Holiday calculation

The University's contractual leave entitlement may not be varied locally.

 

For support staff and most academic-related staff the minimum holiday entitlement is 38 days per annum inclusive of public holidays and fixed days of closure (pro rata if part-time). Some clinical academic-related staff on NHS-equivalent scales have different holiday entitlements which are given in the tab below.

Holiday Calculator

An Excel holiday calculator is available to download from the right-hand side of this page.  

It can be used for part-timers, part-year calculations for starters/leavers/those changing hours, term-time only workers, and casual workers. For variable hours staff, information about how to calculate holiday is given in the tab below.

However, please also read the guidance for the relevant staff group in this section, and note that the calculator only works where the standard terms and conditions for the grade apply.

Part-time

Calculating holiday entitlement for part-time staff

Where a member of staff works on a part-time basis and works the same number of hours per day from Monday to Friday, then the annual leave entitlement will be the same as that for a member of full-time staff, except that the payment for a day of annual leave for the part-time employee will be different from the payment for a day's leave received by the full-time employee.

The case is not so simple for a member of staff who works on a part-time basis where the number of hours are not the same each working day or they do not work every working day of the week. The following step-by-step guide provides a calculation based on hours worked. These calculations need to be done annually to take account of the actual days when bank holidays and fixed closure days fall.

For variable hours and term-time only employees see other tabs, above.

In other cases where it is not possible to follow this guide for a particular working pattern, please seek assistance from your HR Business Partner.

Step-by-step guide to calculating leave entitlement for part-time employees

This guide uses the example of a University support staff employee who

  • Works for a full day (7.3 hours) on both Wednesdays and Thursdays
  • Works for a part day (4.3 hours) on Fridays
  • Does not work on Mondays and Tuesdays

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For support staff and most academic-related staff this is 38 days, and is inclusive of personal leave, any fixed closure days and the eight annual bank holidays.

Check the contract of employment if the post is non-standard. 

In this example, the employee is support staff and the full-time equivalent entitlement is therefore 277.4 hours leave per year calculated as follows: 38 days x 7.3 hours per working day = 277.4

For support staff standard full-time hours are 36.5 per week. For academic-related staff a notional figure of 37.5 hours per week is used for payroll and holiday calculations and should be used for calculating leave for part-time academic-related staff.

In this example, the part-time support staff employee works a total of 18.9 hours per week, which is 51.78% of the full-time hours (18.9 divided by 36.5 x 100).

A part-time employee is entitled to a leave allowance in the same proportion to that of a full-timer.

In our example the full-time leave allowance is 277.4 hours. The part-timer works 51.78% of full time hours and is therefore entitled to a leave allowance equalling 51.78% of 277.4 hours. This works out at 143.64 hours of leave inclusive of personal leave, any fixed closure days, and bank holidays.

To calculate the employee's personal leave entitlement for the year, deduct the appropriate number of hours for any fixed closure days and bank holidays which fall during that particular year on days when they would otherwise have been due to work.

In our example, these days are: 4 full days (7.3 hours x 4), and 2 part-days (4.3 x 2), making a total of 37.8 hours. Deducting this from the total of 143.64 gives 105.84 hours of personal leave entitlement (this figure may be rounded to the nearest half hour, for example, 106 hours).

Establish a leave record indicating a total allowance of 143.64 hours. Deduct all hours of leave as they are taken. So if the part-timer in our example takes a week's personal leave, you deduct 18.9 hours. If they take a day's leave (for example, does not work on a day when they would otherwise have been due to work), whether this is a bank holiday, fixed day of closure or personal leave, you deduct 7.3 hours for a day they work full-time hours and 4.3 hours for their part-day. No deduction should be made for bank holidays or fixed closure days which fall on days when the part-timer would not have been due to work.

Variable hours

Calculating holiday entitlement for variable hours staff

Variable hours employees should be given a standard Chancellors, Masters, and Scholars contract of employment, including the paragraph concerning hours of work for variable hours employees. The annual leave paragraph explains that the leave entitlement is 38 days per annum pro rata for part-time staff.

Calculating leave entitlement

Annual leave is accrued as a percentage of each hour worked.  It is calculated as follows:

  • convert the leave entitlement from days into weeks
  • subtract the number of weeks entitlement from the number of weeks in the year (ie 52) to give the number of potential weeks that can be worked during the year
  • divide the number of weeks leave entitlement by the number of weeks of potential work, and
  • multiply this by 100 to give a percentage.

As an example, for a member of staff with 38 days leave entitlement this would be:

38 days leave  =  7.6 weeks' leave entitlement

52 minus 7.6 = 44.4 potential weeks that can be worked during the year

7.6 divided by 44.4, multiplied by 100 = 17.1%

Therefore for every hour worked 17.1% of that hour is accrued as leave entitlement.

The calculation of accrued entitlement should be made at each pay period (week, month or term depending on how the person is paid) and added to a running total in the year.

The variable hours employee should request to take leave in the same way as any other employee, and be subject to the same management approval. They should have accrued enough holiday to cover the leave they are requesting. Holiday should normally be requested in a minimum of ½ day amounts. The hours holiday to be taken should be submitted to Payroll in the same way as for hours worked, and a record kept that the hours are for holiday.

Variable hours employees should not carry forward holiday into the next year but if, exceptionally, they do need to do so (for example because of illness) they may carry forward no more than 5 days in line with the arrangements for other staff.

