Typical employee annual leave entitlements in the UK

As an employer in the UK, you are legally required to provide your employees paid time off work. This is known as statutory holiday entitlement.  

While you're obligated to provide your employees with the legal minimum of paid holiday within a year's holiday allowance, there's no law stopping you from offering more holiday entitlement.

In today's competitive job market, offering a more generous leave entitlement as part of your employee benefits package can greatly boost your business's appeal and help attract and retain top talent.

So, whether it's the legal minimums or extra perks you offer, knowing the facts is key to keeping both your team and the law happy. To better understand your options let's break down employee annual leave in a way that's easy to understand.

What is the legal minimum holiday entitlement?

In the UK, most workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday a year also called statutory annual leave entitlement, which can include bank holidays.

And it's not just your full-time employees who are legally entitled to this paid holiday. Statutory annual leave extends to various types of workers, including:

• Part-time workers

• Zero-hours workers

• Shift workers

• Part-year workers

• Term-time workers

It's important to note that while most workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday a year, the number of days holiday they get can vary depending on how many days a week they work. For part-time workers, read our guide on Holiday entitlements for part-time workers.

Statutory holiday entitlement for irregular hours and part-year workers

Since April 2024, the rules for calculating irregular workers’ holiday entitlement changed. Holiday entitlement for employees on irregular hours or part-year workers are entitled to the same 5.6 weeks of paid time off per year.

To calculate how much this would be based on their hours worked, the calculation is:

12.07% x total number of hours worked

For example, if an employee worked 30 hours per week and they are paid on a weekly basis, they will be entitled to 4 hours of paid leave.

(30 × 12.07 ÷ 100 = 3.621). You would always round up to the nearest hour when the entitlement is 0.5 or more of an hour.

Other statutory rights of holiday entitlements

Aside from the statutory right to paid holiday, your workers have the right to:

• Build up holiday entitlement during various types of leave such as maternity, paternity, and adoption leave

• Build up holiday entitlement if they are off work sick

• Make a holiday request while they are on sick leave

You can read more about managing employee annual leave in our calculating and managing employee annual leave guide.

What is contractual holiday entitlement?

While you must provide your staff with the statutory annual leave allowance, you can also provide more than the required minimum. Offering above the UK statutory allowance is known as contractual annual leave. This must be outlined in your employment contracts.

The number of paid holidays through contractual leave can vary based on several factors, such as the employment contract, industry norms, and company policies. But ultimately you have the freedom to decide how much holiday you offer your employees.

It can also either be paid leave or unpaid leave and some businesses even offer unlimited paid holidays.

By going beyond the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks of holiday pay per year and offering additional days of annual leave, bank holidays, or other holiday-related benefits, you’ll attract and retain top talent and create a more productive and engaged workforce.

Holiday carry-over

If any of your employees have unused holiday, they may be able to carry over up to 1.6 weeks of leave to the next holiday year, as long as you have a written agreement on this.

There are circumstances in which this must be provided, by law. These circumstances include:

• An employee on long-term sick leave

• Maternity, paternity or adoption leave

• In cases where an employee was not provided adequate opportunities to take their annual leave.

More on holiday carry-over can be read in our guide Carrying over holiday.

However, you should provide your employees with a fair chance to take their leave or encourage them to do so. You should also inform your staff of the potential risks of losing their annual leave entitlement at the end of the holiday year.

Does the legal minimum annual leave entitlement include bank holidays?

Yes, the minimum of 5.6 weeks of annual leave includes bank holidays.

However, you can choose to exclude bank holidays from your employees' statutory holiday entitlement in your employment contract, as long as your employees still get their paid holiday at another time in the holiday year.

You’re also not legally required to provide your staff with extra pay for a bank holiday if they do work on that day. Unless you have written so in your employment contract.

Save time by managing your staff annual leave with BrightHR

Managing employee holiday entitlements can be a complex task for business owners. With so many responsibilities to handle, it can be hard to keep track of everything and ensure that your team gets the time off they deserve without any issues.

BrightHR's staff holiday planner can make this task much easier.

With our smart employee holiday planner, you’ll spend less time managing your staff's paid holiday entitlements and more time focused on your business.

But that's not all, it can also help you:

Stay legally compliant with UK employment laws

Our staff holiday planner will do your calculations for you, so you don’t have to worry about ensuring your staff have the correct amount of annual leave allowance each year. Both you and your staff will be able to log on and see exactly how much annual leave they have remaining for the year. What’s more, this auto refreshes with every new working year. Saving you plenty of time.

Plus, you can always stay up to date with UK laws and regulations for annual leave entitlements with our 24/7 employment law advice line.

Keep everyone in the loop

Clear and transparent communication of annual leave entitlements, balances, policies, and procedures is essential for building trust and preventing misunderstandings among employees.

Our HR app will keep your staff informed from anywhere and confirm key updates with alerts and read receipts.

Prevent burnout and boost employee productivity

Our holiday planner also comes with an annual leave balance feature. Allowing you to view the complete leave entitlements of all employees in your business, along with their remaining days of leave.

This feature provides you with immediate insights, helping you recognise when your staff need a much-deserved break. Not only will this ensure you know who’s off when but give you the oversight to encourage members of the team to take their annual leave before the end of the working year.

Create annual leave policies

With BrightBase you can access a wide range of HR documents, templates and guides. Designed to provide you expertly written documents to ensure your business is compliant with current UK employment laws. It’s never been easier to write your own company annual leave policy.

To save your business time and to ensure you’re compliant with current UK employment laws, get in touch with our team and book your free demo to discover how BrightHR can support your business.