Major employers in Ottawa
54 employers, 37 of them head offices: 34 worldwide, 3 national and 0 regional. Headcounts are for the site here, with the page that publishes them.
Ottawa — the /local page · Who owns Ottawa · Who represents Ottawa · Companies
Employers54
Worldwide HQ34
National HQ3
Regional HQ0
1
Employers, largest first
People employed at the site in this city where a source publishes it; head offices without a published count follow.
| Company | Here | Employees here | Worldwide HQ | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government of Canada — federal public service (National Capital Region)Public administration — federal government | National HQCanada — seat of the federal government; the count covers the National Capital Region (Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec) | 146,1492026 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| City of OttawaPublic administration — municipal government (incl. OC Transpo, Ottawa Police Service, Ottawa Public Library, Ottawa Public Health) | Major site | 17,1002025 | Ottawa, Ontario | — |
| The Ottawa HospitalHealth care — general and teaching hospital | Major site | 13,3022026 | Ottawa, Ontario | — |
| University of OttawaEducation — university | Major site | 12,0002026 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Algonquin CollegeEducation — community college | Major site | 5,2772019 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Ottawa Catholic School BoardEducation — elementary and secondary school board | Major site | 5,0072024 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario)Health care — paediatric hospital | Major site | 3,4002026 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Ericsson — Kanata North siteTelecommunications equipment — R&Dpart of Ericsson | Major site | 1,0002016 | Stockholm, Sweden | Careers → |
| Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)Housing finance and mortgage insurance — Crown corporation | Worldwide HQCMHC national office (Crown corporation) | 9402025 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Hydro OttawaUtilities — electric power distribution | Worldwide HQHydro Ottawa Holding Inc. group (municipally owned; electricity distribution, generation and energy services) | 7502024 | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Giant Tiger Stores LimitedRetail — discount department stores | Worldwide HQglobal | 4002019 | Ottawa, Ontario | — |
| MitelTelecommunications — unified communications equipment and software | Worldwide HQglobal | 3002024 | Ottawa (Kanata), Ontario | — |
| AugmenttSoftware — Microsoft 365 security platform for managed service providers | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Bank of CanadaCentral banking | Worldwide HQCanada's central bank — head office | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| BlumindSemiconductors — ultra-low-power analog AI chips | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| BluWave-aiSoftware — AI for electricity grids and EV charging | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Calian GroupProfessional services — defence, health, IT and cyber, learning, advanced technologies | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Canada Post CorporationPostal and parcel delivery — Crown corporation | Worldwide HQCanada Post Corporation (Crown corporation) and the Canada Post Group | — | Ottawa, Ontario | — |
| CBC/Radio-CanadaBroadcasting — public broadcaster | Worldwide HQCanada's national public broadcaster (Crown corporation) — corporate head office | — | Ottawa, Ontario | — |
| CBN (Canadian Bank Note Company)Security printing — banknotes, passports, identity documents, lottery and gaming systems | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Dominion DynamicsDefence technology — surveillance software and autonomous aircraft | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Export Development Canada (EDC)Export finance and insurance — Crown corporation | Worldwide HQCanada's export credit agency (Crown corporation) — head office | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| FellowSoftware — AI meeting assistant | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Field EffectSoftware — managed cybersecurity (MDR) platform | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Frugal AI Inc.Software — cloud and AI cost optimization | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| FullscriptSoftware — practitioner supplement and lab-testing platform | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Giatec ScientificConstruction technology — concrete sensors and AI software | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| KinaxisSoftware — supply-chain planning | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| KlipfolioSoftware — dashboards and business intelligence | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| March NetworksVideo surveillance software and equipment | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| MindBridgeSoftware — AI financial risk and audit analytics | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| National Capital CommissionPublic administration — federal Crown corporation (land stewardship and planning) | Worldwide HQFederal Crown corporation for planning and stewardship of federal lands in the National Capital Region | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| NAV CANADAAir traffic control and air navigation services | Worldwide HQCanada's civil air navigation service provider (private non-share capital corporation) — head office | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| QNXSoftware — embedded operating systems (automotive, industrial)part of BlackBerry | Worldwide HQQNX business unit of BlackBerry (global) | — | Waterloo, Ontario | — |
