When it comes to your travel nurse salary there are there are many factors that will impact your annual income, and many factors that will prevent you from reaching your full income potential.
Here are the top 3 ways you can make the MOST money as a travel nurse.
Travel Nurse Salary: Be $$$ Flexible
It is a shock for a lot of travel nurses to see weekly rates back to pre-pandemic levels of anywhere from $1,800 to $2,900 a week.
Just one year ago those same rates were $3,000-$6,000 a week, so it’s a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of travel RNs that have been travel nursing for the last year.
However – current rates are not bad by any stretch of the imagination, especially when you take into consideration that the weekly compensation for staff nurses has remained the same throughout the entire pandemic.
A middle ground rate of $2,500 a week works out to $120,000 per year annually if you work 4 consecutive contracts, with 1-week off in between each contract. On paper that’s a 6-figure income with 4 weeks off a year.
Travel Nurse Salary: Be Location Flexible
It is of course easier to be a travel nurse if you have a compact license, because with a compact license comes an additional 33 states you can work in, in addition to the one you’re already licensed in. Don’t have a compact license? Learn how to get one here.
In addition – be flexible on what locations you’re willing to work. You will have a lot more options presented to you by your recruiter if you don’t limit yourself to 2 or 3 cities.
Remember, these are 13-week travel nursing contracts, not 13-years. The towns & cities you spend that amount of time in don’t have to have every amenity you desire and can often pay quite a bit more because they’re trying to compete with more desirable locations like San Francisco, California, or Honolulu, Hawaii. If increasing your travel nurse pay is your goal – open that map back up and take a look at where you’d be willing to work.
Travel Nurse Salary: Be Agency Flexible
No one said you had to work with one travel nurse agency for the rest of your life. All travel nurse agencies are a little bit different and will often offer you a completely different set of services. And there’s absolutely no harm in working with more than one agency. What might work for Nurse Jane might not work for Nurse Bob.
You will of course want to work with a travel nurse agency you feel you can trust, has integrity, and is available to you when you need them – but take the time to check them all out and see who you feel the most comfortable with.
Next Move specializes in high paying travel nursing jobs in Midwest locations such as Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma – so if middle America is what you’re looking for, then we have exclusive high paying travel nursing jobs in these areas.
We’d be happy to talk to you about the specifics of what type of travel nursing jobs you’re looking for and how we can help to increase your travel nurse salary – with absolutely no obligation on your part. Remember we’re a dedicated team of travel nurse recruiters made up of practicing RNs!
Feel free to reach out to us anytime at: info@nextmoveinc.com, or 1.816.601.3800
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