn’t add up.

Remote and hybrid flexibility remains a significant factor. Candidates who built their careers around remote work during the pandemic have largely not returned to full-time office environments, and many will decline offers that require it. For employers in Montreal and Vancouver especially, where commute times and housing costs are real considerations, remote flexibility functions as a compensation lever.

Beyond that, employers are reporting that the following elements are increasingly part of offer negotiations:

Professional development budgets and certification reimbursement — particularly relevant for cloud, security, and AI roles where credentials carry measurable salary premiums
Extended mental health benefits, which have moved from a differentiator to a baseline expectation in the tech sector
Additional vacation time, especially for senior candidates who’ve been in the market long enough to know what they’re worth
Equity or profit-sharing structures, more common at scale-ups and growth-stage companies but increasingly expected at larger firms as well

The Robert Half 2026 Canada Salary Guide notes that 73% of tech leaders agree that professionals with specialized skills earn more than peers in similar roles — and that certification premiums are driving up starting salaries across cloud, cybersecurity, and AI disciplines. We’ll break that down by role in the sections that follow.

SALARY BENCHMARKS BY ROLE

This section covers five of the most actively recruited IT roles in Canada right now: Software Developer/Engineer, Data Scientist, Cybersecurity Analyst, DevOps Engineer, and AI/ML Engineer. For each role, you’ll find city-by-city salary ranges broken out by experience level, followed by a short note on what’s driving those numbers and what employers should watch out for.

All figures are in Canadian dollars and represent base salary only. Total compensation — including bonuses, profit sharing, RSUs, and benefits — will add 10–30% on top depending on the employer type and seniority level.

1. Software Developer / Software Engineer

Software development remains the broadest hiring category in Canadian tech. The role spans a wide spectrum — from web developers building internal tools to backend engineers working on distributed systems at scale — and compensation reflects that range. Where you land within it depends heavily on the tech stack, the industry vertical, and how much the employer is competing against US remote offers.

Experience	Montréal	Toronto	Vancouver
Junior (0–2 yrs)	$62K – $83K	$75K – $104K	$85K – $126K
Mid-Level (3–6 yrs)	$83K – $120K	$104K – $155K	$126K – $175K
Senior (7+ yrs)	$120K – $155K	$155K – $205K	$175K – $231K

Source: Glassdoor Montréal | Levels.fyi Toronto | Levels.fyi Vancouver (March 2026)

Toronto and Vancouver show the starkest gap at the senior level. In Vancouver, total compensation at top-tier employers — Amazon, Microsoft, Apple — regularly eclipses $200K once equity and bonuses are factored in, pushing base salary expectations up across the board. Montreal’s range is lower nominally, but when you account for Quebec’s significantly lower housing costs, purchasing power for a $130K earner in Montreal is comparable to a $160K earner in Toronto.

One thing employers often miss: junior developers in Vancouver are already commanding salaries that would be competitive for mid-level roles in Montreal. If you’re building a distributed team and want to optimise cost-per-hire without compromising quality, Montreal’s pipeline — fed by McGill, Concordia, Polytechnique, and Université de Montréal — is one of the strongest in North America for early-career software talent.

2. Data Scientist

Data science hiring has matured considerably. The days of companies scrambling for anyone who could run a regression in Python are largely over — employers are now looking for specialization, whether that’s ML engineering, NLP, computer vision, or quantitative modelling for financial applications. That specialization premium is showing up in compensation at the mid and senior levels, while entry-level ranges have normalized.

Experience	Montréal	Toronto	Vancouver
Junior (0–2 yrs)	$75K – $95K	$82K – $107K	$82K – $102K
Mid-Level (3–6 yrs)	$95K – $116K	$107K – $140K	$102K – $141K
Senior (7+ yrs)	$116K – $140K	$140K – $206K	$141K – $185K

Source: Glassdoor Montréal – Data Scientist | Glassdoor Vancouver – Data Scientist | Glassdoor Toronto – Senior Data Scientist (Feb–Mar 2026)

Toronto’s senior range is notably wide — from $140K to over $200K — which reflects the bifurcation between traditional enterprise roles (banks, insurance companies, large retailers) and high-growth tech and AI firms. At RBC, TD, or Scotiabank, a senior data scientist with risk modelling expertise can command $160–175K. At a Series B fintech or an AI-native company, that same profile could clear $200K with equity on top.

