Traditionally, students with limited skills and experience were the poster children of strive – broke and destitute. Their job options? Limited to menial, low-paid roles such as dishwashing and waiting tables in hot, understaffed, and underpaid fast-food restaurants.
Not anymore. The dawn of the internet and technology has broadened our horizons. Today, the average Canadian student has limitless ways to make good money.
In this article, we will explore 14 ways to make money as a student in Canada.
Yes, students can work for cash in Canada. Just be mindful that some employers try to offer this as an option to avoid paying taxes or by lowballing your hourly rate, such as jobs that work for tips. Be sure to claim the appropriate amount on your taxes, and you’ll be fine.
Students in Canada can earn between $17 and $34 an hour while working part-time. However, the specific amount you can make largely depends on your skills, role, and employer or client.
14 Ways on How To Make Money As A Student In Canada
If you’re a student wanting to make money in Canada, check out my list of the top ways to get started and how much you can expect to make.
- Possible Income: $22+ per hour
- How to Get Started: Grammatical excellence is a base requirement for proofreaders. Luckily, there are numerous resources to help you build proofreading as a skill. Enrolling in a dedicated proofreading course speeds your rise to the top.
Proofreaders are eagle-eyed individuals who meticulously review written pieces to ensure
they’re immaculate and error-free. They check grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors to deliver a final copy that the client can use. They’ll also check for formatting errors, repetitions, missing information, and more.
Previously, proofreaders were a staple in the print industry, but they’re now a core part of the online sector. Businesses hire them to give their written communication — blog posts, emails, white papers, and more — a shine.
Proofreaders help clients project a professional image and capable competency through their written content.
- Possible income: $19+ hour
- How to Get Started: There are no formal qualifications to become a content writer, but you require decent writing skills and language mastery to thrive. There are many free and paid content writing resources to help you build and polish your creation of compelling content.
Content marketing is the backbone of many successful online businesses, making it one of today’s most in-demand skills. Content writers package useful information into blog posts, case studies, web content, white papers, and more.
Business owners put this information to draw traffic to their websites and connect with prospective customers.
With millions of online websites on the internet, there’s an unending demand for content writers across the board. Businesses depend on them to grow their web traffic, build email lists, and generate sales.
- Possible Income: $20+ per hour
- How to Get Started: There are no formal qualifications to become a content writer, but you require decent writing skills and language mastery to thrive. There are many free and paid content writing resources to help you build and polish your ability to create compelling content.
Virtual assistants wear different hats, and their specific duties depend on what the client needs. Typical virtual assistant duties could range from handling calls, emails, and organizing the client’s calendar.
Other roles are more specialized and could require special skills such as marketing, blogging, graphic design, bookkeeping, and more.
Virtual assistants soak up the administrative tasks to allow companies and busy executives to focus on higher priority tasks. The demand for virtual assistants is rising as startups and small businesses tend towards virtual offices.
Companies hire virtual assistants as a cost-saving measure since independent contractors are cheaper than full-time employees.
Related article: How To Make Money Blogging In Canada
- Possible Income: $20+ per hour
- How to Get Started: Web design is a technical subject that requires training and considerable practice. There are many free online and paid courses to help you build this skill. Web design courses provide structured learning to help you learn faster.
Web designers help businesses and individuals create beautiful and functional websites. They help their clients with the elements that determine a site’s branding and usability. Web designers use a variety of programs to define a website’s colors, fonts, layout, headings, and navigation.
Their job is to make websites attractive but still easy for visitors to find the information they need. Depending on where your interests lie, you might compliment your web design skills by learning to code. However, you can still get the job done without writing a single line of code.
- Possible income: $16+ per hour
- How to Get Started: Web design is a lucrative technical skill that requires mastering various paid tools such as Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and CorelDraw. Free alternatives such as Photopea are great if you don’t have the budget. Polishing your skills can help you succeed in this lucrative market.
Clever use of imagery helps companies improve their marketing strategies and connect with customers.
Traditionally, graphic design revolved around the print industry – logos, brochures, posters, banners, and letterheads. Graphic designers can also help with optimizing the user experience on websites and online stores. This can include typography, page layout, and images to help businesses build better websites.
- Possible Income: $23+ per hour
- How to Get Started: There are no formal qualifications to become a generalist transcriber except good typing skills and a good ear. You can become a general transcriber or specialize in providing transcription services to businesses in your area of study. For instance, nursing students can elect to become medical transcriptionists, which may require formal training.
As the name suggests, this role entails transcribing information from audio and video clips. There’s spiking demand for transcriptionists and transcribers in the current work environment.
With most people working from home, Zoom meetings and teleconferencing have become a staple. Most businesses require people to transcribe the contents of such meetings regularly. You can cash in on the growing needs and make good money.
