2

I've just handed my notice in, and have a leaving date of the 7th Nov.

There's two ways to calculate my remaining leave, in my mind, including or excluding bank holidays.

Including:

25 days leave + 8 days bank holiday = 33 days, pro rata 311/365 = 28.12 days leave.

Total time off (including bank holidays) this year = 21 days.

So I have 8 days leave.

OR, excluding:

25 days leave, pro rata 311/365 = 21.3 days leave.

Total time off (excluding bank holidays) this year = 15.5 days.

So I have 6 days leave.

Honesty, 2 days isn't a big deal, but if my manager presses me to work it and get paid, it's over £200 after tax - which feels like a large enough sum to care about.

Which one should be used?

Improve this question

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
2

Unless you have a really strange contract, I would assume Bank Holidays are taken on the days when the UK has a National Holiday.

Since there are none of those between now and the 7th of November, I would interpret this the second way. You have six days leave remaining.

(If it helps, the two days difference would have been the 25th and 26th of December, by which time you'll already have left the company.)

Improve this answer
7
  • 1
    Yeah, I think that makes sense. Starting the new job, I could have no leave allowance accrued but the bank holidays will still be taken on Bank holidays - so it'll all equal out in the end.
    – Joe
    Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 14:46
  • It actually can't be the second scenario - as the statutory holiday entitlement the OP has accrued is 23.9 days. The fact that his contract uses some of the bank holidays as part of his statutory amount complicates the math a bit though.
    – motosubatsu ♦
    Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 16:01
  • @motosubatsu - Good link, but if Bank Holidays are included the annual entitlement without bank holidays can be less than the listed statutory entitlement (eg. 20 days leave plus 8 days bank holiday would give a total that met the entitlement, but only the 20 days would count as leave that could be taken when requested).
    – ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere
    Commented Oct 12, 2018 at 6:58
  • if bank holidays are included in the total entitlement it doesn't change the required minimum and the accrual calculations for paid leave entitlement remain exactly the same (my figures are assuming the OP works full time 5 days a week but it is basically 5.6 * number of days worked in a week) whether they allow leave to be chosen by the employee or designated by the employer this doesn't change. As the OP has a higher contractual leave entitlement (33 days) this changes the multiplier (to 6.6 in the OP's case) but not the accrual method [cont]
    – motosubatsu ♦
    Commented Oct 12, 2018 at 9:16
  • .. hypothetically the company could specify a different accrual rate but only one that would be higher than the statutory minimum. With only two BH remaining in the year this would mean there would have to be some bulk leave entitlement between now and the end of the leave year, which while technically legal would be the weirdest holiday system I've ever seen. In fact I've literally never seen anything remotely similar and I'd imagine that HMRC would likely have issues with it.
    – motosubatsu ♦
    Commented Oct 12, 2018 at 9:20
2

Which one should be used?

The answer is actually - neither!

Assumptions: your leave year starts on the 1st of January and you work 5 days a week and have been there since on or before the 1st of Jan this year.

As your contractual leave entitlement (33 days) exceeds the statutory minimum of 28 days then you pro-rata the amount based on the higher figure, or more specifically it's associated accrual rate.

33 days a year means you accrue 0.6346153846153846 days a week, when you leave you will have done 44.6 weeks.

44.6 * 0.6346153846153846 = 28.3 days so if you've taken 21 you have 7.3 days of leave remaining (the 0.3 makes things a little fuzzy - they may round up to 7.5 days or down to 7.0 depending upon their half-day policy)

Improve this answer
2
  • Do you have a link (say to gov.uk) where this way of calculating is mandated?
    – Andrew Leach
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 17:31
  • @AndrewLeach Technically only statutory leave entitlement is mandated to be calculated this way (link), additional leave entitlement can be accrued differently but in the absence of a clear policy or contractual clause defining how this is done HMRC would take a very dim view of any claim to it being calculated other than the standard accrual method.
    – motosubatsu ♦
    Commented Oct 16, 2018 at 8:24
0

If you usually get day off on bank holidays, it should be included in the calculation But IMHO, not pro rated, just the ones that are in your work period

For example:

25 days leave, pro rata 311/365 = 21,3 days leave.

8 days bank holiday in total and, for the sake of calculation let say, 3 in the time you worked there this year - 24.3 days total time off

if more holidays fall on you time in the company, adjust calculation accordingly

Note: Would be nice if down-voting people leave a comment with details of their disapproval ;)

Improve this answer
1
  • I'm one of the down-voters, I don't want to sound harsh but, well, your answer is wrong. The rules for calculating holiday entitlement accrual are laid out pretty clearly by the government.
    – motosubatsu ♦
    Commented Oct 11, 2018 at 23:42
-1

Bank holidays just happen on the days they happen.

So you do the same calculation that you did with 33 days (including bank holidays) but for 25 days, and subtract the non-bank holidays you took.

If you were employed at a time with many bank holidays (say Christmas to New Years day), good for you. If you stop working on the 20th of December, bad luck, you miss out on three bank holidays.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .