The median advertised pay for a travel PCU (progressive care unit) contract in Illinois is $2,310 per week, with the middle half between $2,289 and $2,513. Measured across 14 active travel PCU contracts in Illinois at 10 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 0 percent over the $2,302 national median for travel PCU 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 |
|---|---|
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 6 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 3 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 1 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 2 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 0 |
| $2,700 to $2,800 | 0 |
| $2,800 and up | 2 |
All 14 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Forest | 2 | $2,289 | $2,340/mo |
| Mt. Vernon | 2 | $2,648 | — |
| Peoria | 2 | $2,271 | $790/mo |
| Urbana | 2 | $2,565 | $870/mo |
| BLOOMINGTON | 1 | $2,310 | $840/mo |
| Chicago | 1 | $3,030 | $1,590/mo |
| Quincy | 1 | $2,391 | $730/mo |
| Rockford | 1 | $2,239 | $890/mo |
| Springfield | 1 | $2,463 | $930/mo |
| Winfield | 1 | $2,266 | — |
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 PCU assignments in Illinois.
Over the last seven days the median advertised rate fell 2.0 percent, from $2,428 to $2,379 a week. Measured against the seven days before it, across 16 open postings, 2026-10-17 to 2026-10-30.
This compares advertised rates within one specialty in one state, which is the only cut where a change in the median is likely to mean a change in price rather than a change in which contracts are posted. Where the number of open postings moves sharply, no figure is shown.
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 45 states with PCU openings