Holiday pay must be associated with an actual period of absence from work.  It may not be paid as an additional salary - this is referred to as "rolled-up" pay where holiday pay becomes in effect a pay supplement. Rolled-up pay is no longer legally allowed. The only exception is that untaken holiday may be paid when a variable employee leaves.

Term-time only

Calculating holiday for term-time only staff

Under the provisions of the Working Time Regulations 1998, employees must receive at least 5.6 weeks annual leave per year, and the employer is not allowed to offer payment in lieu of this entitlement, except on termination of employment. The Directive makes provision for annual leave to be a pro rata entitlement for those employees who work less than full-time hours.

Term-time only employees, whether issued with a one year contract or contracts on a term-by-term basis, should therefore be given the appropriate amount of pro rata holiday entitlement. Normally, subject to departmental operational needs, this leave should be taken at the end of the term worked.

Employees working on a term-time basis should not receive enhanced hourly rates to compensate for having no annual leave, but instead should receive the same hourly rate as colleagues working on a full-time basis and be entitled to annual leave normally to be taken at the end of each term

In many cases employees working on a term-time only basis are not allowed to take the annual leave that they are entitled to during term time, but the hourly rate of pay that they receive takes account of this entitlement. In order to comply with the Working Time Regulations, therefore, those employees working on a term time only basis must be allocated a nominal week at the end of each term that they work to enable them to take their due paid holiday entitlement over that week. This additional week does not involve 'extra' pay as total salary due is related to the hours actually present at work over the term and in that calculation the hourly rate includes allowance for pro rata holiday entitlement earned each hour, and the same total accumulated salary is simply paid out over the period of term plus one week rather than term only. The extra week represents paid holiday, as total salary will be spread out over that week which is therefore a paid week.

The contract template has a standard clause relating to holiday to be used for term-time only employees, which meets the requirements under the Working Time Regulations.

Worked examples of how to calculate annual leave for term time only workers are given below:

Term-time only worker paid on a term-by-term basis

A member of University support staff works 20 hours per week for 8 weeks in each term and is to be paid over the months in which they actually work.

In one year, a full-time member of staff in grades 1-5 actually attends work for: 260 (working days) — 8 (bank holidays) — 30 (paid leave) = 222 days.

This is equivalent to 222 x 36.5 (weekly hours) ÷ 5 = 1620.6 hours per year actually worked.

The number of hours per year that the above term-time only member of support staff would actually work would be;

  • 8 weeks x 3 terms x 5 days x 20/5 hours per day = 480 hours per year actually worked.
  • The pro rata salary, in annual terms, would therefore be
  • 480 ÷ 1620.6 = 29.6% x annual salary

The pro-rata salary would be split equally between three terms and would be paid over 9 weeks to cover for a nominal week at the end of each term to allow the member of staff to take annual leave owed to them which they had already been paid to take during term but had not been able to take during term-time.

Term-time only worker paid on an annual basis

A member of University support staff works 15 hours per week for 9 weeks in each term and is to be paid on an annual basis.

In one year, a full-time member of staff in grades 1-5 actually attends work for: 260 (working days) — 8 (bank holidays) — 30 (paid leave) = 222 days. This is equivalent to 222 x 36.5 (weekly hours) ÷ 5 = 1620.6 hours.

The number of hours per year that the above term-time only clerical member of staff would actually work would be;

  • 9 weeks x 3 terms x 5 days x 15/5 hours per day = 405 hours per year actually worked.
  • The pro rata salary, in annual terms, would therefore be
  • 405 ÷ 1620.6 = 25% x annual salary

The pro-rata salary would be paid on a monthly basis spread equally through the year and would take account of an additional nominal week at the end of each term of working 9 weeks for annual leave owed but not taken during term-time.

Casual workers

Calculating holiday entitlement for casual workers

Casual workers are entitled to 28 days of leave per year, including public holidays and any departmental closure days.  The individual's 'holiday leave year' starts on their first day of their engagement and ends on the date they leave. Leave should be awarded at 12.07% of the hours worked and should be rounded up to the nearest half hour. Leave should be recorded and paid against a time period agreed with the worker. The holiday calculator can be used to carry out this calculation.

At the end of the casual appointment, any holiday that has been accrued but not taken may be paid to the individual with their last payment (calculated on the basis of 12.07% of the hours worked during the period of the engagement, less any hours of holiday taken). If the worker has taken more holiday than their accrued entitlement at the date that their engagement ends, the University is entitled to deduct the excess holiday pay from any outstanding payments due to the worker.

The example below is based on a working week of 36.5 hours where the working day is 7.3 hours.

A short-term casual worker who has worked for 10 working days

Step 1: Multiply 10 days worked by 7.3 hours per day

10 x 7.3 = 73

Step 2: calculate 12.07% of hours worked

73 / 100 x 12.07 = 8.811

Step 3: round up to nearest half hour

9 hours to be paid and recorded

Step 4: it is no longer possible to pay casual workers an hourly rate that includes an allowance for “rolled-up” holiday pay. Therefore, discuss and agree with the worker when they would like to take annual leave and submit a request for holiday payment, recording this as leave taken, at that time. 

 

NHS scales

Some clinical academic-related staff on NHS-equivalent scales have different holiday entitlements.

Academic-related staff on Clinical (NHS) Scales

Job type

Grade Number of days leave per annum
Senior Clinical Researcher holding old consultant contract Grade E62 40 days
Clinical Researcher Grade E63, E64, E65, E66 and E71(*) 40 days
Clinical consultant E82 40 days

All entitlements are inclusive of public holidays and any fixed days of closure

(*) for E71 - 40 days, if on third point of scale or higher, 35 days below third point.