Travel Nursing Market Update for Q1 2025

New Year factors

The first quarter of the year is always interesting. We’ve got our new graduates all starting at hospitals, so there’s a big influx of new workers in the workforce. We also have overseas employment being top-of-mind for facilities, and to top things off, we also have the trend of “new year, new me, new career”, which increases the volume of nurses and midwives into the industry at this time.

What does this mean? It typically results in a reduce of demand for some specific clinical areas.

High rural demand

We are currently predicting that the highest demand will be in rural facilities around Australia.

If you are an Acute ED nurse, definitely be looking towards working in rural for Q1 rather than in regional. Rural facilities will have the largest influx of new graduates and will need the extra support to help these new grads in these locations.

Clinical areas summary

Are you an ED nurse or midwife? Then you will enjoy high demand all-year round.

But for clinical areas such as medical, surgical, and theatre, there will be a slight reduction in demand. This can be the result of many nurses coming back after the holiday break all wanting the same January start dates.

General Q1 tips

When considering the above, the best way to get the most out of your Q1 is to have a chat with your Affinity consultant and to be open to all states.

If you’re a medical surgical nurse, any job is a good job if you really want to maximise your outcomes. Go for each and every opportunity that matches (even somewhat of) your date and state timeframes.

Theatre nurses

If you’re a theatre nurse, our lovely surgeons take the holiday period off, and electives are closed, so we’re only open for emergency surgeries over the holiday period. Theatre can therefore drop a little in Q1.

Paediatric nurses

Paediatric nursing is very feast or famine—we generally get a few bulk orders but they can be quite sporadic. If you’re a paediatric nurse you really want to make sure you’ve got that casual employment for that income security.

Take advantage of summer!

We can’t mention Q1 without talking about the lovely Australian summer. We have a lot of nurses who aren’t wanting to work up in Far North Queensland or the Northern Territory because it’s the wet season.

If you are one of those clinical areas with the lower demand, the way you can maximise your opportunities is by going up, when everybody is going south.

Yes, it will be a bit hotter! But working against the market will give you the best opportunities.