Labour Research March 2008

Law Queries

Holiday entitlement

Q: I work a five-day week and get one day’s holiday per month plus eight bank holidays a year. Is this right?

A: The minimum holiday you are entitled to is specified by the Working Time Regulations, which were amended last October. Until the amendment took effect, you were entitled to four weeks’ paid holiday including bank holidays; for workers on a five-day week this equates to 20 days, so it looks as if you were getting the right amount (12 days plus eight bank holidays).

However, the entitlement went up in October to 4.8 weeks, equivalent to 24 days for someone working a five-day week. So you are now entitled to an extra four days’ holiday (or a proportion of that if your holiday year started before 1 October).