The Basics of Employee Holiday Entitlement

You are legally obliged to provide all of your employees with a minimum annual holiday entitlement. It is important that you understand your legal obligations in this area and adhere to them. Our Your Responsibilities guide will help to inform you, as will the information contained on the rest of this page.

In the UK, both full and part time employees are entitled to a statutory period of paid holiday. This is also true of many temporary workers such as temp agency employees. Holiday entitlement is universal, but there is a pro-rata arrangement for part time workers.

The written contracts of employees have to cover holiday entitlement and do so in a clear manner that makes it easy for him or her to work out their entitlement. The holiday entitlement statement needs to cover the following:

  • When the holiday year runs from e.g. April to March
  • The number of paid days off an employee can take every 12 months
  • How pro-rated entitlement works for part time workers or employees
  • How a leavers accrued holiday pay is to be calculated
  • What the payment will be for working on public holidays or bank holidays

If an employer grants their workforce more holidays than the legal minimum, it is that contractual holiday entitlement is the legally binding one. This means a generous employer cannot simply switch to the statutory holiday entitlement. Rather, they have to negotiate this as a change in their employee’s terms and conditions. Any contract that does not include holiday entitlement that meets the statutory limits is not valid. That is to say, the holiday entitlement part of the contract is void and, therefore, not enforceable.

The Working Time Regulations means that employers have a duty, at least an implied one, to make sure that their employees take the statutory amount of time off.  This avoids health and safety issues and ensures employees have a proper work life balance.

Our Rules and Regulations section will provide you with more details of your legal obligations connected to providing your employees with holidays.

For more tailored advice about employee holiday entitlement, contact a member of the Hylton Potts advice team on 0207 381 8111 or via email.