Ontario's Tool and Die Maker path: the 8,000-hour apprenticeship, non-compulsory status, wages, and the Red Seal exam.
Applies in: Ontario
A tool and die maker apprenticeship in Ontario is an employer-first path into the manufacturing trades: get hired by a tool and die shop, mould maker, metal stamper, or auto-parts manufacturer willing to sponsor you, register the training agreement with Skilled Trades Ontario, then work about four years of paid hours — 8,000 of them, 7,280 on the job and 720 in school across three levels. Write the certifying exam, earn the Certificate of Qualification (Red Seal endorsement available), and you hold the credential Southern Ontario's manufacturing corridor hires for: the person who builds the dies, moulds, jigs, and fixtures that production lines run on.
Ontario divides its trades into compulsory and voluntary (non-compulsory), and tool and die making sits on the non-compulsory side — Skilled Trades Ontario's own trade page spells out what that means in practice. The trade has a certifying exam, and passing it earns a Certificate of Qualification in the trade; because the trade is non-compulsory, the certificate does not have to be renewed, and holders do not appear on the Public Register.
Read that as a hiring fact, not a shortcut. You do not legally need the certificate to practise, but the sponsors who hire apprentices still hire for it, the in-school levels are the trade's standardized pipeline, and the certificate is the only route to the Red Seal endorsement that makes you portable across provinces. Compare with the trade next door on this site: steamfitting's 307A is compulsory in Ontario, so unregistered workers cannot legally do the work. For tool and die makers, the apprenticeship is the route that gets you hired and certified — it just is not the route the law forces.
Job Bank's requirements for NOC 72101 are the official baseline: completion of secondary school is usually required, and eligibility for certification runs through either a four- or five-year apprenticeship or a combination of over five years of work experience with some high school, college, or industry courses. You must be at least 16 with a valid social insurance number and legal permission to work in Canada — and, the step most people underestimate, you need a sponsoring employer in Ontario before anything gets registered.
Three things to build before you apply: math you can trust (shop math is algebra, ratios, trigonometry — Conestoga's Level 1 assumes it), drawing literacy (reading and transferring dimensions from engineering drawings is the trade's signature skill), and shop hours (any lathe, mill, or CNC exposure, or a completed pre-apprenticeship diploma). The Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program lets high school students start banking hours before graduation.
This is the step that starts the clock. Your hours only count once a Registered Training Agreement ties you to a sponsoring employer:
The sponsor hunt is a job search in every sense: our job hunting guide covers Job Bank, Canadian resume conventions, and the NOC 72101 code you will use on applications.
The official numbers from Skilled Trades Ontario: 8,000 hours over approximately four years — 7,280 hours of on-the-job work experience and 720 hours of in-school training. The on-the-job side is where the trade actually transfers: your trainer walks you from bench work and basic machining into tool-building as the competencies sign off. The in-school levels come between the work blocks, and how they are delivered depends on the training agency: block release (full-time for a set number of weeks), day release (one day a week), part-time night school, or alternative delivery like online.
One design fact worth knowing: Skilled Trades Ontario administers this trade under the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, 2021, and a Certificate of Apprenticeship is issued on completion of the program — that is the document that then qualifies you to write the certifying exam.
Conestoga and Georgian deliver the 720-hour program in three 240-hour levels, and the curriculum arc is the trade in miniature. Level 1 is foundations: engineering drawings and layout processes, trade practices (lathes, mills, drilling, grinding, bench work), trade theory, and applied calculations for cutting speeds, RPMs, and tolerances. Level 2 moves into tool-making: specialized machines and accessories, jig and fixture types and classification, cutting-tool materials, engineering materials and their machining characteristics, and NC/CNC principles and programming.
Level 3 is the precision work that names the trade: complex engineering drawings with auxiliary views and geometric tolerances, press tool component grinding, press die layout and construction, heat treatment and preventing damage to heat-treatable workpieces, and CNC setup and control. That is the sequence a shop owner is buying when they hire a graduate — drawing literacy at Level 1, tool-making method at Level 2, precision die work at Level 3.
School is the cheap part of this trade. Fees for the apprenticeship classroom levels are set by Skilled Trades Ontario through the Offer of Classroom Training, with books, safety equipment, tools, and parking extra — you earn a wage between school blocks, and the funding picture is straightforward:
With Level 3 done and the Training Standard's remaining skills signed off, Skilled Trades Ontario issues the Certificate of Apprenticeship, and Conestoga's own graduate page says what comes next: apprentices become eligible to write their Certificate of Qualification exam for this Red Seal Trade. Tool and Die Maker is part of Ontario's Interprovincial Red Seal Program, so passing opens the Red Seal endorsement — the national stamp that lets you work the trade anywhere in Canada without re-certifying. Qualified makers sit around a $34 median per hour in Ontario (Job Bank wage table, updated November 19, 2025), with current shop postings running $38 to $45.
And a warning about search results before you go: the top-ranking non-vendor page for this trade is a nearly five-year-old personal blog that cites US sources — American apprenticeship structures do not apply here, and the Ontario numbers above are from Skilled Trades Ontario and Job Bank, not a forum.
