Help with holiday entitlement and bank holidays

[northernuproar]

Hi, just wondering if anyone can help with this.

DH works a 4 day week, Tuesday - Friday, 8 hours a day. His annual leave is 18 days + bank holidays. The other employees who work 5 days get 22 days + bank holidays.

Firstly, is this leave allowance correct and secondly, should he be entitled to anything extra for a bank holiday Monday? This is considering the business is closed and his co-workers who work full time are paid for bank holidays.

We are also currently trying to source his contract from them, he's never seen or signed one!

Thank you.

Yes the leave allowance is correct. Part time workers must receive the same pro rata so if full time get 22 days then your husband working 80% of the time should get 80%, which would be 17.6 days rounded to 18 so that is correct.

The bank holidays can be trickier, he doesn’t work Mondays so he doesn’t ever get that day “off” for BH purposes but as long as the leave is the same pro rata is can still be fair so if full time get 22 days + 8 bank holidays then they get 30 days total, your husband should get 24 days total.

Think about it in hours. If he works 4/5th of the hours of a full time post then he’ll be entitled to 4/5th of annual leave and bank holidays. As he works tue to Fri he’ll likely receive more bank holidays allowance than bank holidays he had off as bank holidays in most years. The addition he should be able to take as paid leave it he should receive additional paid leave when bank holidays occur up to 6.4 days per year

I’d expect him to be allocated 17.6 days leave and 6.4 days bank holidays.

Why do you think he would be entitled to anything extra for bank holiday? (Considering it’s not even a working day for him).

Yes, he is getting 18 days when he is on a 0.8 contract, so technically only entitled to 17.6 days. There are 8 bank holidays this year, so he should get 6.4 days for bank holidays. Bear in mind that if he works 8 hours per day (is that 8 working hours or 7.5 hours with 30 minutes unpaid lunch?) then any day he has to take as a bank holiday (1st January, 3rd April, 25th December this year) uses 8 hours but he's only entitled to 6.4 hours pay, so he will have to use some of the remaining bank holiday time to make up the hours.

They really need to use hours to calculate his leave.

Perhaps because of a little thing called the Part-time Workers Regulations 2000 which very clearly state that part time workers must receive the same leave on a pro rata basis as full time workers, meaning total leave and so if full time get 22 + 8 bank hol, 30 total, then part time must be the equivalent for 80%.

@northernuproar he won’t get anything “extra” for bank holidays but he should get 80% of the full time bank holidays. When a bank hold falls on a Monday he doesn’t need to use any holiday. When it falls on a working day he will need to deduct 8 hours. With not working Mondays he will effectively had extra leave hours to use when he wants

Biggest question is - do the Full Time employees also work 8 hour days.

If Yes - then he is working at 80% of Full Time so should get 80% of the Annual Leave-Plus-Bank-Holidays that Full Time Employees get. It is supposed to be irrelevant which days of the week a Part Time employee works - whether their day off is Monday or Wednesday they should have the same number of paid days of Leave. The only difference is that an employee who is normally due to work on a Monday MUST take a paid day off for a Bank Holiday Monday, whereas an employee who never works Mondays will have more flexibility, but the same overall number of paid days off as they would get with a different pattern of days.

So with your DH's employers, Full Time Employees get a total of 30 days of paid days off (22+8 assuming England or Wales), so your DH should get a total of 24 paid days off (=80% of 30) As your DH works Tuesday to Friday, in the 2026 calendar year there are 3 Bank Holiday days that fall on his Work days (New Year's Day, Good Friday and Christmas Day) so there should be 21 other days that he has off - it's irrelevant how they are designated but it would be fine if these are administrated as 18 days of "Annual Leave" days and 3 days of "Special Leave in Leiu of a Monday Bank Holiday" so long as he actually gets the time off.

If he is only getting 18 days of Annual Leave plus the 3 bank holidays that fall on his working days then he is being short-changed by 3 days per year.

It gets more complicated if the Full Time employees have different working hours. If that happens then Annual Leave needs to be worked out in Annualised Hours rather than whole days, because if someone working longer hours takes a day off they are effectively taking 1.1 or 1.2 "days off" when compared to other workers.

Because you are legally entitled to the prorated bank holiday allowance.

His A/L is correct
for bank holidays he should get 6.4 hours holidays credited to his leave card for each BH
if it was his day off he’s already had the 6.4 hours holidays added to his leave card

if he was down to work he would get the day off and 8 hour deducted from his leave card

all his leave should be done in hours

Which he’s getting, so my question was about the ‘extra’

Yes I’m aware of that, he’s getting what he’s legally entitled to

No he's not. He's entitled to 6.4 Bank Holiday days and appears to only be getting 3.

How many hours do the full time staff work each week?

How is everyone answering the OP's question when we don't know how many hours the FT staff work?

If contract states x days plus bank holidays then he should get these pro rata. So 80% of these... he should not be treated less favourably because he works part time. It does not matter if he doesn't usually work a Monday.

Is he working 80% of full time or doing compressed hours? If the former, then he would normally get 80% of the bank holidays added onto his leave allowance, and as a fellow person who doesn't work Monday, this is actually working massively in his favour as 80% is a bit over 6 days and at most 4 bank holidays fall on days other than Monday. Are they just giving him the bank holidays that fall on the days he works? If so, that's probably actually fairer but not sure of the legality if it takes him below 80% of the legal minimum of 80% of 28 days (20 days + bank holidays).

Where are you reading 3 days? I read he’s getting 18 plus bank holidays

Because most bank holidays fall on a Monday. He isn’t getting any of those because he doesn’t work that day, so he needs to be credited them in proportion. He only is getting Jan 1, April 3, December 25 - three days only - and that’s not right.

Your husband's holiday entitlement is correct. 22 / 5 x 4 = 17.6 which they have rounded up to 18 days.

Where he is missing out is any bank holidays that fall on a Monday

If we assume his annual leave year is January to December for 2026, there are 3 bank holidays that fall on a Monday.

Your husband is entitled to add a proportion of these to his annual leave. The calculation is 3 days / 5 x 4 = 2.4 days to be added.

This will alter every year depending on which days the banks holidays fall on, however Easter Monday, Early May and Spring Bank holidays are always on Monday's.

Likely because hes on an 80% contract but not getting to take 80% of the bank holidays.

So a FT employee gets 30 days leave, 8 of which are fixed. A PT employee on a 0.8 contract should get 24 days, of which up to 4 days are fixed - Christmas Day, Boxing Day and NY day - if they don’t fall on a Monday, plus Good Friday. That’s a minimum of 21 days and a maximum of 23 days to choose.

It’s explained in the first reply.

Part time staff have to be allocated the same leave/number of days off (pro rata) as full time staff. So if full time staff are given BH as extra leave, the part time staff must receive the same.

In my firm, I work three days a week and don’t work Mondays or Fridays. I get those bank holidays as extra leave as I don’t receive the benefit of them on the actual day, whereas full time staff get that day off.

It’s illegal to treat part time staff unfavourably to full time staff.

I work three days and receive at least 22 days leave a year.

Thanks so much, some really helpful advice there.

The other full time employees also work 8 hours a day. Glad to hear the holiday is correct but with the bank holiday issue - that's been the case for years so not sure how he'll handle that. It's a very small family business where you are made to feel like a trouble maker if you raise anything.

So does OP mean he isn’t actually getting bank holidays? I read it as he’s got his 18 holiday days plus (all) bank holidays …. That’s where my confusion is

He gets 18 days holiday plus bank holidays, but only the ones that don't fall on Mondays. So Good Friday, Christmas Day etc