Jobs & Pay

• $20K-34K
• $35K-49K
• $50K-60K
• $60K+

Exploration and Mining in BC: opportunities to discover and explore

As a worker in the mineral exploration and mining industry, you could explore for minerals in the wilderness, protect the environment through environmental studies, build mines or build roads and be a part of the $8 billion industry that accounts for more than four percent of the British Columbia economy.

There are two sectors in the mining industry. Each uses different tools and needs workers with a variety of skills. Depending on the career you choose you could work in both mineral exploration and mining.

There’s lots of great information about jobs in the mineral exploration and mining sector online. But you have to be prepared to explore. And we’re here to help.

We’ve created an index of the 120 different jobs available in mineral exploration and mining, using a list compiled by the Mining Industry Human Resources Council. We’ve also used other information we’ve found and have tried to organize it all to answer a few simple questions:

1) What kind of jobs are there in mineral exploration and mining?

2) How much do these jobs pay?

3) What education or training do I need?

4) Where can I go to learn more about the jobs?

Before you start looking at the jobs, be sure to read about the job matrix so you can understand how it works.

This is how the job index is organized:

“These jobs pay ...”

We’ve organized the jobs by the amount of money you can make. If you would like to make $50,000 a year, you can check out the kinds of work available, and the kind of education and training you might need to do it.

You can also see the approximate salaries for different jobs. We used information from www.bcjobs.ca to get our salary information, but it’s important to remember that salary ranges are different from region to region, and can change over time. You should only use this information to give you an idea about wages as you start exploring your career options.

“You will need this education/on-the-job training ...”

Once you’ve identified jobs you’re interested in, you should know what training you might need before you can get hired. There’s a column in the matrix that shows you quickly the basic requirements. But, there are places you should go to get more information. The www.educationplanner.bc.ca site provides lots of good, searchable information about education in BC. If you search www.educationplanner.bc.ca for all of these jobs, the site will generate a list of different places in BC that offer relevant training and education. We’ve suggested some specific search terms for this site on the matrix, if the search terms differ from the BC Work Futures search terms.

Many of the programs listed on www.educationplanner.bc.ca are for after high school graduation; if you haven’t completed Grade 12, find out about getting your General Education Development (GED) certificate or your adult high school diploma here. There are also some companies who offer programs to help employees get their GEDs while they are working. Companies with these programs will have information on their websites.

“To find out more information about the job ...”

This column contains search terms we’ve created so you can get the most up-to-date information about the jobs you’re interested in from the BC Work Futures website (www.workfutures.bc.ca). While we can’t provide links into the site because of how it’s designed, we want you to visit the site and explore because it profiles more than 500 different occupations in BC, including many of the 120 jobs available in mineral exploration and mining.

On the Work Futures site, you can read about what kind of work and responsibilities you have in certain jobs. You can also learn more about working conditions, education and training, salaries, some current workforce statistics, career paths and related jobs.