NOC 2021 · 21332 · TEER 1
Petroleum engineers
Unit group 21332 of the National Occupational Classification, 2021 Version 1.0.
Check which category draws this code qualifies for
What this group covers
Petroleum engineers conduct studies for the exploration, development and extraction of oil and gas deposits; and plan, design, develop and supervise projects for the drilling, completion, testing and re-working of oil and gas wells. They are employed by petroleum producing companies, consulting companies, well logging or testing companies, government, and research and educational institutions.
Example job titles
As Statistics Canada publishes them. Yours may be worded differently and still belong here.
- chief petroleum engineer
- drilling and recovery chief engineer
- drilling and recovery petroleum engineer
- exploitation engineer - oil and gas
- exploitation engineer - petroleum
- mud engineer
- mud engineer - petroleum drilling
- natural gas engineer
- offshore drilling engineer
- offshore drilling rig subsea equipment engineer
- oil and gas drilling engineer
- oil and gas production engineer
- oil well logging engineer
- petroleum engineer
- petroleum production engineer
- petroleum reservoir engineer
- petroleum well completion engineer
- subsea engineer
- well logging engineer
What it pays, and where it is hiring
Job Bank publishes a wage estimate and a three-year employment outlook for each occupation, region by region. Both are below as published — where an estimate is missing from the source it is missing here too, because the alternative is inventing one.
Across Canada
$64.90 an hour
Low $46.25, high $96.15
Where it pays most
- Wood Buffalo--Cold Lake · Alberta$68.44
- Regina--Moose Mountain · Saskatchewan$67.87
- Toronto · Ontario$67.30
- Camrose--Drumheller · Alberta$65.57
- Edmonton · Alberta$64.64
Economic regions only. A province’s figure is an average over the regions inside it, so including one would rank a province above its own best region and read as a finding.
By province and territory
| Where | Median hourly | Low to high | Outlook 2025–2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $60.10 | $38.46 – $72.12 | Good |
| Prince Edward Island | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Nova Scotia | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| New Brunswick | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Quebec | $48.18 | $30.79 – $74.25 | Undetermined |
| Ontario | $67.30 | $52.88 – $74.52 | Moderate |
| Manitoba | Not published | Not published | Moderate |
| Saskatchewan | $67.87 | $52.88 – $92.79 | Good |
| Alberta | $66.35 | $46.67 – $96.15 | Moderate |
| British Columbia | $55.46 | $40.53 – $82.73 | Limited |
| Yukon Territory | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Northwest Territories | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Nunavut | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
By economic region
The 12 economic regions where Job Bank publishes a wage or a rated outlook, of 72.
| Where | Province | Median hourly | Low to high | Outlook 2025–2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avalon Peninsula | Newfoundland and Labrador | $61.36 | $38.46 – $72.12 | Good |
| Montréal | Quebec | $49.01 | $31.24 – $65.35 | Undetermined |
| Toronto | Ontario | $67.30 | $52.88 – $74.52 | Moderate |
| Windsor--Sarnia | Ontario | $61.54 | $54.20 – $72.12 | Limited |
| Regina--Moose Mountain | Saskatchewan | $67.87 | $52.88 – $92.79 | Very good |
| Camrose--Drumheller | Alberta | $65.57 | $39.30 – $93.57 | Moderate |
| Calgary | Alberta | $64.18 | $45.00 – $96.15 | Moderate |
| Banff--Jasper--Rocky Mountain House | Alberta | $64.15 | $42.52 – $91.73 | Moderate |
| Edmonton | Alberta | $64.64 | $38.82 – $111.45 | Moderate |
| Athabasca--Grande Prairie--Peace River | Alberta | Not published | Not published | Moderate |
| Wood Buffalo--Cold Lake | Alberta | $68.44 | $46.50 – $96.15 | Limited |
| Lower Mainland | British Columbia | Not published | Not published | Limited |
Job Bank rates employment prospects for each occupation in each economic region from very good to very limited over 2025–2027, and says “undetermined” where it has not got enough to rate. It is an assessment of prospects, not a count of vacancies.
The estimates on this page come from Labour Force Survey (2023-2024) · Small Area Estimation (2024).
Job Bank publishes an estimate for 24,364 of the 44,376 occupation-and-place pairs in this release. The rest are suppressed rather than modelled, and appear here as not published.
Wage estimates from the 2025 Wages release, revised 19 November 2025; employment outlooks from 2025-2027 Employment Outlooks - NOC 2021, released 8 December 2025. Both are updated annually. Estimates for different regions come from different surveys, so comparing two regions is exactly as sound as Job Bank’s own regional comparison and no more.
Source: Statistics Canada — National Occupational Classification 2021 V1.0; Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wages; Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank 3-year employment outlooks. Data current as of 13 August 2026. NOC 2021 Version 1.0. The classification is versioned rather than dated — IRCC moved to it in November 2022, and a new version would be a new classification rather than an update.