UK Holiday entitlement
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In the UK all full-time workers are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks (28 days) paid holiday per year. This is known as "Statutory leave entitlement" and this can also include bank holidays.

Employers must not round down holiday entitlement, it can only be rounded up.

Public holidays can be included as part of that 28 days.

Pro-rata holiday entitlement is calculated based on how much annual leave an employee is entitled to depending on the time they have worked across a respective holiday year. Part-time workers are afforded the same annual leave entitlement as full-time workers, however as fewer hours are worked, this will mean your part-time employees will have less than 28 days statutory leave accrued due to reduced working hours.

If you have any employee on a zero-hours contract, you can use our handy holiday allowance calculator above to work out the number of hours they have accrued to work out any annual leave allowance. Using absence management software like Timetastic will give you greater transparency over annual leave entitlements.

If an employee leaves part way through the holiday year, they are entitled to part of their statutory entitlement based on how much of the leave year they are employed by you. If an employee has taken more than their annual leave entitlement when they are set to leave the business then you can communicate your intention to deduct the amount from the final pay in writing to your employee. On the flip side, you can offer payment in lieu to cover the total number of holidays they have left.

In recent years, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the Coronation of King Charles III has meant there have been additional bank holidays added to the calendar. This causes panic and headaches for HR managers and business owners alike, but we can alleviate any stress here.

Workers don’t have a statutory right to not work bank holidays. It may come as a surprise, but you get the final say on whether bank holidays are included in holiday entitlement allowances. Whatever you choose, this should be outlined in your staff handbook or contracts to give employees peace of mind and know what they are obliged to take and when.

Any employee working less than 5 days per week is regarded as part-time. Although they are entitled to 5.6 weeks of annual leave, this will amount to fewer than 28 days.

The 28 days are pro-rated according to how many days per week they work. For example, an employee who works 3 days per week will earn 3/5ths of 28 days. 16.8 days. Our staff leave planner can give you great visibility with specialist icons for those who are full-time or part-time, so you know exactly where you stand.

Of course, as an employer, you are welcome to offer more statutory leave and this is very common.

The rules that apply to statutory leave do not apply to the additional. For example an employee may need to be employed for a certain duration before being entitled to the additional allowance.

The upper limit of statutory leave is also 5.6 weeks. So although it can be pro-rated downwards for employees working less than 5 days per week, it does not increase for those working 6 or 7 days. For those workers, statutory leave will stay at 5.6 weeks.

The nature of your business and seasonality may determine that you need cover during bank holidays or the Christmas period. If so, you are entitled to specify that workers must take annual leave from their entitlement if they wish to have this time off. This will be deducted from annual leave allowances as normal.

Carry forward of annual leave is normally a contractual provision agreed between you and your employee.

The only statutory obligation to allow an employee to carry leave forward into the next year is when sickness or maternity prevents the employee from taking their entitlement. In this case a maximum of 20 days can be carried forward.

The excellent gov.uk website provides more detailed guidance on Holiday pay and emploment rights.

As too does ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service)

We also have some superb free resources with lots more information on how you can use Timetastic, such as our time off policies blog section.