Entitlement to Holidays

Workers are entitled to a certain amount of paid leave each year as standard, plus any additional holiday awarded by the employer. Currently, the minimum entitlement is 4.8 weeks each year which, on average, equates to 24 days if you work 5 days a week.

As bank and public holidays do not automatically entitle you to a paid day off, unless stated in your contract, employers are able to include these days are part of the minimum entitlement at their discretion.

If your working pattern sometimes varies, you work a lot of overtime or you work on a part time or casual basis; your holiday pay should be calculated using a pro-rata method.

It is common for employers to award employees additional holiday leave in return for long service, for example, once an employee has worked for the same company over a period of 10 years, they may receive an extra week of holiday per year.

Employers also offer additional holiday as a part of recruitment and retention packages so that they can attract and keep good staff, this is more common for senior and executive positions, but could also be used in skilled professions.

Employers may choose to have some control over the dates when employees can take holidays, which they are legally able to do. High street stores may choose not to permit holidays around Christmas if they expect a surge in sales, similarly Florists may not permit holidays around Valentines Day.

Employees are entitled to their normal rate of pay when on holiday but any regular overtime does not have to paid.

When an employee leaves employment, they are entitled to receive the holiday pay which they have built up, which should be calculated using pro-rata.

From 1st April 2009, all workers will be entitled to receive a minimum of 5.6 weeks worth of holiday, which equates to an average of 28 days for a normal 5 day working week.

If you have any problems with holiday pay, you should try to resolve them internally, either by talking to management or if applicable, talk to your trade union rep. If talking to your employer does not help, you should arrange a formal meeting with them to officially express your concerns, if that fails, you should consider approaching an Employment Tribunal.

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