| RanovusOptical semiconductors — interconnects for AI data centres | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Raven (Raven.ai)Software — manufacturing downtime and OEE analytics | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| RewindSoftware — SaaS backup and data recovery | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Royal Canadian MintCoin manufacturing and precious-metals — Crown corporation | Worldwide HQRoyal Canadian Mint (Crown corporation) — head office and Ottawa plant; circulation coins are made in Winnipeg | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| ShopifySoftware — commerce platform | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| SolaceSoftware — event-driven messaging and data movement | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Tehama TechnologiesSoftware — secure virtual workspace (enclave-as-a-service) platform | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| TelesatSatellite communications | Worldwide HQglobal | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Farm BoyRetail — grocery storespart of Empire Company Limited | National HQFarm Boy grocery chain (Ontario) | — | Stellarton, Nova Scotia | Careers → |
| Lockheed Martin CanadaAerospace and defence — systems integration, software, trainingpart of Lockheed Martin | National HQCanada | — | Bethesda, Maryland | Careers → |
| Bruyère HealthHealth care — continuing care and rehabilitation | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Carleton UniversityEducation — university | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Ciena — Ottawa R&D centre (Kanata)Telecommunications equipment — optical networkingpart of Ciena Corporation | Major site | — | Hanover, Maryland | — |
| Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario (CEPEO)Education — elementary and secondary school board | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Nokia Canada — Kanata campusTelecommunications equipment — network infrastructure R&Dpart of Nokia | Major site | — | Espoo, Finland | Careers → |
| Ottawa International Airport AuthorityAir transportation — airport operations | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Ottawa-Carleton District School BoardEducation — elementary and secondary school board | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | — |
| Queensway Carleton HospitalHealth care — community hospital | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
| Ross Video — Ottawa and Kanata R&DBroadcast video production equipment and softwarepart of Ross Video Limited | Major site | — | Iroquois, Ontario | Careers → |
| The Royal (Royal Ottawa Health Care Group)Health care — psychiatric and mental-health hospital | Major site | — | Ottawa, Ontario | Careers → |
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Notes on this record
- No municipal or Invest Ottawa 'top employers' list with headcounts was found; investottawa.ca's sitemap has no such page. The list was built from federal statistics, annual reports, filings and company pages. Web-search budget ran out before Amazon (Ottawa fulfilment centre), General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada, Thales Canada, IBM, Adobe and other large Kanata employers could be checked; they are not included.
- The federal row is the whole federal public service in the National Capital Region, which spans Ottawa and Gatineau (Quebec); TBS does not publish an Ottawa-only figure. Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP members, CSIS and the NCC are excluded from that count. Crown corporations (Canada Post, CBC/Radio-Canada, Bank of Canada, CMHC, EDC, Royal Canadian Mint, NCC) are listed separately; they are not part of the TBS count except where a separate agency is named in Schedule V.
- hqType 'worldwide' is used for any organization whose single head office for the whole group is in Ottawa, including Crown corporations. The Government of Canada itself is recorded as 'national'.
- Blocked or unreachable for our user agent (recorded, not retried): ottawa.ca (Incapsula bot check), nokia.com (Akamai 403), ciena.com, mitel.com, ericsson.com, hopitalmontfort.com, gdmissionsystems.ca (Azure WAF 403), businesswire.com, businessfacilities.com, investorrelations.gd.com (Cloudflare/403), ottawaheart.ca (403 'Access denied'), minto.com (CloudFront 403), gianttiger.com (HTTP 429), ecolecatholique.ca (CECCE, no connection), cbc.ca news and amp.cbc.ca (no connection), collections.ola.org (web app stopped). assent.com is disallowed by its robots.txt and was not fetched.
