How much paid holiday must UK employers give, and how is holiday pay calculated?

## The short answer

In the UK, almost every worker is entitled to a statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave per year. For someone working a standard five-day week, that equates to 28 days, which an employer may choose to include bank holidays within. The entitlement is capped at 28 days for those working six or more days a week. The harder part is holiday pay: a worker must receive their normal pay during leave, which for many people means more than basic salary, because regular overtime, commission, and certain allowances can count.

## Who is entitled

The right applies to workers, not just employees. That includes part-time staff, agency workers, casual staff, and those on zero-hours arrangements. Part-time workers get the same 5.6 weeks, pro-rated to the days they work. There is no qualifying period — entitlement starts to accrue from the first day of work.

## How the entitlement is calculated

- **Full-time, fixed days:** 5.6 weeks, usually expressed as 28 days for a five-day week (or fewer days for fewer working days).

- **Part-time:** the same 5.6 weeks pro-rated. Someone working three days a week is entitled to 5.6 multiplied by three days.

- **Irregular hours and part-year workers:** entitlement is generally worked out as a percentage of the hours worked, reflecting that their pattern is unpredictable. This area has seen reform, so employers with casual staff should make sure their method is current.

- **Starters and leavers:** entitlement accrues over the leave year, so a mid-year joiner gets a proportion, and a leaver must be paid for any accrued but untaken leave.

## Holiday pay: more than basic salary

The principle is that a worker should not be financially worse off for taking holiday, so they must receive their "normal" remuneration. For salaried staff with no variable pay, this is straightforward. For others, normal pay can include:

- Regular, non-guaranteed and compulsory overtime that is worked consistently.

- Commission that forms a normal part of earnings.

- Certain regular allowances and payments linked to the work.

Where pay varies, holiday pay is typically based on average earnings over a defined reference period of previous weeks in which the worker was paid. Ignoring variable pay and paying only basic salary during leave is a common and costly error, because shortfalls can be claimed retrospectively.

## Rules employers often get wrong

- **Rolled-up holiday pay.** Spreading holiday pay across normal wages instead of paying it when leave is taken has historically been problematic; the rules here have been changing, particularly for irregular-hours workers, so check the current position before relying on it.

- **Carrying leave over.** Generally workers should take their statutory leave within the year, but leave can sometimes be carried over, for example where sickness or family leave prevented a worker from taking it. Contractual leave above the statutory minimum can have its own carry-over rules.

- **"Use it or lose it" without facilitation.** Employers are expected to give workers a genuine opportunity to take their leave and to warn them if they risk losing it. Simply letting leave lapse can backfire.

- **Forgetting bank holidays are not automatic.** There is no standalone legal right to paid bank holidays; whether they are extra or counted within the 5.6 weeks depends on the contract.

## Why accuracy pays

Holiday pay errors rarely affect just one person. A wrong method applied across a workforce creates a systemic underpayment that can be claimed by many workers at once, sometimes going back a considerable period. The exposure grows quietly because the error repeats every pay run until someone notices.

## Keeping it right at scale

Calculating the correct entitlement for a mixed workforce of full-time, part-time, and irregular-hours staff, and then applying the right reference period for variable pay, is precisely the kind of repetitive, rules-heavy task where manual processing breaks down. Building the rules into the payroll system, so that variable pay is captured and averaged automatically, removes the single biggest source of error. Neart.ai builds enterprise-grade HR and payroll products aimed at exactly this kind of accurate, repeatable calculation across diverse working patterns.

## Practical takeaway

Start from 5.6 weeks for everyone, pro-rated for part-timers and calculated as a proportion of hours for irregular workers. Then check that your holiday pay reflects normal earnings, including regular overtime and commission, not just basic salary. If you pay only basic salary to staff who routinely earn variable amounts, review it now — that is the most common underpayment and the easiest to fix before it compounds.