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Trade Playbook
EV charging is the newest electrical niche, and the question underneath the rest is "is this a real business or a fad?" The honest answers: residential Level 2 is high-volume repeatable work, condo and fleet is the real growth, rebate-program navigation is the actual product, and branding as an "EV installer" wins searches a generic electrician misses.
Where it starts
309A rates
Electrician on EV work
Where it tops out
Business income
EV business owner
Ontario figures for ev charger installation, from the first day on site to the top of the trade. Approximate, and worth checking against current collective agreement rates and job postings in your region.
| Stage | Pay | What is going on at this stage |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician on EV work | 309A rates | It's licensed electrical work — you're an electrician first. |
| EVITP-certified installer | Specialty premium | |
| EV business owner | Business income | Residential volume plus condo/fleet projects and rebate-driven demand. |
Two EV charger installers with the same ticket can be twenty dollars an hour apart because they picked different work.
Engineered EV-ready retrofits — a consulting-plus-install product with board approvals and shared-infrastructure billing. The exploding niche.
Best for: People who can navigate condo politics and engineering.
Every figure above is what EV charger installers get paid. It is not what you charge once you run a EV charging installation business. 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 jobGrow from residential volume into the higher-value condo and fleet markets, pair EV with solar and battery storage (the natural bundle), or scale into commercial/DCFC project work. The condo EV-ready retrofit market in particular is just beginning — multi-unit buildings retrofitting for EVs is a multi-year wave, and the installers building that capability now are positioned for it.
Wage data, union rate sheets, and the places EV charger installers talk about money openly.
The rates above are the market. The live feed is the market this week: which builders and contractors just pulled a permit or won a contract in Ontario, what they are about to need, and who to call.
Electrician Jobs in Ontario: Who Is Hiring Right NowAEC Stack handles incorporation, WSIB, insurance certificates, quoting, invoicing, and chasing the money, so a EV charging installation business runs like one with an office behind it.
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