The median advertised pay for a travel PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) contract in Illinois is $2,644 per week, with the middle half between $2,551 and $2,716. Measured across 7 active travel PICU contracts in Illinois 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 1 percent under the $2,680 national median for travel PICU contracts.
Illinois is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a Illinois 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 $2,400 | 1 |
| $2,400 to $2,450 | 0 |
| $2,450 to $2,500 | 1 |
| $2,500 to $2,550 | 0 |
| $2,550 to $2,600 | 0 |
| $2,600 to $2,650 | 2 |
| $2,650 to $2,700 | 0 |
| $2,700 and up | 3 |
All 7 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Illinois has the 19th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 0 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 6 percent under, while goods sit 4 percent over and services 0 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urbana | 4 | $2,682 | $870/mo |
| Peoria | 2 | $2,403 | $790/mo |
| Chicago | 1 | $2,711 | $1,590/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 Illinois.
All 27 states with PICU openings