Finishing Level 3 and the log book earns the Certificate of Apprenticeship. The exam is the step after that, and it has its own fee and timetable:
Book only after your Completion Form is submitted and the Certificate of Apprenticeship is issued. The portal will not authorize the exam before that.
About four years. Skilled Trades Ontario sets the program at 8,000 hours total: 7,280 hours of on-the-job work experience plus 720 hours of in-school training, the classroom portion delivered in three levels. Your hours only count once a Registered Training Agreement ties you to a sponsoring employer, so the clock starts when you get hired, not when you start reading about the trade.
No, and the fine print matters here. Tool and Die Maker is a non-compulsory trade under Ontario's Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, 2021: certification is not legally required to practise it. Skilled Trades Ontario puts it this way: the trade has a certifying exam and issues a Certificate of Qualification, but because the trade is non-compulsory the certificate does not have to be renewed, and holders do not appear on the Public Register. Non-compulsory is not the same as uncertified — employers still hire for the credential, and the Red Seal endorsement is available — but you should know the certificate behaves differently than it does in a compulsory trade.
Job Bank lists completion of secondary school as usually required for NOC 72101, plus either a four- or five-year apprenticeship or over five years of work experience with some high school, college, or industry courses to be eligible for certification. In practice you need to be at least 16, hold a valid social insurance number, have legal permission to work in Canada, and — critically — find a sponsoring employer before you register the training agreement with Skilled Trades Ontario. Shops look for math comfort, blueprint literacy, and mechanical aptitude; machine-shop experience or a pre-apprenticeship program is how most candidates stand out.
You build the tools that make the products. Skilled Trades Ontario's description: a Tool and Die Maker designs, creates, repairs, and tests prototypes and production tools — dies, cutting tools, jigs, fixtures, gauges, and specialty tools — using various metals, alloys, and plastics. Day to day that means reading complex engineering and tooling drawings, building precision dies and prototypes on lathes, mills, grinders, die presses, and electrical discharge machines (including CNC), and checking work in progress with specialized precision measuring equipment. You are not a machinist making parts to order; you make the tooling the machinist's production line runs on.
Job Bank's wage report (updated November 19, 2025; reference period 2023-2024) puts Ontario at a $22.00 low, $34.00 median, and $42.50 high per hour for NOC 72101, with the Windsor-Sarnia region running a $29.00 median — that is the auto corridor, where most of the work sits. Current postings run hotter than the published medians: recent Ontario listings show $44 to $45 in Woodstock, $44.82 in Hamilton, $37.85 to $43.57 in Markham, and $40 to $44 in Brampton, and 88.1% of Ontario workers in this occupation receive at least one non-wage benefit.
Machinists make parts; tool and die makers make the tooling that makes the parts — dies, moulds, jigs, and fixtures — and they do the design and precision assembly work around it. Millwrights install, maintain, and repair industrial machinery and are a separate apprenticeship class; our millwright guide covers that path. All three live in shops, all three read drawings, but the tool and die program's in-school levels are built around press tool construction, stamping technology, and jig and fixture building, not equipment maintenance. One related split: mould making is its own separate trade with its own apprenticeship or college program.
A college program does not replace the apprenticeship, but it is the strongest shortcut into one. Conestoga's two-year Mechanical Technician – Tool & Die/Tool Maker diploma is built for high school graduates: it carries Level 1 and Level 2 apprenticeship training equivalencies, includes CNC and precision stamping work, and offers an optional paid co-op that puts you in a shop while you study. The apprenticeship still needs a sponsor and 7,280 on-the-job hours, but graduating with two levels already credited and shop experience on a resume is exactly what a hiring shop owner wants to see.
Think like a manufacturer, not a job seeker. The sponsors are tool and die shops, mould-making shops, metal stamping firms, auto-parts suppliers, metal fabricators, and plastics and electrical-machinery plants — concentrated in Southern Ontario's manufacturing corridor around Windsor-Essex, London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and the GTA. Walk in with a resume that shows machine-shop exposure, any OYAP hours if you are in high school, or a completed pre-apprenticeship diploma. Search Job Bank under NOC 72101 for postings, but the best leads in this trade come from shop owners and referrals — our job hunting guide covers the search mechanics and Canadian resume conventions.
Three levels totalling 720 hours, delivered at colleges like Conestoga and Georgian. Level 1 is foundations: engineering drawings and layout, trade practices on lathes, mills, and grinders, trade theory, and applied trade calculations. Level 2 moves into tool-making: specialized machines, jig and fixture types, cutting-tool materials, engineering materials, and NC/CNC principles. Level 3 is the precision work: complex drawings with geometric tolerances, press tool construction, heat treatment, and CNC setup and control. Colleges deliver it as block release, day release, night school, or alternative delivery like online, depending on the training agency.
Once you finish Level 3 and complete the remaining skills in your Training Standard log book, Skilled Trades Ontario issues the Apprenticeship Certificate, and you become eligible to write the Certificate of Qualification exam — for what Conestoga itself calls this Red Seal Trade. Tool and Die Maker is part of Ontario's Interprovincial Red Seal Program, so passing opens the Red Seal endorsement: the national stamp that lets you work the trade in any province without re-certifying. Our Red Seal guide explains the endorsement mechanics, including the trade-qualifier route for experienced workers with five-plus years in the trade who did not apprentice.