From intriguing medical image scans to preparing patients to undergo procedures in a two-ton, half-million-dollar machine, you love your job as a CT tech — but lately, things have felt a little stale.
Why not shake things up by immersing yourself in an entirely new environment?
And we’re not talking about changing your entire career completely.
As a travel CT tech, you’ll get paid to do what you love all across the country. You’ll get to experience new horizons, meet new people, and make new memories — all while making great money.
In this article, we’ll discuss this lucrative career opportunity and explain how to access the best travel CT tech jobs.
Table of Contents
- Can You Travel as a CT Tech?
- What Do Travel CT Techs Do?
- 4 Benefits of Working as a Travel CT Tech
- How To Become a Travel Travel CT Tech: A Look at Skills, Qualifications, Demand, and Earning Potential
- Start Your Travel CT Tech Journey With Pronto
Can You Travel as a CT Tech?
Yes!
It’s not just nurses who get the amazing opportunity to get paid for what they love to do while traveling. Many CT techs find life as a travel CT tech to be rewarding in both pay and experience.
Trusted Nurse Staffing helps nurses and other healthcare workers fulfill their dream careers as traveling professionals. To help as many talented applicants as possible, we’ve created Pronto.
Pronto is an easy way to sort through thousands of travel allied health positions without the hassle of scouring the internet or waiting to hear back from recruiting agencies. Pronto lets you take your Allied Health Travel journey into your own hands, on your own time.
What Do Travel CT Techs Do?
A Computed Tomography (CT) technologist is a specialized healthcare professional who uses computed axial tomography (CAT) scanners to aid radiologists in diagnosing patients.
Different types of CT scanners a CT tech may use include:
- High-resolution CTs
- Helical or spiral CTs
- Ultrafast CTs
- Computed tomographic angiography (CTA)
- Positron emission tomography (PET) scans
Besides working with these machines to provide accurate images of the human anatomy, other duties of a CT might include:
- Educating and preparing patients for their examinations
- Guiding and adjusting patients for imaging
- Taking patient medical history before exams
- Determining and setting appropriate technical parameters for accurate scans
- Assuming responsibility for patient safety and comfort
As a travel CT tech, you may work in various healthcare settings, such as hospitals, providers’ offices, clinics, and freestanding imaging centers.
4 Benefits of Working as a Travel CT Tech
#1: Getting To Travel
As a CT travel tech, you get to combine your passion for your job with your wanderlust — while getting paid to do both. Very few jobs have the ability to let you jet off for a few months to the beach, the mountains, or other locations you’ve always dreamt of visiting.
It’s like going on vacation, but instead of only getting to see small parts of a place, you get to see everything your temporary home has to offer. It’s also a great way to test out potential places to move.
Do you ever think you might want to live in a big city but don’t know how much you’d like it? Go on a 6-week travel CT tech job assignment to try it out. If you like it, you’ve found your new home. If you don’t, look for your next move with the help of Pronto.
Pronto allows allied health workers and nurses to easily search for travel assignments at the touch of a button. Learn more today.
Search for jobs anywhere at any time with the help of Pronto, powered by Trusted Nurse Staffing.
#2: Job Flexibility
Allied Health Travelers have great control of their career paths and options. As a travel CT tech, you can choose from 6, 8, or 13-week contracts, with the option to extend your assignment if you happen to like the position.
This allows you to decide how long or short your assignments are while choosing where you go and which facility you’ll work at.
You could even take a break between contracts to visit friends and family or go on vacation. Or you could work lucrative contracts back-to-back while you save money on housing with your stipend.
#3: Professional Growth
With every new travel CT tech job assignment, you’ll learn and grow more!
Traveling while working as a CT tech means broadening your horizons, honing your skills, and picking up new knowledge and insight along the way. By exposing yourself to new settings, equipment, procedures, and practices, you’ll strengthen your career and talent.
A diversity of experiences will also enrich your understanding of the radiology field, making you a more well-rounded CT tech.
#4: Networking Opportunities
Traveling healthcare professionals cultivate a robust professional network.
