Holiday entitlement for part-time workers

Part-time employees in the UK are entitled to the same benefits, treatment, and opportunities as full-time workers. As an employer it’s important to understand the holiday allowances for your part-time workers and how to calculate them correctly, so you stay compliant with current employment laws.

Read on to learn how, and to discover the ease of a leave management system for calculating and managing not just part-time staff, but all staff annual leave allowance.

How much annual leave are part-time workers entitled to?

Although part-time workers do not work the same number of hours as full-time employees, most employees in the UK are entitled to the statutory amount of 5.6 weeks annual leave per year.

To calculate this for part-time workers you must find the part-time equivalent (FTE). More on annual leave allowances for different types of workers can be found in our guide, Typical employee annual leave entitlements in the UK.

Calculate statutory annual leave for part-time employees

Part-time hours can differ depending on the individual, but to put it simply, a part-time worker is someone who works less than a full-time worker. Which means the annual leave allowance calculation differs slightly to that of a full-time employee.

However, it is not as complicated as it seems.

To calculate how many annual leave days your part-time employees are entitled to, simply:

1. Calculate how many days per week the employee works

2. Multiply the number of days by 5.6 (which is the current statutory annual leave allowance for most workers in the UK)

So, an employee who works 3 days per week would be entitled to:  3 x 5.6 = 16.8 days of paid holiday per year.

Below are some more examples:

What about contractual annual leave allowances?

Some companies will choose to offer more than the statutory allowance of 5.6 weeks per year. They may instead offer an enhanced annual leave entitlement for staff as an incentive to attract and retain top talent, to increase productivity and to support their employee’s work-life balance. This is known as contractual annual leave.

If you currently offer full-time staff more than the statutory amount, you are legally required to give this to your part-time employees too.

With the number of weeks annual leave, you offer your staff you just need to do the same calculation as above. Multiplying this by the number of days worked per week by the employee.

For example:

If you offer 32 days of annual leave, this is equal to 6.4 weeks.

For a part time member of staff working 3 days per week they will be entitled to

6.4 x 3 = 19.2 days of annual leave.

Bank holidays for part-time workers

Employers are not legally required to give workers the day off on a bank holiday.

Instead, your employment contracts should set out the rules regarding bank holidays so that there is no confusion for your staff. For expert advice and guidance, get in touch with our employment law advisors on our 24/7 HR advice line.

Manage annual leave for part-time workers with a leave management system

To streamline your processes and to take charge of annual leave management in your workplace, consider the features of a modern leave management system.

Leave management systems such as BrightHR’s staff holiday planner, allow you to manage, track, and adjust annual leave for all employees.

For part-time workers, a leave management system will automatically calculate their holiday allowance for the year. Meaning you don’t have to do any of the calculations yourself! A convenient and time-saving system that helps to free up your time and avoid any HR headaches for you and your staff.

Take the complex calculations out of annual leave management with BrightHR

With the BrightHR staff holiday planner you don’t have to worry about calculating your part-time employee’s annual leave allowances for the year. Our automatic calculations will do this for you and ensure managers are notified of annual leave requests instantly.

Giving you total oversight of who’s working and who’s off with a single pane view of your entire team’s leave calendar. Plus, don’t worry about annual leave clashes again, you’ll be notified if too many members of one team are requesting holiday on the same day.

Book your free demo today to see BrightHR in action and to discover the simple way to manage annual leave for your business.