- Not included: Hôpital Montfort, CECCE (French Catholic school board), the University of Ottawa Heart Institute as a separate row (its staff are in The Ottawa Hospital's 13,302 count), Minto Group, Assent, Fullscript (its About page does not mention Ottawa), General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada — their own sites could not be read or did not confirm the facts.
- Several headcounts are dated: Algonquin College (2018-19), Giant Tiger home office (2019), Ericsson Kanata (2016). Nokia's 2,160 is a hiring target, not a count, so it is not recorded as a headcount.
- Deepen pass 2026-10-30: careersUrl added to existing rows wherever the organization's own careers page opened; 15 Ottawa/Kanata-headquartered tech companies added (funding only where a first-hand or news page states it).
- Careers pages not recorded: City of Ottawa (ottawa.ca Incapsula bot check), The Ottawa Hospital (ottawahospital.on.ca connection failed on two attempts), Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (ocdsb.ca robots.txt disallows all paths), Canada Post (site returned "500 Server Busy"; job page 404), CBC/Radio-Canada (careers page is a script-only shell, could not confirm content), Ciena (careers.ciena.com robots.txt 403), Mitel, Giant Tiger and QNX (no careers link found in the pages that loaded), Ericsson and Nokia rows use the companies' global job boards (jobs.ericsson.com, jobs.nokia.com).
- obj.ca (Ottawa Business Journal) now disallows ClaudeBot and anthropic-ai in robots.txt, so it was not used in this pass; facts cited to it in the earlier pass are kept as recorded then. BetaKit was not used (its terms prohibit robots).
- Not added this pass: Solink (Kanata; large 2026 raise reported) — solink.com robots.txt disallows all paths for our agent, so its site could not be opened; Assent (robots.txt disallows); Cliniconex (robots.txt returned 403); Hyperlume (hyperlume.com now redirects to Credo, so no longer an Ottawa head office); Gadget (its own site does not state an Ottawa location and its funding release redirects to a source we do not fetch); TrueContext and Martello (their pages did not confirm an Ottawa head office); Zymewire (site now points to Lumerate); Woodway Assurance (site returned an empty page).
s
Sources
Prepared 2026-10-30. Each headcount links to the page it is read from; each company to its own site or its /company page.
- Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat — Population of the federal public service by province or territory of work (March 31, 2010–2026) · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: Open Government Licence – Canada (dataset on the Open Data Portal); canada.ca terms and conditions
- The Ottawa Hospital — 2025-2026 Annual Report, Fast Facts · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: none stated on page
- CTV News Ottawa — City of Ottawa budget directions / workforce cap (Sept 2025) · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: none read; quoted for the City HR statement
- U.S. SEC EDGAR Archives — Shopify 10-K (2025), Ciena 10-K (FY2025), Telesat 20-F (2025); data.sec.gov submissions for parent addresses · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: public filings
- Ontario Energy Board RDS — Hydro Ottawa EB-2024-0115 undertaking responses · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: none stated
- Ottawa Business Journal (obj.ca) — Mitel restructuring (2025), Nokia Kanata campus (2022), multinationals in Kanata North (2016), Farm Boy sale (2018) · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: robots.txt allows; quoted
- Company and institution pages (about, contact, careers, annual reports) — each cited per row · retrieved 2026-10-23Terms: as printed on each site; none accepted
- Invest Ottawa — blog (Business Success Snapshots; Dominion Dynamics Series A) · retrieved 2026-10-30Terms: robots.txt allows; none accepted
- Company careers pages, newsrooms and press releases (deepen pass) — each cited per row · retrieved 2026-10-30Terms: as printed on each site; none accepted
- FinTech Global — PSG Equity / MindBridge (2023) · retrieved 2026-10-30Terms: robots.txt allows
- Laser Focus World (2014) and Semiconductor Today (2025) — Ranovus · retrieved 2026-10-30Terms: robots.txt allows