Free tool
The Holiday Checker
Not sure what holiday your team member is owed? Answer three quick questions and get your answer. Covers full-time, part-time and irregular or zero-hours working patterns, plus joiners and leavers partway through the year.
Three questions, one number, done.
1. What's their working pattern?
Uses the 12.07% accrual method for irregular hours and zero-hours workers — the rule that's applied for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024.
2. How many days does your company offer full-time staff?
UK statutory minimum is 28 days (5.6 weeks) for a 5-day week. Enter your own figure if you offer more.
3. Did they join or leave partway through the year?
We assume a standard 1 January – 31 December leave year.
Because this is based on actual hours worked, start and leave dates don't come into it — just enter the hours for whichever period you want to check.
They're entitled to
28 days
Here's what they're entitled to under current law.
Want this built into your contracts and policies properly?
Book 30 minutes with DarrenCommon questions
Using the UK statutory minimum of 28 days for someone working 5 days a week, that works out to 5.6 days of holiday for every day worked each week. So 4 days a week = 22.4 days, and 3 days a week = 16.8 days. If your company offers more than the statutory minimum, pop your own figure into the calculator above and it'll do the same maths for you.
For irregular hours and zero-hours workers, holiday builds up using the 12.07% method: for every hour worked, they earn roughly 0.1207 hours of paid holiday. For example, someone who works 40 hours in a month earns around 4.8 hours of holiday for that month. This is the method that applies for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024.
This gives you a solid working figure using the standard UK method. It isn't a substitute for a written contract, and unusual situations — maternity or parental leave, TOIL, non-standard leave years — are worth checking with an expert. That's exactly what the 30 minutes above is for.