The median advertised pay for a travel ICU (intensive care unit) contract in Kentucky is $2,282 per week, with the middle half between $2,245 and $2,295. Measured across 8 active travel ICU contracts in Kentucky at 3 facilities, as of 2026-10-31.
Advertised weekly totals before tax, usually including tax-free stipends; for almost all postings the top of an advertised range. Not take-home.
That is 7 percent under the $2,453 national median for travel ICU contracts.
Kentucky is a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so an active multistate license covers you here. A single-state license from elsewhere does not. The compact state list explains which states issue one, and the compact checker tells you whether yours covers you here.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,200 | 1 |
| $2,200 to $2,250 | 1 |
| $2,250 to $2,300 | 5 |
| $2,300 to $2,350 | 0 |
| $2,350 to $2,400 | 1 |
| $2,400 to $2,450 | 0 |
| $2,450 to $2,500 | 0 |
All 8 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Kentucky has the 40th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 10 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 36 percent under, while goods sit 4 percent under and services 3 percent under. That matters more than the headline number, because housing is the part a tax-free stipend is meant to cover and the rest comes out of taxed wages.
| Metro | Open contracts | Median weekly | Rent, 1 bed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bowling Green | 5 | $2,252 | $925/mo |
| Lexington | 2 | $2,294 | $1,060/mo |
| Hazard | 1 | $2,354 | — |
Rent is the one-bedroom Fair Market Rent HUD publishes for that metro, which is what a housing stipend is trying to cover. The open-contract count beside each metro is the sample its median rests on, and outside the largest markets that sample is small: a median over one or two contracts is a single posting's rate rather than a market rate, so read the count first.
Browse the board for current ICU assignments in Kentucky.
All 46 states with ICU openings