Montreal deserves a closer look for data science hiring. The city’s AI ecosystem — centred around Mila and anchored by companies like ServiceNow AI Research, Microsoft Research, and Google DeepMind’s Montreal presence — generates a pool of PhD-level and research-adjacent talent that simply doesn’t exist at the same density in other Canadian cities. Salaries are lower, but so is the competition for exceptional technical profiles.

3. Cybersecurity Analyst / Engineer

Cybersecurity is one of the few tech disciplines where demand has continued to outpace supply without any real correction. Every industry vertical needs it — financial services, healthcare, government, utilities, retail — and the regulatory environment is tightening, which means organizations can’t defer hiring the way they might for other IT roles. That supply-demand imbalance is keeping salaries firm, especially at the mid and senior levels.

Experience	Montréal	Toronto	Vancouver
Junior (0–2 yrs)	$60K – $75K	$63K – $82K	$68K – $88K
Mid-Level (3–6 yrs)	$75K – $100K	$82K – $107K	$88K – $115K
Senior (7+ yrs)	$100K – $130K	$107K – $130K	$115K – $145K

Source: Glassdoor Canada – Cybersecurity Analyst | Glassdoor Toronto – Information Security Analyst | Levels.fyi Montréal – Security Analyst | PayScale Canada (Jan–Mar 2026)

Montreal has a notable quirk in the cybersecurity market: bilingualism commands a real premium. Professionals with CISSP, CEH, or CISM certifications who can operate in both French and English are in short supply and can negotiate 10–15% above the ranges above, particularly in enterprise and government-adjacent roles. For employers in Quebec’s financial sector or any company working with federal government clients, this matters.

Toronto’s senior cybersecurity range is slightly compressed compared to Vancouver — partly because Toronto has a deeper talent pipeline, and partly because Vancouver’s shortage is more acute. Across all three cities, certifications are the fastest lever for individual professionals to move up the range, and employers who cover certification costs as part of their benefits package are reporting noticeably better offer acceptance rates.

4. DevOps Engineer

DevOps has evolved from a specialist niche into a foundational capability that every company running cloud infrastructure now needs. The role has also broadened — many DevOps engineers are now being hired under titles like Platform Engineer or Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), with slightly different emphasis but overlapping compensation. The numbers below reflect the traditional DevOps title; SRE roles typically run 10–15% higher at the senior level.

Experience	Montréal	Toronto	Vancouver
Junior (0–2 yrs)	$65K – $85K	$75K – $95K	$80K – $105K
Mid-Level (3–6 yrs)	$85K – $110K	$95K – $123K	$105K – $135K
Senior (7+ yrs)	$110K – $140K	$123K – $151K	$135K – $165K

Source: Glassdoor Canada – DevOps Engineer | Glassdoor Toronto – DevOps Engineer | Glassdoor Toronto – Senior DevOps Engineer (Feb–Mar 2026)

The mid-level DevOps market in Toronto is particularly competitive right now. Digital transformation projects that stalled during the economic uncertainty of 2023–2024 are now moving again, and companies are hiring platform engineers who can manage cloud infrastructure at scale. AWS and Azure certifications are essentially table stakes at this point — candidates without them are being screened out before interviews.

Vancouver shows consistently higher floors across all experience levels, driven by the concentration of US tech company offices in the region. Interestingly, some of the highest-reported DevOps salaries in the Glassdoor data come from Vancouver-based cloud DevOps specialists, with senior practitioners at US-owned tech companies reporting total compensation well above $200K when equity is included.

5. AI / Machine Learning Engineer

This is the most volatile benchmark in the guide, and intentionally so. AI and ML engineering compensation is still settling as the market figures out how to differentiate between a data scientist who does some ML work, a software engineer who deploys models, and a true ML systems engineer who can take a model from research to production at scale. Those profiles can command very different salaries, and the ranges below reflect that breadth.

