How to easily calculate holiday entitlement for part-time workers
You probably know that full-time employees are entitled to 28 days’ paid annual leave. But what about part-time employees?
Holiday entitlement calculations are a bit trickier for part-time employees, but we’ve got you covered. We’ll walk you through the calculations behind our calculator above – from working out annual leave based on the number of days or number of hours worked a week, plus detailing what you need to be aware of when making these calculations.
Calculating statutory annual leave entitlement for part-time workers
By law, employees have the right to 5.6 weeks’ statutory paid holiday (or ‘statutory annual leave’) whether they work full time, part time, or under a zero-hours contract. For full-timers, that’s 28 days a year. This minimum amount includes any bank holidays given as annual leave – but more on that later.
A part-time employee’s holiday entitlement is pro-rated to a full-time employee’s entitlement, based on the amount of time they work in proportion to a full-time role. So for part-time employees, they are still required to be given the same number of weeks as a full-time worker. But what that week looks like in terms of days or hours looks different, depending of course on how many days or hours are worked a week by the part-time worker.
To calculate part-time statutory holiday entitlement in days, use the following formula: 5.6 weeks x number of days worked per week = holiday entitlement in days
To calculate part-time statutory holiday entitlement in hours, use the following formula: 5.6 weeks x number of hours worked per week = holiday entitlement in hours
Examples of statutory annual leave entitlement for part-time workers, based on number of days worked a week
| Part-timer’s working week | Calculation | Statutory annual entitlement |
| One day a week | 5.6 x 1 = 5.6 | 5.6 days |
| One-and-a-half days | 5.6 x 1.5 = 8.4 | 8.4 days |
| Two days | 5.6 x 2 = 11.2 | 11.2 days |
| Two-and-a-half days (half a week) | 5.6 x 2.5 = 14 | 14 days |
| Three days | 5.6 x 3 = 16.8 | 16.8 days |
| Four days | 5.6 x 4 = 22.4 | 22.4 days |
Please note, the above days include equivalents. For example, if someone works two half-days, that would total one day, and therefore their annual leave entitlement would be 5.6 days over the year.
Calculating enhanced holiday entitlement for part-time workers, in days
Some employers offer above the statutory minimum annual leave amount. This is often called ‘contractual’ or ‘enhanced’ holiday entitlement, and will be outlined in their employment contracts. If you wish to give more holidays than the statutory entitlement, you must ensure that your part time employees also receive the additional entitlement on a pro rata basis.
To do this, you must first work out the number of weeks given as holiday per year, since it will be above 5.6. You first calculate the total days annual leave given to full-time staff, divided by 5 days a week. So if full-time workers are given 33 days’ holiday per year, this would be:
33 / 5 = 6.6 weeks.
You then apply this weekly rate to your part timer (as per the table above) by multiplying by the number of days worked. So say if the employee worked 4 days a week, the calculation would be:
6.6 weeks entitlement x 4 days a week = 26.4 days annual leave entitlement
An even simpler version of this calculation is:
(4 days part-timer works a week ÷ 5 days full-timers work per week) x 33 days total annual leave = 26.4 days
Calculating statutory annual leave as a number of hours per year
In some situations, such as when someone works different hours each day, it may be more relevant to express holiday entitlement as a number of hours per annum. This follows a similar process as the step above, but may need an extra step in the calculation to convert days into hours.
Gov.uk confirms this calculation is: Hours worked per week by part-timer x weeks of holiday allowance = holiday allocation (in hours).
Example
For example, for a part-time worker working 20 hours a week, and receiving statutory minimum holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks, the calculation is simply: 20 hours x 5.6 weeks = 112 hours annual holiday entitlement.
Examples of statutory annual leave entitlement for part-time workers, based on number of hours worked a week
| Part-timer’s working week | Calculation | Statutory annual entitlement |
| 7 hours (one day in a 35-hour working week) | 5.6 x 7 | 39.2 hours |
| 14 hours | 5.6 x 14 | 78.4 hours |
| 21 hours | 5.6 x 21 | 117.6 hours |
| 28 hours | 5.6 x 28 | 156.8 hours |
| 35 hours | 5.6 x 35 | 196 hours |
Please note it’s the same calculation no matter number of days worked.
How to check the statutory minimum holiday allowance in hours
To check what the statutory minimum hours you need to give your employees for holiday allowance, simply do: 28 (days leave) x hours in a working day.
Alternatively, you can do: 5.6 weeks x hours in a working week.