While traveling from facility to facility, you’re likely to meet and work with leading radiology professionals.
One or more of them is bound to serve as a valuable reference that will help open many doors for your career in the future.
You’ll also likely run into other travelers and make new friends. Just because you’ll be alone in a new city doesn’t mean you’ll be lonely. Your Trusted Nurse Staffing recruiter will always be there to answer any questions about your contract and possibly connect you with other travelers nearby.
How To Become a Travel CT Tech: A Look at Skills, Qualifications, Demand, and Earning Potential
Skills
To be successful as a CT tech, you may need to have the following attributes:
- The ability to operate highly sophisticated computer equipment
- An eagerness to cultivate your scientific and technical skills and knowledge
- A compassionate disposition
- Excellent communication skills
- Highly attentive to details
- Good comprehension skills
- Precision and accuracy
While your role as a CT tech may not be much different when you travel for work, as a travel CT tech, you may need to be:
- Adaptive
- Patient
- Focused
- Eager to learn
Each facility you travel to may have a different layout, policies, procedures, and equipment. You’ll have to use these skills to find your place in this thriving career.
Education
To become a CT tech, you must complete an associate’s or bachelor’s degree from an accredited educational program related to the field of radiology.
After you complete your education, you’ll need to take the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) computed tomography certification examination. Once you pass, you’ll receive your CT credentials.
In some states, you may need to obtain an additional state license separate from your ARRT certification and credentialing. In addition, many states use ARRT exam scores and credentials when granting CT tech licenses.
As a travel CT tech, you may need to obtain licenses for certain states before you can travel to work there. In fact, roughly more than 75% of states have licensing laws that require a separate license for that state.
States that do not require additional licensing include:
- Alaska
- District of Columbia
- Missouri
- North Carolina
- South Dakota
- Texas
Continued Education Requirements
The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists requires CT techs to renew their certification annually. Your renewal due date will always be the last day of your birth month. Failure to renew will result in your certification and credentials lapsing.
ARRT also requires CT techs to earn 24 continued education (CE) hours during their bienniums (every two years).
Valid ARRT-approved CE activities include:
- A or A+ activities approved by the RCEEM or RCEEM+
- Approved academic courses relevant to the profession
- Advanced CPR certification (ALS/ACLS or PALS)
- Authoring a published article
- Certain activities you complete for state licensing purposes
Experience
You’ll need at least one year of experience to be a travel CT tech. However, most facilities may pursue techs for two or more years. However, one year is the minimum required amount of experience to become a travel Allied Health professional.
Demand
Like many other fast-growing careers in the healthcare field, CT techs are in high demand.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the job demand for radiology technologists is estimated to grow 6% faster than average. This means that from now until 2032, an additional 15,400 CT techs will be needed to keep up with the job demand.
Earning Potential
According to Indeed, travel CT techs have the potential to earn between $2,000 and $3,400 a week.
Some of the cities with the highest salaries for CT techs are:
- San Francisco, CA: $3,399 per week
- Boston, MA: $2,825 per week
- Los Angeles, CA: $2,532 per week
- Richmond, VA: $2,481 per week
- Dallas, TX: $2,442 per week
Start Your Travel CT Tech Journey With Pronto
Are you ready to begin the next step of your career as a CT travel tech?
Through Trusted Nurse Staffing’s Allied Health program and Pronto, you’ll be able to begin your journey ASAP.
Here’s how to start:
- Sign up for a Pronto.
- Get matched with a recruiter who will be there to help you if you have any questions.
- Search on Pronto for travel CT tech job listings that meet your qualifications, needs, and interests.
Once you’ve found an assignment that is a good match, you’ll get automatically assigned your own Trusted Nursing support team, which includes:
- Clinical support
- Payroll and compliance experts
- Ongoing assignment advocacy
- And more
Additional perks included in your partnership with Trusted Nurse Staffing include:
- A welcome box
- $1500 bonus for referring your friends or a facility already not employed with us
- An ambassador program where you can receive bonuses for creating content
- And more!
Start your path towards a lucrative career by exploring travel CT tech jobs on Pronto today.