Experience	Montréal	Toronto	Vancouver
Junior (0–2 yrs)	$85K – $106K	$86K – $120K	$90K – $120K
Mid-Level (3–6 yrs)	$106K – $130K	$120K – $158K	$120K – $155K
Senior (7+ yrs)	$130K – $160K	$158K – $210K	$155K – $200K

Source: Glassdoor Canada – Machine Learning Engineer | Indeed Canada – ML Engineer | Robert Half 2026 Canada Salary Guide (Feb–Mar 2026)

A few things stand out in this data. First, Montreal’s floor for junior AI/ML engineers is notably high — reflecting both the density of AI research activity in the city and the fact that candidates entering from Mila-adjacent programs often have publication records and production experience that would be considered mid-level elsewhere. Second, Toronto’s senior range extends significantly above Vancouver’s, largely because of the Vector Institute ecosystem and the density of financial services firms paying top dollar for ML talent in risk, fraud detection, and algorithmic trading.

For employers: the 2026 market for AI/ML talent is one where the gap between a good offer and a great offer is smaller than it used to be. According to the Robert Half 2026 Canada Salary Guide, 73% of tech leaders agree that professionals with specialized AI and ML skills earn more than peers in similar roles. The differentiators are increasingly non-salary: access to interesting problems, publication rights, compute resources, and the calibre of the team around them.

Quick Reference: How the Cities Stack Up

Vancouver leads on base salary for most roles at every level, driven by US employer competition and a smaller local talent pool. Toronto commands the widest senior ranges — especially in data science and AI/ML — due to the depth of its financial services sector. Montreal consistently shows lower nominal salaries, but offers the most compelling value-per-hire equation when total compensation, cost-of-living, and talent quality are weighed together.

What Certifications Are Actually Worth in 2026

Certifications have always mattered in IT hiring, but the premium they command has become more quantifiable — and more consequential — in recent hiring cycles. As employers tighten job descriptions and candidates look for every edge they can find, the right credential can move a candidate from the shortlist to the offer stage and add anywhere from $8,000 to $40,000 to their starting salary.

The key word is right. Not every certification earns its premium equally. What follows is a practical guide to which credentials are genuinely moving the needle for Canadian IT professionals in 2026 — based on data from the Robert Half 2026 Canada Salary Guide, KnowledgeHut’s CISSP Canada salary analysis, and StudyTech’s AWS Certification Salary Report.

Certification	Best For	Salary Premium
AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Professional)	Cloud engineers, DevOps, infrastructure architects	+27–40% vs. non-certified; avg. $148K–$163K
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert	Enterprise IT, financial services, government-adjacent roles	+15–25%; $100K–$180K depending on seniority
CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)	Mid-to-senior cybersecurity analysts, security managers	+15–20% in Canada; CISSP holders avg. $131K+
AWS Certified Security – Specialty	Cloud security specialists; highest-paying AWS cert	Avg. $203K reported (senior, US-benchmarked roles)
CISM (Certified Information Security Manager)	Security managers, compliance leads, GRC professionals	Commonly required for $110K+ management roles
Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect	GCP-focused architects; scarcity drives premium	Avg. $190K reported; 10–15% above equivalent Azure
CompTIA Security+	Junior cybersecurity analysts, government contractors	$71K–$95K entry-level; gateway to CISSP path
Hashicorp Terraform Associate	DevOps / Platform engineers; infrastructure-as-code	Often required for mid-level DevOps roles $95K+

Source: Robert Half 2026 Salary Guide | StudyTech AWS Report | KnowledgeHut CISSP Canada | PassItExams AWS vs Azure

AWS vs. Azure: Which Premium Is Bigger?

