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Profession Playbook
Heritage consulting is the passion field that pays modestly but never wants for work — Ontario's heritage rules mean development keeps generating Heritage Impact Assessments. The questions: the planning/architecture/archaeology/history routes in, HIA-and-approvals work vs hands-on conservation, why CAHP membership matters, and whether the love-the-work, accept-the-pay trade-off is worth it (for the right person, very much).
Where it starts
$48k–62k
Junior / research assistant
Where it tops out
$115k–150k+
Principal / practice owner
Ontario figures for heritage consultant, 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Junior / research assistant | $48k–62k | Research, documentation, and HIA support under a senior. |
| Heritage consultant | $68k–90k | |
| Senior consultant (CAHP) | $90k–120k | |
| Principal / practice owner | $115k–150k+ |
Same credential, different money, depending on where you take it.
HIAs, Cultural Heritage Evaluation Reports, and conservation plans that developments need under the Ontario Heritage Act — the approvals-driven, reliable bread-and-butter.
Best for: People who want consistent, development-driven work.
Every figure above is what heritage consultants get paid. It is not what you charge once you run your own heritage consulting practice. 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, your own heritage practice, public-sector heritage planning (municipal heritage planners, provincial agencies), or laterally into planning, urban design, conservation architecture, or museum/cultural work. The approvals fluency overlaps with planning, and conservation expertise crosses into restoration and architecture — heritage people are unusually mobile within the cultural-and-built-environment world.
AEC Stack handles incorporation, insurance, proposals, invoicing, and chasing the money, so a heritage consulting practice runs with an office behind it from the first client.
Start your practice