How to calculate holiday entitlement for part-time staff

Part-time workers are entitled to the same holiday as full-timers, just scaled to the days they work. Here is the simple pro-rata method, with worked examples for common patterns.

Last reviewed July 2026 · General guidance, not legal advice.

The statutory minimum: 5.6 weeks

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, almost every UK worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. The key word is weeks. A “week” of holiday means whatever the worker normally works in a week — so the entitlement is fair no matter how many days someone does.

For a full-time person working 5 days a week, 5.6 weeks is 5.6 × 5 = 28 days. That 28 days is also the statutory cap: an employer never has to give more than 28 days of statutory leave, even if someone works 6 or 7 days a week.

The pro-rata formula for part-time staff

The calculation for anyone with fixed working days is simply:

Days worked per week × 5.6 = annual holiday entitlement (in days)

Work out the number of days, then round up to the nearest half or whole day in the worker’s favour. You can round up, but you must never round down — doing so would pay someone less than the statutory minimum. If you would rather not do the sums by hand, our pro-rata holiday calculator does it for you.

Worked example: a 4-day week

Someone works 4 days every week, all year:

4 days × 5.6 = 22.4 days
Round up to 22.5 days of paid holiday a year.

A full-time colleague on the same team gets 28 days for 5 days a week; 22.5 days for 4 days a week is the fair, proportionate equivalent.

Worked example: a 3-day week

Someone works 3 fixed days a week:

3 days × 5.6 = 16.8 days
Round up to 17 days of paid holiday a year.

Days worked / week	Calculation	Entitlement (rounded up)
5 (full-time)	5 × 5.6	28 days
4	4 × 5.6 = 22.4	22.5 days
3	3 × 5.6 = 16.8	17 days
2	2 × 5.6 = 11.2	11.5 days

Term-time-only and irregular patterns

If someone only works part of the year — for example term-time-only staff in a school — the day-based method above does not fit neatly, because they are not working a steady number of days across all 52 weeks. Use our term-time-only holiday calculator for that pattern, and read our guide on holiday entitlement for zero-hours workers if hours vary week to week — those are usually handled with the 12.07% accrual method instead of a fixed number of days.

Working in hours instead of days

If your team works varying shift lengths, tracking holiday in hours is far more accurate than in days. Rotaleave’s hourly holiday tracking keeps minute-accurate balances so a part-timer’s allowance is never rounded against them. If you would rather stay on a spreadsheet for now, our annual leave tracker (Excel) has the pro-rata columns built in.

Where to double-check

This is general guidance, not legal advice. For your specific circumstances, use the official entitlement checker on gov.uk and the guidance on Acas, which are the authoritative UK sources.

Common questions

Do part-time staff get bank holidays on top of their allowance?

Only if full-time staff do. Bank holidays should be pro-rated for part-timers so they get a fair share, whether they are included in the allowance or given on top. See our separate guide on bank holiday entitlement for part-time workers.

How do I round a part-time holiday figure?

Statutory holiday can be rounded up to the nearest half or full day in the worker’s favour, but never down. Rounding up avoids underpaying and keeps you the right side of the Working Time Regulations 1998.

What about someone who works irregular or varying hours?

For genuinely irregular-hours workers you generally accrue holiday at 12.07% of hours worked rather than fixing a number of days in advance. See our guide on holiday entitlement for zero-hours workers.

Is 5.6 weeks the same as 28 days for everyone?

No. 5.6 weeks equals 28 days only for someone working 5 days a week, and 28 days is a statutory cap. A part-timer working fewer days a week gets 5.6 × their days per week, which is fewer than 28 days.