EZHR GUIDE TO CALCULATING PART-TIME WORKERS ANNUAL LEAVE
How to calculate annual leave for part-time employees (without needing a maths degree)
Simple and useful HR. Because nobody started a business because they love holiday calculations.
Working out annual leave for full-time employees is usually pretty straightforward. Then someone works Tuesdays, Thursdays, every other Friday, term-time only, and suddenly you’re staring at a spreadsheet wondering where your life choices went wrong.
Don’t worry. Here’s the simple version.
First things first — part-time employees get holiday too
Part-time employees have the same right to paid holiday as full-time employees. You can’t give them less because they work fewer days — you just calculate it proportionally.
The legal minimum holiday entitlement in the UK is:
5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year
For someone working a standard 5-day week, that usually means:
5 days × 5.6 weeks = 28 days’ holiday per year
That 28 days can include bank holidays.
Easy so far. Stay with us.
The formula For part-time employees:
Number of days worked each week × 5.6 = annual holiday allowance
That’s it.
No HR wizardry required.
Example 1: Someone works 3 days per week
3 × 5.6 = 16.8 days’ holiday per year
You can round this up if you want (nice employer points), but don’t round it down.
Example 2: Someone works 4 days per week
4 × 5.6 = 22.4 days’ holiday per year
Again, decimals are normal. HR people haven’t invented a new calendar just to annoy you.
You can manage this by:
allowing part-days of leave
converting holiday into hours
rounding upwards
What about bank holidays?
Ah yes. The bit that causes the arguments.
Part-time employees are entitled to a fair share of bank holidays too.
A common mistake:
“They don’t work Mondays, so they don’t get bank holidays.”
Nope.
Most UK bank holidays happen on Mondays, so that approach can accidentally favour Monday workers and disadvantage others.
A fairer way is usually to include bank holidays within everyone’s total holiday pot.
Example:
Full-time employee gets:
20 days holiday
8 bank holidays
= 28 days total
Part-time employee works 3 days per week:
28 ÷ 5 × 3 = 16.8 days total holiday
Any bank holidays that fall on their normal working days come out of that allowance.
Nice and clean.
What if someone works different hours each day?
This is where calculating holiday in hours becomes your best friend.
Example:
Full-time hours = 37.5 hours per week
Employee works = 22.5 hours per week
22.5 × 5.6 = 126 hours’ holiday per year
They then book holiday based on the hours they would normally have worked.
Simple.
What about someone starting halfway through the year?
They only get holiday for the part of the year they work.
Example:
Annual allowance: 24 days
They join halfway through the holiday year:
24 ÷ 12 × 6 months = 12 days
(Your HR system will usually do this. Your calculator will too. Your finger counting probably won’t.)
