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Profession Playbook
Building-services electrical is the E in MEP — and the questions: building design vs power systems vs the booming electrification work (EV, solar, storage), how much site time, electrical engineer vs the electrician trade (people constantly confuse them), and whether the field's future — everything is electrifying — makes it the discipline to be in. (There's a strong case that it is.)
Where it starts
$62k–76k
EIT (electrical)
Where it tops out
Equity, variable
Firm owner
Ontario figures for electrical (building services) engineer, from the first role after school to the top of the practice. Approximate, and worth checking against current postings and association salary surveys.
| Stage | Pay | What is going on at this stage |
|---|---|---|
| EIT (electrical) | $62k–76k | |
| P.Eng (electrical, building services) | $88k–110k | |
| Senior electrical engineer | $110k–135k | |
| Associate / principal | $135k–185k+ | |
| Firm owner | Equity, variable |
Same credential, different money, depending on where you take it.
Solar, battery storage, and EV infrastructure — the fastest-growing area, riding decarbonization.
Best for: People who want to be on the growth wave.
Every figure above is what electrical engineers get paid. It is not what you charge once you run your own electrical engineering firm. Your rate has to carry the hours you are not on the tools, the truck, the tools themselves, WSIB, insurance, the quote you wrote and lost, and the holdback sitting in someone else's account for 60 days. Contractors who set their rate off their old hourly wage are the ones who work every weekend and still cannot say whether the year was profitable.
The step from paid by the hour to paid by the jobSenior/principal, the renewables/electrification boom (where demand is hottest), power systems, controls and smart buildings, or your own electrical firm. Electrical is arguably the best-positioned building-services discipline for the next decade, because EVs, solar, storage, heat-pump electrification, and data centres are all pulling in the same direction: more electrical engineering, everywhere.
AEC Stack handles incorporation, insurance, proposals, invoicing, and chasing the money, so a electrical engineering firm runs with an office behind it from the first client.
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