The median advertised pay for a travel PCU (progressive care unit) contract in Tennessee is $2,451 per week, with the middle half between $2,328 and $2,884. Measured across 14 active travel PCU contracts in Tennessee at 8 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 6 percent over the $2,310 national median for travel PCU contracts.
Tennessee 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 |
|---|---|
| $2,000 to $2,200 | 3 |
| $2,200 to $2,400 | 4 |
| $2,400 to $2,600 | 2 |
| $2,600 to $2,800 | 0 |
| $2,800 to $3,000 | 2 |
| $3,000 to $3,200 | 3 |
All 14 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Tennessee has the 38th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 8 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 21 percent under, while goods sit 4 percent under and services 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johnson City | 3 | $2,903 | $920/mo |
| Clarksville | 2 | $2,520 | $990/mo |
| Cookeville | 2 | $2,381 | $845/mo |
| Knoxville | 2 | $2,922 | $1,280/mo |
| Maryville | 2 | $2,009 | $1,210/mo |
| Bristol | 1 | $3,063 | — |
| Jackson | 1 | $2,081 | $960/mo |
| Murfreesboro | 1 | $2,337 | $1,575/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 PCU assignments in Tennessee.
Over the last seven days the median advertised rate rose 6.8 percent, from $2,230 to $2,383 a week. Measured against the seven days before it, across 14 open postings, 2026-10-18 to 2026-10-31.
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