Annual leave for part time worker working on Mondays

[NotChildFree]

Hi all!

I'm very confused about the annual leave allowance that I should get per year.
Full-time workers get 25 days + 8 bank holidays.

I will be working 22.5 h per week, Monday to Wednesday.

According to gov website, I should get 16.8 days. But then I found out that my colleague working 4 days gets 20 days, not 22 something like it says on the gov website. So that would mean that I'll get only 15 days. Or maybe even less if I work on Mondays and 6 bank holidays happen then? So what then? Only 9 days to choose whenever I want?

How does it work?
Would I be better off changing my working days to a different day so at least I can choose when I want to have my time off, instead of random bank holidays? Where it's not a holiday for me with a kid at home anyway 😂

Hope that makes sense.
Btw. I'm awaiting reply from HR but they're very slow.

Isn't it days a week you work- so in your case 3× the standard 5.6 ?

Sorry, I've no idea then after rereading your post. Sorry OP😕

The problem is if you work Mondays you have to take bank hols from your total allowance. If you can change it works out better (unless your company offer compensation for this )

If full time staff get 33 days then they get 6.6 weeks holiday. That means you'd be entitled to 6.6 weeks too. So 6.6 x 22.5 = 148.5hours. Assuming you work 7.5 hours per day that works out as 19.8 days holiday.

Deduct any bank holidays from the 19.8 days to give the holidays you choose yourself

it is illegal to treat part time workers less favourably, and it ought to be irrelevant which days of the week you work. your colleague who works 4 days may have an incorrect calculation but that's not your business.

Assuming that full time workers work 37.5hrs per week, you are working 0.6fte so you should get a total (including bank holidays) of 19.8 days (60% of 33) - but in a typical year at least 4 of the bank holidays will fall on a monday - occasionally Christmas Day, Boxing Day and/or New Year will also be on your working days. in any given year your non-bank-holiday allowance should be 19.8 minus whatever number of bank holidays will fall on your working days.

Your 4-day-per-week colleague should be getting 26.4 days including bank holidays, but that's not your battle.

Assuming you work a standard working pattern of 3 days , you will get a prorata share of annual leave days so 15 days. Bank holidays would be also prorated unless your contract says something else, eg you might get more or less. In the UK, by law, you have to get 5.6 weeks off per year which often is calculated as 4 weeks plus UK bank holidays but doesn't have to be specified like that. Industries that routinely work bank holidays might contract to a set number of days without the right to bank holidays off.

If you don't normally work on bank holidays, you are right that having a Monday as a working day is likely to mean you get a lot less flexibility to choose how you use your days off as these get deducted from your allowance but you don't accrue enough days to cover every one.

if you work a non standard working pattern eg 22 hrs over fewer/more days than 3, it might be better to think of it in having 5 working weeks (at 22 hrs per week) off plus a share of bank holidays or calculate it in hours of paid leave off.

its impossible to answer your questions with much certainty though as you need the exact wording in your contract.

@Zebrasinpyjamas OPs employer offers full time staff 33 days in total so her leave will be more than 5.6 weeks as they get 6.6 weeks. Her prorata amount if leave is 19.8 days inclusive of bank holidays.

Yeah, the way I have always done it is to pro rata both the annual leave and BH entitlement then add them together for a total. So if eg there are 20 days annual leave and 8 days BH for full time employees, and you do 0.5, it's 10 days AL and 4 days BH, so 14 in total. But obviously you might have to take more or less of those 4 BH days on actual bank holidays depending on when you work, and it's annoying for Monday people.

Thank you so much for all the responses.

My contact is a very old one and doesn't mention bank holidays at all. Just 25 days. But I remember from the newish job ads that they advertise it for 25 days + bank holidays.

But to summarise, I should get 6.6 weeks of annual leave pro rata (15 days of regular holidays and 4.8 from bank holidays) minus extra bank holidays which fall on my working days.
So this year 2023 7 bank holidays are falling on my working days, so that leaves me with 12.8 days of flexible annual leave days.

Does it sound correct?

Yes, that sounds about right to me.

Yes that sounds right.

Make sure you've taken into account the bonus bank holiday for the coronation

Does all A/L not get counted in hours now.
I'm NHS. We get 33 days full time after 10 years service. That's 274.5h per year.
All PT is pro rata from there. So 22.5h pw is 148.5h per year.

If you work Mondays there are 4 Monday BH (Easter Monday 2xMay BH August BH)
Plus often 1 or 2 for Christmas/New Year. Each of those takes a full day A/L so 7.5h in my case.

Also random extra BH are usually Mondays (when the Queen died, the Coronation, etc)

I was advised by HR not to work Mondays

that would be correct in any normal year but in 2023 there's a bit of a grey area because there are actually 9 bank holidays this year, but the government has been explicit that employers don't have to give their employees the extra day. however the principle that part time employees must not be treated less favourably than full time still holds. if the full time employees are being given an extra day free then that should add another 0.6 days to your overall total, but if everyone is being told they have the day off but it's coming off their annual leave total then the same goes for all.

It's never worth having Mondays as a working day if you are part time.

I wish I know that earlier!

Thank you again for loads of useful information :)

My company is a bit different- 25 days a/l plus all staff get Christmas to New Year off and all bank holidays.

I’m 0.6 FTE so I get 60% of 25 days, and all bank holidays and the twixmas shutdown. It’s very generous but does happen.

Ive worked part time for the last 9 years, Monday to Wednesday. I do less hours than you at 18.5 which is half a full timer in my workplace. My job sharer went full time recently and I have just had a flexible working request agreed to swap my Monday to a Thursday. It will give me 4 days annual leave extra a year to take when I want rather than having to use for all the bank holidays.

When I worked 4 out of five days, all holiday was pro-rata. Therefore we got 25/5 x 4 = 20 for normal holidays. For bank holidays, we had a pro-rata allowance of 8/5x4=6.5. When a bank holiday fell on a working day you took it from the allowance.

It's is illegal to treat part time workers less favorably.

I work part time and don't work Mondays but my company pro raters the days and add them to my balance.

If your company includes bank holidays in the statutory minimum entitlement to paid holiday under the Working Time Regulations 1998 then it would be fine and they are legal able to do that, However, where full-time workers are entitled to bank holidays in addition to their statutory entitlement to holiday, the difference arises.

For example: all full time staff have 25 days per year annual leave + 8 days of bank holiday which = to 33 days per year.

by not giving you the pro-rata amount would mean full time staff are getting more leave days then you are which is unfair.