The jobs in solar, and what each one needs.

Worth reading before you buy any training, because the right credential depends entirely on which of these you are aiming at, and for two of them the answer is none of ours.

On the roof

Installer or installer's helper. Mechanical work, racking, module placement, DC wiring under supervision. Entry point for most people. Needs: safety tickets, physical fitness, and a PV credential to get the interview. No trade certificate required to be on a crew.

Certified electrician on PV work. Performs and files the electrical scope. Needs: provincial trade certification — 309A in Ontario — which is apprenticeship or trade-equivalency assessment, and years rather than weeks. Pays the most of the field roles.

Lead hand or crew lead. Runs the install, owns the quality, deals with the inspector. Needs: a season or more of field experience, and the PV knowledge to make decisions rather than ask.

Off the roof

Site surveyor. Assesses orientation, shading, roof condition and the electrical service, and produces the information a quote depends on. Needs: PV knowledge and judgement. No trade certificate. A badly done survey is the most common cause of a job that loses money, which makes a good surveyor valuable.

System designer. Sizes arrays, configures strings, selects inverters, produces the drawings. Needs: the design content properly understood — this is the most technical non-trade role and the one our design material is most directly useful for. No trade certificate.

Technical sales and specification. Not the door-knocking caricature. Reading a consumption history, building a credible financial case, specifying something that can actually be built. Needs: PV knowledge, numeracy, and the ability to say no to a project that does not work. Frequently pays more than installing, and frequently filled by people who could not pass an apprenticeship entrance test and are excellent at this instead.

Project coordination and operations. Scheduling crews, procurement, permits, utility applications, closing jobs out. Needs: organisation and enough technical knowledge to know when a timeline is fiction. The least glamorous and among the most reliably in demand.

Operations and maintenance technician. Monitoring fleets, diagnosing underperformance, fixing it. Needs: fault-finding method and PV knowledge. Grows as the installed base ages, which means it grows regardless of how many new systems get built.

And running the business

Owner or principal. Needs the electrical scope covered either by your own licence or by a real contracted relationship with a licensed contractor, plus the commercial machinery. The setup checklist → One caution we repeat: selling systems you cannot specify goes badly, so the technical credential first and the business second.

Which credential for which route

If you trained outside Canada

The design, survey, sales and coordination roles do not require a Canadian trade certificate, and they are where internationally-trained engineers are most immediately employable. The CSA solar credential is closed to you until you hold a provincial trade certificate; NABCEP PV Associate is not. The map → And Windmill Microlending exists for the cost.

Common questions