Holiday entitlement for 3 days a week part-time role

[0hdearwhatnow]

I am changing my work pattern mid-year from 5 days to 3 days so that I have more time to care for several family members. I have the option to do Mon/Tue/Thur or Tue/Wed/Thurs. Any pros and cons to either of these and what happens with bank holidays/public holidays when you don't work 5 days.

You get them off if your day falls on them but don’t if they don’t.

Depends on the company policy. You might only get 0.6 of Mondays (for example) and have to subsidise it with annual leave.

You get a proportion of bh, either 3/5 or 0.6 of fte or those that would fall within your regular days. Then you deduct hours/days as taken.

You would get pro rata bank holidays included in your holiday entitlement. I'd pick Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday as you'd not need to cover the bank holiday Mondays out of your entitlement. You would therefore have more choice about when to use your hours off.

If you work Tuesday to thursday then you will have 3/5 of the 8 bank holidays added to your annual leave entitlement (adjusting for if Christmas, boxing day or new years day land on one of your working days).
So if your leave was 25 days plus BH if full time you would get 15 days plus 4.8 days for the BHs, giving you a total of 19.8 days.

If you worked three days a week monday- weds, assuming your office closes for bank holidays, you would have a slightly reduced entitlement of you AL to make up for the fact you had all of the BH. So 15- 3.2= 11.8 days.

This is assuming you AL entitlement is 25+ BH , that your office closes for BH and that all bank holidays fell on your non working days in the first scenario , which would be unlikely but you can adjust accordingly.

Does your employer stay open for bank holidays, or close for them? You are entitled to pro-rated bank holiday leave, so 0.6 of each bank holiday. If your company is open for bank holidays, it doesn't much matter. If your company closes, then if you work on Mondays, for example, you'll find that you will feel like you have much less holiday allowance because you will need to use 0.4 of a day of your 'free' leave to cover the portion of bank holiday you aren't getting.

Example:

Holiday entitlement 30 days plus bank holidays. 8 bank holidays in the year. Total entitlement 38 days.

Scenario 1: working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, company open on bank holidays:

30 days + 8 days, pro-rated @0.6 =22.8 days
No days used for bank holidays, so 22.8 days free to book.

Scenario 2: working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, company closed for bank holidays:

30 days + 8 days, pro-rated @0.6 =22.8 days
5 bank holidays in 2026 fall on Monday, 2 on Friday, 1 on Thursday

22.8 - 1=21.8 days free to book.

Scenario 3: working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, company open on bank holidays

30 days + 8 days, pro-rated @0.6 =22.8 days
No days used for bank holidays, so 22.8 days free to book.

Scenario 4: working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, company closed on bank holidays

30 days + 8 days, pro-rated @0.6=22.8 days.
5 bank holidays in 2026 fall on Monday (2 on Friday, 1 on Thursday)
22.8-5=17.8 days free to book.

Scenario 5: working Monday, Thursday, Friday, company closed on bank holidays

30 days + 8 days, pro-rated @0.6=22.8 days.
5 bank holidays in 2026 fall on Monday, 2 on Friday, 1 on Thursday

22.8-8=15.8 days free to book.

Thanks all and thanks @Lougle for detailed breakdown ! Starting to make sense, sounds like, for example, if company closes on Bank Holidays and full-time staff get 5 weeks holidays (25 days), plus bank holidays, part-time staff should still get 5 weeks holidays (15 days) plus pro-rata'd bank holidays. How you take these 'Bank Holiday' entitlement depends on whether they fall on working days or not.

Yes, exactly. They should really use hours rather than days, but the principle stands.

You get 60% of your annual leave and 60% of public holidays. Doesn’t matter which days you work.

It does depend on what your contract say. If it says 25 days + bank holiday, you will then get the 8 days pro rata. If this is the case I would not work a Monday as otherwise you are going to have to use annual leave to cover the days you are closed that you do not work (assuming your place of work closes on a bank holiday)

I’m three days a week and I think my company approach is similar to most. They add the BH entitlement and annual leave entitlement together and pro rata it by 0.6. In practice this means that if you work Mondays you have to ‘spend’ some holiday topping up each BH that falls on a Monday (because you’re only entitled to 0.6 of it). So it’s better for AL to not work Mondays.

I worked a PT pattern tues/weds. My employer turned all my leave into hours and I took it on days I worked - didn’t work Mondays so bank hols were effectively extra leave hours to use whenever. So if your employer does it like that choose the non Monday working pattern.

That employer my leave didn’t include bank hols but I got a separate bank hols leave allowance that was pro rata and I got to use the hours whenever.

my current employer bank hols are included in my leave allowance so it’s automatically deducted. If I didn’t work Mondays my leave wouldn’t be used on bank hols at all but I would still have those hours to use another times.

It matters if you are “forced” to take bank holidays off because your workplace closes on those days. If you work every Monday, then every time it’s a bank holiday you’ll need to take time off, and because a high proportion of bank holidays are Mondays, you will have to use quite a lot of your leave days to do this. If you don’t work Mondays, then all your bank holiday allowance is available for you to take as leave on whichever days you want.

I work for local council , the policy firm us is that if work part time and work mondays (or any other day a bh falls on) you get the day off but you are only entitled to a pro rata of the day so you have to use your annual leave to top the day up so you end up with less annual leave . Whereas if a bh falls on a non working day you just accrue the hours towards your holiday pay.

Thanks all, if I have the option I’m going to request not working Mondays so that I can take leave when it suits me rather than having to use for Bank Holidays.

I do 2 days a week and holiday works like others mentioned.
but also if say it’s Xmas week and my working day is Xmas day I just work another day that week so don’t need to use a day off.
same if I have an appointment on my working day, I work another day instead.
depends oh the employer and your role. I am very senior so I can be flexible and often change days to suit business needs too.