UK holiday entitlement calculator
Work out statutory holiday for full-time, part-time, irregular-hours and term-time staff under the Working Time Regulations 1998 (as amended), and see the arithmetic behind the answer, so you can put it in front of someone who disagrees.
Entitlement
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This is general information, not legal advice. It covers the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks, your contracts may give more, and they take precedence. If a case is close to the line, ring Acas on 0300 123 1100 or take advice.
The bit people get wrong
Before 1 April 2024
Under Harpur Trust v Brazel [2022] UKSC 21, a part-year worker on a permanent contract was entitled to the full 5.6 weeks, the same as a full-year colleague, and the 12.07% method could not be used. A term-time teaching assistant working 39 weeks got 28 days, not a proportion of them.
From 1 April 2024
For leave years beginning on or after that date, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue 12.07% of the hours they actually work. The same teaching assistant now accrues in proportion to hours worked. Parliament reversed Brazel deliberately.
Which rule applies is decided by when the leave year began, not by today's date. A claim for unpaid holiday can reach back across the boundary, so it is worth knowing which side of it a period sits on.
Common questions
How much holiday is a full-time worker entitled to in the UK?
Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave a year. For someone working five days a week that is 28 days. Statutory entitlement is capped at 28 days however many days a week are worked, so someone working six days a week is still entitled to 28 days rather than 33.6. An employer can count bank holidays towards that 5.6 weeks.
How do you work out holiday for a part-time worker?
Multiply the days worked each week by 5.6. Someone working three days a week is entitled to 16.8 days. If they work a fixed number of hours but different lengths of day, work the entitlement out in days first, then multiply by the average working day, total weekly hours divided by days worked.
What is the 12.07% rule, and when does it apply?
For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue leave at 12.07% of the hours they actually work in each pay period, rounded to the nearest hour. The figure comes from 5.6 weeks of leave divided by the 46.4 working weeks left in the year. It does not apply to workers on regular hours all year round.
Does Harpur Trust v Brazel still apply?
For leave years that began before 1 April 2024, yes. The Supreme Court held in 2022 that part-year workers on permanent contracts, term-time staff, for example, were entitled to the full 5.6 weeks with no pro-rating, and that 12.07% could not be used. Parliament reversed that for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Historic claims can still reach back into the earlier period, so the date of the leave year decides which rule applies.
Who counts as an irregular-hours or part-year worker?
An irregular-hours worker is one whose paid hours in each pay period are wholly or mostly variable under their contract, a zero-hours hospitality worker, for instance. A part-year worker is contracted to work only part of the year, with periods of at least a week when they are neither required to work nor paid. Someone on a fixed rotating shift pattern is not an irregular-hours worker, even though the days move.
What is rolled-up holiday pay?
For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, employers may pay irregular-hours and part-year workers an extra 12.07% on each payslip instead of paying holiday when it is taken. It has to be shown as a separate line on the payslip and paid on top of pay that already meets the National Minimum Wage.
Stop working this out by hand
ClockedInOne tracks hours as they are worked and applies the right accrual method per worker , so entitlement is a number you look up, not a spreadsheet you rebuild every April.