[1] He made 46 appearances for Gretna, scoring once against Livingston, and helped them to promotion to the Scottish Premier League in the 2006–07 season.

[6] Canning made 12 league appearances for Hibs, but was released on 1 September 2008 to make way for new signing Souleymane Bamba.

[10] A year later, he was part of the Accies team which won promotion to the Scottish Premiership, via a play-off win over his previous club Hibernian.

[12] Canning became interim player-manager of Hamilton Academical in January 2015, after Alex Neil left to join Norwich City.

[17][18] Since departing Hamilton, Canning has been at Real Betis, Celtic, Leicester City, Preston North End, Aberdeen and Sunderland to assist with coaching.