- Possible income: $19+ per hour
- How to Get Started: Video editing has no formal qualifications besides mastering various tools such as Apple Final Cut Pro, iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro, and more. Free alternatives include Power Director 365, DaVinci Resolve, and Movie Maker. Enrolling in a video editing course can help accelerate learning and polish your skills.
Related article: How To Make Money On YouTube In Canada
The insatiable need for more video content makes video editing one of the most in-demand skills in the world. Besides regular YouTubers, businesses are jumping on the video marketing bandwagon too. Refining your video editing prowess is a sure way to make money as a student.
- Possible Income: $17+ per hour
- How to Get Started: A little patience and decent typing speed are all you need to get started. You can build your skills by captioning a few videos and demonstrating your ability to potential clients.
Captioning caters to those who are deaf or hard of hearing. It’s also beneficial to people viewing the content in their non-native languages or learning to read.
Captioning video makes the content more accessible, memorable and builds comprehension. It’s a core requirement in many online courses that use videos as the primary mode of instruction. There’s a high demand for skilled captioners in the online learning scene.
- Possible Income: $21+ per hour
- How to Get Started: Taking a copywriting course is the fastest way to hit the ground running. It accelerates your ability to sharpen your skills while lowering the learning curve.
Copywriting is the art of helping businesses craft compelling marketing materials with the sole aim of generating more income. Although both online and offline enterprises use copy to generate sales, they have different copywriting needs.
Online stores primarily use web content, sales letters, email campaigns, and landing pages. Brick and mortar stores use printed materials such as flyers, catalogs, brochures, and sales letters to reach their customers.
Despite the different delivery modes, the underlying copywriting concept remains the same – to generate more sales.
- Possible Income: $22+ per hour
- How to Get Started: A keen eye for details is a core requirement to becoming a successful editor. Numerous online resources, including websites, videos, courses, and books, can help build your editing chops to let you stand out on the market.
Editors take on various roles, and their duties range from reviewing written content for grammatical errors to fact-checking and authenticating claims. They also ensure that the content corresponds to the client’s in-house style guide, tone, and delivery style.
Editors also help to make a piece of content more palatable to the desired target audience. Besides revising content, editors are critical in planning content, managing writers, assigning jobs, and reviewing submissions.
In the printing sector, editors are primarily tasked with reviewing manuscripts for errors, readability, flow, and gaps.
- Possible Income: $16 per hour
- How to Get Started: Basic computer competency is all you need to get started in this role. However, the lower entry barrier breeds a lot of competition. Padding your resume with customer service-oriented certifications can even the odds.
Customer service is critical to business success because it allows them to retain their customers while maximizing their value. They often hire an army of customer service executives to help them achieve this feat. Customer service assistants handle many tasks, all geared towards improving their customers’ experience.
Duties could include answering phones, answering emails, handling complaints, data entry, and more. Depending on the client, you may be responsible for making sales or processing orders.
Most companies are increasingly adding Live Chat features to their websites, increasing the demand for customer service executives.
- Possible Income: $0 to unlimited
- How to Get Started: While the entry barrier is low, affiliate marketing calls for a combination of skills. Writing skills and search optimization (SEO) are some of the core skills you need to thrive if using a website. Luckily, there are many free and paid resources on the internet to help get started.
You earn a commission every time a customer signs up or buys an item through your affiliate links. Amazon has the largest affiliate marketing program in the world and supports affiliate marketers from across the globe.
- Possible Income: $16+ per hour
- How to Get Started: Digital marketing has a higher bar to entry than most jobs on this list, but the market is brimming with opportunities. Luckily, there are numerous free and paid resources to help you leap over most barriers. Google offers free AdWords courses and certification. Check out HubSpot for a free digital marketing course.
Digital marketing is a suite of strategies that companies use to promote their products and services through the internet. It’s a highly efficient way to connect with potential customers as it encompasses all web-based advertising.
Companies often retain savvy digital marketers to help them overcome the stiff competition and grow their brand presence. Digital marketers employ various marketing channels, including social media, email, paid adverts, and web content, to help their clients succeed.
- Possible Income: $34+ per hour
- How to Get Started: You can learn how to code in as little as three months and become a decent software engineer in six months. There are numerous online resources to help self-learners become world-class software engineers. Free Code Camp offers a free software engineering course and issues successful candidates with certifications.
If you love coding, you can thrive as a software engineer. Software engineers write the programs that power the digital world. They code the ‘guts’ of popular websites and applications.
Thanks to the internet, every student in Canada has an opportunity to make money while continuing with their education. Most of these opportunities call for specialized skills that are easy to learn and master with free or paid online learning resources.
The time spent learning these skills is well worth it since the jobs command a decent hourly rate. Better yet, these skills have real-world application and can help jump-start your career.