Only 2 Alberta Companies Made Forbes’ World’s Best Employers List for 2026. Both Are Hiring

Forbes ranked the world’s 900 best employers for 2026. Thirty are Canadian. Two are headquartered in Alberta.

Canadian Natural Resources, based in Calgary, placed 676th. Stantec, based in Edmonton, placed 699th.

Both are hiring across the province. On Oct. 13, they had 381 Alberta listings between them on the Culture Alberta job board, from student jobs in Fort McMurray to data centre engineers in Calgary and Edmonton.

See who’s hiring in Alberta →

The two Alberta employers

Listings checked Oct. 13, 2026. Counts change daily, and some jobs are posted in more than one city.

Canadian Natural moved up 53 spots, from 729th last year. Stantec held steady at 699th, the same spot as 2025.

Canadian Natural: 80 openings, most of them for students

Canadian Natural is one of Canada’s largest oil and natural gas producers, with operations in Western Canada, the U.K. North Sea and offshore Africa. It was founded in 1973.

Of its 80 Alberta openings, about 62 are student positions. If you’re in university or college, that’s the number that matters.

They go well beyond oil and gas engineering:

Engineering: chemical, mechanical, electrical, civil, mining, geotechnical, pipelines, drilling and production

Environment: reclamation, water, aquatic and wildlife, and regulatory compliance

Tech: data science, software development, cybersecurity, networking and automation

Business: tax, corporate travel, communications, government relations, marketing and HR

Most are in Calgary or at the oil sands near Fort McMurray. There’s also a transportation and logistics student job in the Edmonton area.

The other openings are for experienced workers, including treasury and payroll analysts in Calgary, a process engineer at the Horizon oil sands site near Fort McMurray, a field lead operator in Grande Prairie, a heavy equipment technician, and warehouse technicians in Nisku and Fort McMurray.

Some have application deadlines this month, so check each posting.

Browse all 80 Canadian Natural openings →

Stantec: one of Alberta’s biggest hirers

Stantec was founded in Edmonton in 1954 and now works around the world on engineering, architecture, environmental science and project management.

It’s had a strong year. In July, Forbes named it seventh in Canada for workplace culture, the top Edmonton-area employer on that list. In September, Time ranked it among the top 250 of its 1,000 World’s Best Companies.

It’s also hiring at a pace few Alberta employers match: 301 listings in Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Fort McMurray.

One caveat. Stantec often posts the same job in several cities at once, so one opening can show up four or five times. The number of separate jobs is lower than 301. It’s still one of the largest hiring pushes in the province.

About 119 of the listings are engineering roles. The rest include technologists, environmental scientists, architects, planners, estimators, surveyors, project managers and IT staff.

A few you might not expect:

Senior ethical hacker, in Calgary and Edmonton

Seasonal survey assistants, in Red Deer and Edmonton

Senior interior designer, in Calgary

Western Canada irrigation lead, posted in five Alberta cities

Permafrost engineers, including in Fort McMurray

Browse Stantec’s Alberta openings →

Stantec is hiring for data centres

Scroll through Stantec’s listings and one phrase keeps appearing: “mission critical.” It’s the industry term for facilities that can never go down, especially data centres.

Stantec is hiring mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, project architects and senior project managers for mission critical work in Calgary and Edmonton, plus a market lead for the sector. It’s also looking for substation engineers, high-voltage cable engineers and power-system specialists, the people who connect huge energy users to the grid.

That’s the kind of expertise Alberta’s data centre push needs. Meta is building a $13-billion campus in Sturgeon County, and a U.S. land company wants to open part of northeast Edmonton to large data centres. Here’s what’s proposed in northeast Edmonton.

Stantec works for clients across North America, though, and its postings don’t tie these jobs to any specific Alberta project.

More of the list has Alberta roots than you’d think

Only two companies on the list are headquartered here. But a few others grew out of Alberta:

Telus, 723rd, began as Alberta Government Telephones, which the province privatized in 1990.

Nutrien, 869th, was formed in 2018 when Calgary’s Agrium merged with Saskatchewan’s PotashCorp.

Fortis, 251st, owns FortisAlberta, the utility that runs much of the province’s rural power grid.

Every one of Canada’s Big Five banks made the list too, and all have large Alberta workforces.

The top Canadian employers

Ottawa’s Shopify was the highest-ranked Canadian company, third in the world, behind Microsoft and Delta Air Lines.

How Forbes built the ranking

Forbes worked with research firm Statista, surveying more than 300,000 employees in more than 50 countries. Workers were asked how likely they’d be to recommend their employer, weighing pay, career advancement, work-life balance and reputation. To qualify, companies needed more than 1,000 employees and international operations.

Keep in mind what that measures. It’s how surveyed employees feel about their workplaces, not a direct comparison of salaries, job security or what a given team is like. Someone at a Calgary head office and someone at an oil sands site can have very different jobs at the same company.

Treat it as a starting point. The job posting, the pay and the people you’d work with matter more.

Eight Calgary employers made a different Forbes list

Forbes’ Canada-only ranking for company culture, released earlier this year, included eight Calgary employers, led by Bethany Care Society in fifth. All eight were hiring in Alberta when we checked. See the eight Calgary employers →

Browse the jobs

Every listing on the Culture Alberta job board links straight to the employer’s own application page. You don’t need an account to browse or apply, and you can filter by city, category, employment type and whether a salary is listed.

Canadian Natural Resources jobs →

Stantec jobs →

All Alberta jobs →

Sources

Forbes World’s Best Employers 2026, produced with Statista
Rankings and methodology as reported by Daily Hive, October 9, 2026
Job totals and descriptions from the Culture Alberta job board, checked October