NOC 2021 · 51101 · TEER 1
Conservators and curators
Unit group 51101 of the National Occupational Classification, 2021 Version 1.0.
Check which category draws this code qualifies for
What this group covers
Conservators restore and conserve artifacts belonging to museums, galleries and owners of cultural property. Curators recommend the acquisition of museum artifacts and gallery works of art and research their artistic history. Conservators and curators are employed in museums, art galleries, archives, libraries, government agencies and universities. Conservators may be self-employed.
Example job titles
As Statistics Canada publishes them. Yours may be worded differently and still belong here.
- archaeology curator
- archaeology museum curator
- architectural conservator
- art gallery conservator
- art gallery curator
- art object curator
- art objects conservator
- artifact conservator
- assistant curator
- assistant museum curator
- aviation and space museum curator
- book conservator
- ceramics and glass conservator
- conservator - museum
- contemporary art curator
- contemporary art museum curator
- curator
- ethnographic objects conservator
- ethnology curator
- ethnology museum curator
- fine art and polychrome conservator
- fossil conservator
- fossil curator
- furniture and wooden objects conservator
- herbarium curator
- historical artifact conservator
- insectarium conservator
- insectarium curator
- invertebrate zoology curator
- invertebrate zoology museum curator
- library and archives conservator
- library curator
- metals conservator
- museologist
- museum curator
- museum objects conservator
- natural history museum curator
- natural history specimen conservator
- natural sciences curator
- natural sciences museum curator
- ornithology curator
- ornithology museum curator
- paintings conservator
- paper conservator
- photograph conservator
- photography museum curator
- science and technology curator
- science and technology museum curator
- sculpture conservator
- textile conservator
- vertebrate zoology curator
- vertebrate zoology museum curator
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
$36.36 an hour
Low $23.54, high $54.74
Where it pays most
- Edmonton · Alberta$40.87
- Outaouais · Quebec$39.94
- Hamilton--Niagara Peninsula · Ontario$39.73
- Ottawa · Ontario$39.36
- Kitchener--Waterloo--Barrie · Ontario$37.48
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 | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Prince Edward Island | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Nova Scotia | $35.67 | $24.53 – $53.20 | Undetermined |
| New Brunswick | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Quebec | $38.57 | $26.30 – $52.91 | Moderate |
| Ontario | $34.28 | $24.95 – $45.64 | Moderate |
| Manitoba | Not published | Not published | Very limited |
| Saskatchewan | $39.46 | $31.05 – $53.44 | Undetermined |
| Alberta | $38.06 | $23.93 – $55.06 | Undetermined |
| British Columbia | $36.17 | $25.08 – $44.74 | Moderate |
| Yukon Territory | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Northwest Territories | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
| Nunavut | Not published | Not published | Undetermined |
By economic region
The 14 economic regions where Job Bank publishes a wage or a rated outlook, of 72.
| Where | Province | Median hourly | Low to high | Outlook 2025–2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capitale-Nationale | Quebec | Not published | Not published | Moderate |
| Montréal | Quebec | $37.17 | $26.50 – $51.70 | Moderate |
| Laval | Quebec | Not published | Not published | Moderate |
| Outaouais | Quebec | $39.94 | $29.36 – $53.90 | Moderate |
| Ottawa | Ontario | $39.36 | $27.69 – $57.54 | Moderate |
| Kingston--Pembroke | Ontario | $35.28 | $25.41 – $48.97 | Undetermined |
| Toronto | Ontario | $34.28 | $24.95 – $45.64 | Good |
| Kitchener--Waterloo--Barrie | Ontario | $37.48 | $27.83 – $52.71 | Undetermined |
| Hamilton--Niagara Peninsula | Ontario | $39.73 | $26.10 – $57.38 | Undetermined |
| London | Ontario | $35.71 | $25.30 – $50.54 | Undetermined |
| Calgary | Alberta | $36.86 | $24.18 – $54.09 | Undetermined |
| Edmonton | Alberta | $40.87 | $29.26 – $60.59 | Undetermined |
| Vancouver Island and Coast | British Columbia | $33.50 | $24.02 – $49.33 | Undetermined |
| Lower Mainland | British Columbia | $37.42 | $27.36 – $49.34 | Moderate |
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 Small Area Estimation (2024) · Labour Force Survey (2023-2024).
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.