Bank holidays are straightforward for full-time employees who work Monday to Friday. Eight days a year, everyone gets them off, done.
For part-time workers, it gets more complicated. And because part-time working is common in small businesses, particularly in retail, hospitality, healthcare, and care, this is an area where employers regularly get caught out.
The good news is that the underlying principle is simple. The detail takes a little more work.
The legal position
Part-time workers have the same rights as full-time workers, but on a pro-rata basis. This comes from the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, which make it unlawful to treat part-time employees less favourably than comparable full-time employees without a justifiable reason.
Applied to bank holidays, this means a part-time worker is entitled to a proportionate share of bank holidays, not the full eight days that a full-time employee receives.
Why bank holidays cause problems for part-time workers
The issue is that bank holidays fall on specific days of the week, mostly Mondays. A full-time employee who works Monday to Friday will naturally benefit from all eight. A part-time employee who only works Tuesdays and Thursdays will miss every single one.
If your contract says employees get "28 days including bank holidays" and you simply give part-time workers the same eight bank holidays off, you may be treating them less favourably without realising it, because they are losing a disproportionate share of their leave to fixed dates they may never work anyway.
The fair approach is to calculate each employee's total leave entitlement (including the bank holiday element) and let them take it flexibly, rather than tying specific days to specific dates.
How to calculate pro-rata bank holiday entitlement
The starting point is the full-time entitlement. In the UK, the statutory minimum is 5.6 weeks of paid leave per year. For a full-time employee working five days a week, that works out to 28 days, which typically includes the eight bank holidays.
For a part-time employee, the calculation is:
5.6 weeks multiplied by the number of days worked per week
So:
- Works 3 days a week: 5.6 x 3 = 16.8 days total leave entitlement
- Works 4 days a week: 5.6 x 4 = 22.4 days total leave entitlement
- Works 2 days a week: 5.6 x 2 = 11.2 days total leave entitlement
That total entitlement includes the bank holiday element. Rather than carving out specific bank holiday days, the cleanest approach is to give the employee their full pro-rata entitlement as a leave allowance and let them book days off as they wish, including on bank holidays if they fall on a day they work.
What if a bank holiday falls on a day a part-time employee works?
If an employee works Mondays and a bank holiday falls on a Monday, they will need to take that day off (assuming your business closes). That bank holiday day should come out of their leave allowance, the same as it would for a full-time employee.
If you close on bank holidays and require employees to take those days as leave, make sure part-time workers are not left with a smaller usable leave balance as a result. A part-time employee who works only on Mondays and whose business closes on all eight bank holidays could in theory use their entire leave entitlement just on bank holidays, leaving them with nothing left to book for actual holidays.
The fix is to ensure the leave allowance is genuinely proportionate, and to be thoughtful about how bank holidays interact with it for employees on unusual working patterns.
What if a bank holiday falls on a day a part-time employee does not work?
This is where employers sometimes think the answer is simple: if they do not work that day, they get nothing. That is not necessarily correct.
If your full-time employees get the day off (and therefore benefit from a day's leave without it costing them anything from their allowance), and your part-time employee misses out entirely because they do not work that day, you may be treating them less favourably.
The fair approach is to ensure the part-time employee's overall leave entitlement is calculated correctly on a pro-rata basis, so that the bank holiday element is already factored in. If it is, there is no additional obligation to give a day in lieu for a bank holiday that falls on a non-working day. If it is not, you may need to make an adjustment.
A worked example
Sarah works three days a week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Her employer closes on bank holidays, all of which fall on Mondays or Fridays.
Sarah never works on the days bank holidays fall. Under a poorly designed leave policy, she might be given 28 days of leave (the same as a full-time employee) but then be expected to use none of it on bank holidays since she does not work those days. That would actually be more generous than a full-time employee, not less.
The correct approach: calculate Sarah's entitlement as 5.6 x 3 = 16.8 days, round up to 17 days, and let her take them as she wishes. Because none of the bank holidays fall on her working days, she has 17 days of genuine flexibility. A full-time employee has 28 days minus 8 bank holidays = 20 days of flexible leave. Sarah has 17. That is a fair pro-rata outcome.
Now consider James, who works Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Bank holidays frequently fall on Mondays. His employer closes on bank holidays. Each time a bank holiday falls on a Monday, James loses a day from his 16.8-day allowance. If there are four Monday bank holidays in the year, James has effectively used up four days of his leave on days he had no choice about. That still leaves him with 12.8 days of flexible leave, which is proportionate to a full-time employee's 20. But it is worth checking the arithmetic to make sure it works out fairly.
Practical steps for small employers
Calculate entitlement by days worked, not by headcount. Every part-time employee should have a leave allowance based on 5.6 weeks multiplied by their contracted days per week.
Avoid treating bank holidays as a separate entitlement. Folding them into the overall leave allowance and letting employees book flexibly is simpler and fairer than trying to assign specific bank holiday days.
Check your contracts. If your contract says employees receive "X days plus bank holidays," make sure part-time employees receive a pro-rata version of both elements, not the full bank holiday allocation.
Be consistent. Whatever approach you take, apply it the same way across all part-time employees. Inconsistency is where disputes start.
Keep records. Know what each employee's entitlement is, what they have taken, and what remains. For employees on unusual patterns, a clear record prevents misunderstandings at the end of the leave year.
A quick summary
Part-time workers are entitled to a pro-rata share of bank holidays, not a fixed number of days. The simplest approach is to calculate total leave entitlement using 5.6 weeks multiplied by contracted days, and manage it as a single allowance rather than separating out bank holidays. Check your contracts, apply the rules consistently, and keep clear records.
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