Holiday for irregular-hours and part-year workers.

• Irregular-hours workers: their paid hours vary wholly or mostly from one pay period to the next, such as zero-hours and casual staff.
• Part-year workers: they work only part of the year, with weeks off that are neither worked nor paid, such as term-time staff with unpaid holidays.

Everyone else builds up holiday in the usual way: 5.6 weeks a year, pro rata for part-time staff.

• Holiday builds up on the last day of each pay period at 12.07% of the hours worked in it. Thirty hours worked gives 3.621 hours.
• Round to the nearest hour: under half an hour counts as nothing, half an hour or more as a full hour.
• It can be taken from the next pay period.
• No more than 28 days can build up this way in a leave year.
• Holiday can’t be swapped for pay, except when someone leaves.

Time off sick or on statutory leave such as maternity leave builds up holiday too, by its own rule, so a period with no hours worked doesn’t always mean no holiday.

A week of holiday is paid at their average pay over the last 52 weeks in which they were paid. Weeks with no pay are skipped, counting back as far as 104 weeks. Someone with less than 52 weeks of pay gets the average of the full weeks they have worked.

For these workers only, you may pay holiday pay with each pay packet instead of when the leave is taken: 12.07% on top of their pay for the period, paid at the same time. The payslip must show how much of it is holiday pay.

They still take their holiday, unpaid at the time, since it has been paid already. If they go off sick or on statutory leave, they must keep receiving a holiday pay amount each pay period, based on what they averaged before.

Since 6 April 2026, employers must keep records that show they have given the holiday the law requires, for six years.