UK law states that all workers must receive 5.6 weeks leave, including bank holidays. Employers can offer more entitlement.

Workers/employees can take a week’s pay for each week of statutory leave they take. This is calculated based on the hours they work and how they’re paid for those hours:

• Fixed contractual hours and pay, they receive their pay for a week
• Fixed contractual hours, but their rate of pay varies (commission or piece work), they receive their average hourly rate of pay from the previous 52 weeks multiplied by their fixed hours
• Variable hours and variable pay (workers that do regular overtime), they receive their average hourly rate of pay multiplied by the average number of hours they have worked per week, calculated on the last 52 weeks before the holiday
• No fixed hours (casual work, including zero-hours contracts), the average pay from the previous 52 weeks is used for the calculation.

Employers please remember – The 52 week period should only include weeks for which the worker was working. Do not include any week that the worker did not work.

Sonia Quinn, Payroll Manager