Montrealruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Artificial intelligence & research
Mila, Google DeepMind Montreal, Meta AI, Samsung AI, ServiceNow Research
Montreal became a global deep learning centre around Yoshua Bengio's Mila institute, and the major labs opened offices here specifically to be near it.
Video games
Ubisoft, Eidos-Montréal, Warner Bros Games, Behaviour Interactive, Gameloft
Ubisoft's 1997 arrival, backed by generous provincial tax credits, seeded what is now one of the largest video game production clusters in the world.
Visual effects & animation
Framestore, Rodeo FX, Cinesite, Folks VFX, MPC
The same tax credit structure that built the games sector supports a large VFX industry, and the two share a workforce.
Aerospace
Bombardier, Airbus Canada, Pratt & Whitney Canada, CAE, Bell Textron
Greater Montreal is one of the world's three main aerospace hubs alongside Seattle and Toulouse, with an unusually complete supply chain inside the region.
Life sciences & pharmaceuticals
Merck Canada, Pfizer Canada, Bausch Health, AbCellera Montreal
A long-established pharmaceutical corridor supported by the research hospitals attached to McGill and Université de Montréal.
Higher education
McGill University, Université de Montréal, Concordia, UQAM, HEC Montréal
Four universities in one city, two English and two French, give Montreal one of the highest student populations per capita in North America — which is a large part of why rents stayed low for so long.
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