Retail Motor Law

Annual Leave Entitlement – A Guide 

From April 2009 all workers have a statutory right to at least 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave (that is at least 28 days' paid holiday if you work five days a week). This may include bank holidays.

5.6 weeks is the minimum right to paid holiday, but you may offer more than this. The main points you should be aware of are: 

·         Employees are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks times their usual working week

·         those working part time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata (so 5.6 times their usual working week)

·         employees start building up holiday as soon as they start work

·         you can control when your employees take holiday

·         employees get paid their normal pay for holidays

·         when they finish/resign, they are entitled to be paid for any holiday they have not taken

·         bank and public holidays can be included in the minimum entitlement

·         employees continue to be entitled to holiday leave throughout their ordinary and additional maternity leave and paternity and adoption leave  

Calculating holiday entitlement 

How much holiday an employee will receive is normally set out in their contract of employment.

Basic calculation

Part-time workers

Part-time workers, are entitled to 5.6 weeks' holiday – 5.6 of their normal working week. For example, if they work two days a week they would be entitled to 11.2 days' annual leave a year:

Casual or irregular hours may be easiest to calculate the holiday entitlement that accrues (that is accumulates) as hours are worked.

The holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks is equivalent to 12.07 per cent of the hours worked.

The 12.07 per cent figure is:

5.6 weeks' holiday, divided by 46.4 weeks (being 52 weeks - 5.6 weeks) multiplied by 100 = 12.07 per cent

The 5.6 weeks have to be excluded from the calculation as they would not be present during the 5.6 weeks in order to accrue annual leave. 

For example, if they had worked 10 hours, they would be entitled to 72.6 minutes' paid holiday:12.07 per cent x 10 hours = 1.21 hours = 72.6 minutesThe holiday entitlement is just over seven minutes for each hour worked.

For example, if an employee always works four 12 hour shifts, followed by four days off (the ‘continental’ shift pattern) then the average working week is three-and-a-half 12 hour shifts.

They would be entitled to 19.6 shifts of 12 hours as annual leave a year:5.6 weeks x 3.5 shifts = 19.6 12 hour shifts.For other shift patterns, it may be easiest to calculate according to the established pattern of repeat. 

Click Here to Calculate Holiday entitlement.