Career Opportunities for Traveling Pharmacy Technicians

by Nichole Barnes, BHI, CPhT

Did you know that you can become a traveling pharmacy technician?

If you had told me when I started my career almost 15 years ago that a career traveling as a pharmacy technician would be a prevalent thing, I would have laughed in your face. Nevertheless, today, you can make a great career out of traveling as a pharmacy technician.

When I think of traveling professions, the first one that comes to mind is nursing. When working at the hospital, we had nurses that would come in and out to fill staffing needs short-term. This same concept applies to traveling pharmacy technicians, and they travel where they are needed and work however long their contract dictates.

Several travel companies offer fantastic benefits for traveling pharmacy technicians. Most of these positions provide housing for your length of stay, some food reimbursements, and a significant bump up in pay since they desperately need help. Some facilities are offering up to a cumulative total of $1,500 per week. The pharmacy technician is often employed by a larger umbrella company that offers employee health benefits, 401K, and other traditional benefits.

These umbrella companies will reach out to their employees as new travel opportunities arise. Once a technician has found a travel opportunity, they want to take advantage of, they let their recruiters know, and the paperwork is started. Typically speaking, many travel pharmacy technician jobs are contracted for days or weeks, and the average contract could be anywhere between 6 to 15 weeks. If you find a place you enjoy, you can apply for additional contracts in the same area or even the same facility. Alternatively, if you are more of a nomad like me, you can travel the world while doing what you love and helping struggling pharmacies.

I found 67 traveling pharmacy technician jobs listed for just one company when looking at the currently available job listings.¹ These include retail and hospital pharmacy jobs in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, and even Hawaii. Who wouldn’t want to go to Hawaii and work for a few weeks!

While I would love to say the opportunities are endless, the reality is there are limits. There are only so many traveling jobs, but I don’t see this career path going away anytime soon with the workloads we are witnessing today. I am looking forward to seeing more and more traveling opportunities become available for pharmacy technicians.

If you love to travel and love being a pharmacy technician, this may be the career path for you. And what an exciting path that is! Traveling pharmacy technician careers are something that I could have only dreamed of many years back, and I am so happy to see this becoming a reality for techs today.  

Check out several pharmacy technician career opportunities on the National Pharmacy Technician Association website at https://careers.pharmacytechnician.org/jobseekers/.

Sources

¹ “Find Allied Travel Pharma Tech Jobs | Med Travelers.” 2021. MedTravelers. https://www.medtravelers.com/job-search-results/t/pharma-tech/.