Employers often ask whether they should prioritize AWS or Azure certifications when screening candidates. The answer depends on your tech stack, but the compensation data leans toward AWS. AWS-certified professionals consistently command a 10–15% salary premium over equivalent Azure-certified roles, largely because AWS dominates in high-growth tech companies and startups that tend to pay above market. Azure’s premium, while slightly lower, is growing faster — driven by enterprise adoption in financial services, healthcare, and government. If you’re hiring for a large organization on a Microsoft stack, Azure expertise is often more practically valuable, even if the nominal salary premium is smaller.

The Montreal Certification Dynamic

In Quebec specifically, the CISSP remains the most highly valued security credential. CISSP holders in Canada earn 15–20% more than non-certified counterparts, and in Montreal the bilingual premium stacks on top of that for professionals who can conduct security assessments, write policies, and manage client relationships in both French and English. For employers covering certification costs as a retention benefit — which more Quebec-based companies are doing — the CISSP reimbursement is one of the highest-ROI investments available.

What This Means for Hiring Managers

Salary data is only useful if it changes how you act. Here are the practical implications of what the 2026 benchmarks are telling us — and what hiring teams in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver should do differently as a result.

✓	Stop using national averages to build your offers A national average for a software developer in 2026 sits around $105K. In Vancouver, that number will cost you the candidate. In Toronto, it may get you to a second conversation but not a signed offer. Pull city-specific data before every search opens, not after a candidate declines.
✓	Budget for a certification premium at the screening stage If a candidate holds AWS Solutions Architect Professional, CISSP, or Google Cloud Professional certifications, their expectation is built around a 15–40% premium over non-certified peers. Factor this in before posting the role, not during negotiation.
✓	Treat remote flexibility as a compensation line item In practice, candidates in all three cities are discounting offers with rigid in-office requirements by roughly the cost of commuting time and housing premium. A hybrid offer in Vancouver is often more competitive than a higher-salary full-time office offer — and it costs you less.
✓	Watch the US competition more closely in Vancouver and Toronto Senior software engineers, DevOps specialists, and AI/ML engineers in both cities are routinely receiving USD-denominated remote offers from US employers. If you lose a candidate late in the process without a clear reason, that is likely what happened. Consider whether your offer structure can compete, or whether you need to widen your search to cities where that pressure is lower.
✓	Use Montreal strategically for senior technical hires The combination of world-class AI research output from Mila and major tech labs, lower salary floors, and a strong university pipeline makes Montreal genuinely undervalued for senior technical hiring. Companies building ML, data, or cybersecurity teams who aren’t actively sourcing in Montreal are leaving a competitive advantage on the table.
✓	Expand total compensation conversations early Candidates — particularly at the mid and senior levels — are increasingly sophisticated about evaluating the full package. Waiting until the offer stage to discuss professional development budgets, equity, or certification reimbursement is too late. Surface these earlier in the process to differentiate before a competing offer arrives.

A Note on Salary Data and Its Limits

Every benchmark in this guide is a range, not a number — and that’s intentional. Compensation in the Canadian IT market is shaped by factors that no table can fully capture: the specific tech stack, the company’s funding stage, remote vs. on-site expectations, the urgency of the hire, and increasingly, the calibre of the team a candidate would be joining.

What these benchmarks give you is a defensible foundation. They tell you where a competitive offer starts, what a low offer looks like to a well-informed candidate, and how much room the market typically leaves for negotiation. They don’t tell you what to pay a specific person — that requires a conversation with someone who understands both the role and the local market.

For AI and ML roles in particular, the data is the most fluid. The Vector Institute in Toronto and Mila in Montreal both report that compensation expectations among research-adjacent ML professionals are evolving faster than annual salary surveys can track. If you’re hiring in this space, real-time market intelligence matters more than published benchmarks.

Need help validating your compensation strategy?

Whether you’re opening a new IT search or trying to understand why recent offers haven’t landed, our team can help you pressure-test your numbers against what the market is actually doing right now. Groom & Associates places IT, cybersecurity, and AI professionals across Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver — and we see live compensation data every week.

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Sources & References

Miriam Groom

Miriam Groom is a nationally renowned Industrial & Organizational Therapist and HR Strategist specializing in strategic and innovative talent management & workforce transformation strategies that are highly employee-centric.