Travel Nursing in 2024: Pay Trends and What to Expect (2024)

If you're a travel nurse or considering becoming one, 2024 is shaping up to be an exciting year in the industry. Coming off a period of extremely high demand and soaring pay packages during the COVID-19 pandemic, travel nurse compensation and job prospects are stabilizing but still quite lucrative compared to staff nursing positions.

Pay Rates Are Normalizing The desperation for travel nurses during the pandemic peaks in 2020-2022 led to bidding wars between healthcare facilities and astronomical pay rates routinely exceeding $5,000-$6,000 per week. Those lucrative crisis rates are now fading as staffing shortages have eased. However, travel nurse pay remains very strong.

According to surveys by staffing agencies, the average weekly gross pay for travel nurse assignments in early 2024 is around $2,800 for a 48-hour week. This still represents a pay premium of 30-50% over commensurate permanent staff nurse positions at most facilities.

The Increase in Travel Contracts One emerging trend in 2024 is a rise in healthcare facilities offering travel nurse contracts directly rather than going through third-party staffing agencies. By cutting out the middleman, hospitals and clinics can provide higher compensation packages while avoiding agency fees.

At the same time, travel nurses take home a bit less per week under these contracts compared to agency-placed assignments. However, the contracts often include more robust benefits like health insurance and 401k contributions.

Destinations Are Opening Up The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic shifting of travel nurse demand geographically as viral hot spots emerged across the country over the last three years. Now with cases stabilized, we're seeing more assignment availability in desirable travel destinations that had been avoided by many nurses.

Hot spots for travel nurse jobs in 2024 include Hawaii, Florida, Southern California, and major cities like New York, Chicago, and Seattle – all places that saw reduced demand during the pandemic. Travel nurses are increasingly taking assignments in these locales for a change of scenery and lifestyle factor along with the lucrative compensation.

Overall, while the chaos of the pandemic has subsided, travel nursing continues to be an extremely rewarding career path in 2024 both financially and for the flexibility and ability to explore new regions of the country. With solid pay and boundless job opportunities, now is still a great time to make the leap into travel nursing.