These should lead you to the same answer. For example, with a 7 hour working day or 35 hour working week, the answer is 196 hours.
Calculating enhanced holiday entitlement for part-time workers, in hours
If your full time employees are entitled to more than the statutory minimum, you’ll of course need to adjust your calculation.
First of all, you need to know how many weeks your full-time employees take off. If you haven’t got that yet, calculate this by dividing the number of days they have off by 5 days a week:
Total days annual leave / five days a week = weeks of annual leave
Alternatively, if you’re starting with an hourly holiday allocation, you can calculate this by doing:
Total hours annual leave / hours worked a week = weeks of annual leave
Then you apply this to the same calculation as above, to work out the number of hours your part-time employees get:
Weeks of annual leave given x hours worked per week by part-timer = part-timer’s annual holiday allowance in hours.
Example
So for example if your full-timers get 25 days annual leave plus eight bank holidays (which gives 33 days in total per annum), you can work out their weekly amount by doing:
33 days / 5 days a week = 6.6
The entitlement of a part time worker who works 20 hours per week would be calculated as:
20 hours per week x 6.6 weeks = 132 hours holiday per year. Again, this calculation includes the bank holiday entitlement.
So if a part-timer who works 5 hours on a Tuesday and 7 on a Wednesday wishes to take these days as holiday, their annual entitlement would be reduced by 12 hours.
Calculating for fixed hours worked per week (but different hours per day)
If a worker has a fixed number of hours per week but differing hours per day, there are no rules in legislation on how to incorporate this into the calculation. However, uk.gov recommends to work out the worker’s average day and use this.
So annual leave entitlement is calculated in days, and then multiplied by the average length of a working day.
To calculate an average working day, you do:
Hours worked per week / days worked per week = hours in an average working day
Example calculation | Fixed hours per week
In this example, the employee works 30 hours over 4 days per week (6 hours on a Monday and Tuesday, 9 hours on a Thursday and Friday, and has Wednesdays and weekends off).
Their leave entitlement is the statutory minimum 28 days, pro rated:
28 days entitlement / 5 days a week = 5.6
5.6 x 4 days worked per week = 22.4 days
To work out their average working day, you do:
30 hours / 4 days worked per week = 7.5 hours on average per day
To work out their holiday entitlement for a full leave year, you multiply their average working day by pro-rated entitlement, or:
22.4 x 7.5 hours = 168.0 hours per year
When they take off a Monday or Tuesday, you reduce this by 6 hours to work out what they have left. When they take off a Thursday or Friday, you knock off 9 hours.
Some crucial reminders about calculating annual leave
By law, you cannot round down the leave. There is no obligation to round up the leave, but you can do so if preferred. So, if an employee has 26.4 days holidays, the holidays may be rounded up to 26.5 days, but they may not be reduced to 26 days.
Statutory provision is capped at 28 days and even though some employees may work 6 or 7 days per week, their entitlement will remain at 28 days.
Bank and public holidays
There are normally eight specified bank holidays in England and Wales each year, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland (but the statutory provision is eight).
Problems can arise where employees are entitled to bank holidays off work on top of their annual leave entitlement.
This is because most bank holidays fall on a Monday, so a part-timer who works on a Monday will have a higher proportion of their holidays “fixed” than a colleague working on a Tuesday or Wednesday for example.
(At least four days of a Monday worker’s holidays will be fixed bank holidays. The Tuesday worker will only incur fixed bank holidays when Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day Fall on a Tuesday.)
If an employee is normally scheduled to work on a bank holiday and receives this day off as a fixed holiday, their holiday entitlement should automatically be reduced by one day.
If an employee is not normally contracted or scheduled to work on a day when a bank holiday falls, this does not affect their holiday entitlement as it is not a working day.
The easiest and fairest way of calculating entitlements is to deal with all the holidays as an inclusive amount. So, if a full time employee is entitled to 25 days annual leave plus eight bank holidays, this gives a total of 33 days per annum. This can be expressed as 6.6 weeks’ holiday (33 ÷ 5 = 6.6).
If an employee receives statutory minimum leave entitlement, and get all eight bank holidays off as leave, they would be entitled to an additional 20 days off which is 28 in total (5.6 weeks in total).
Calculating leave in this way will ensure employers always meet the statutory minimum.
You can then easily calculate a part timers total entitlement, for example, an employee working three days per week would be entitled to 6.6 x 3 (days) = 19.8 days holiday per year.
Further advice and support
If you require advice or support, why not download our monthly Employment Law Guide. You can also book a consultation.
