Annual leave
Paid annual leave is a legal right that an employer must provide for all employees, regardless of how many hours they work or their contract.
Holiday entitlement will be set out in the Contract of Employment. This will normally be based on the model, or now, template contracts and will provide a higher entitlement than the statutory minimum.
Useful resources from HM Government:
Prior to each leave year (for example 1st April to 31st March):
- Calculate annual leave for each employee
- This total includes bank holidays which are taken on the specified dates. Deduct the bank holidays during this period from the employee's annual leave total.
- The remaining days will be the employee's annual leave which they can take as they wish.
- Keep a record of annual leave requested and taken by each employee.
- If your employee exceeds their annual leave, you may permit 'unpaid leave'.
- Let your payroll officer know to deduct this from the next pay run.
From April 2024, employers can choose between paying holiday pay when an employee takes annual leave, or using rolled up holiday pay by adding 12.07% to the weekly wage. This means that the employee gets their holiday pay throughout the year and then gets nothing when they take their 5.6 weeks leave. This can be an option for part time and fixed term employees.