The median advertised pay for a travel PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) contract in California is $2,965 per week, with the middle half between $2,727 and $3,392. Measured across 11 active travel PICU contracts in California at 8 facilities, as of 2026-10-30.
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 9 percent over the $2,711 national median for travel PICU contracts.
California is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a California license to work here even if you hold a multistate license. 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 $2,600 | 1 |
| $2,600 to $2,750 | 3 |
| $2,750 to $2,900 | 1 |
| $2,900 to $3,050 | 1 |
| $3,050 to $3,200 | 1 |
| $3,200 to $3,350 | 1 |
| $3,350 to $3,500 | 3 |
All 11 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
California has the highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 11 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 54 percent over, while goods sit 6 percent over and services 3 percent over. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oakland | 4 | $3,084 | $1,920/mo |
| Mission Viejo | 2 | $2,865 | $2,840/mo |
| Los Angeles | 1 | $2,639 | $2,150/mo |
| Roseville | 1 | $3,338 | $2,110/mo |
| San Diego | 1 | $3,167 | $2,530/mo |
| San Francisco | 1 | $2,733 | $2,680/mo |
| Santa Clara | 1 | $3,474 | $3,280/mo |
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 PICU assignments in California.
Drawn from the postings that state a requirement, which is not all of them, so each figure carries the number it was measured from. Your recruiter confirms the specifics for a given contract before submission.
All 27 states with PICU openings