Holiday pay on a zero-hours contract
Zero hours means the contract does not guarantee work. It does not mean zero holiday. A person on that contract is still a worker, or an employee, and statutory holiday still applies. The hard part is which method, and whether you are allowed to pay the holiday as an uplift on the hours.
Which method
A regular pattern, even a short one, is 5.6 weeks of that person’s own week, capped at 28 days. Three predictable days every week is part-time, not zero-hours arithmetic. Use 5.6 of those days. The part-time holiday calculator does that sum.
Irregular hours, and part-year work, are different for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Holiday accrues at 12.07% of the hours worked in the pay period. That figure is 5.6 divided by 46.4. It is still capped, across the year, at 5.6 weeks. Do not also give the 5.6 weeks as a lump and add 12.07% on top.
Rolled-up holiday pay
Rolled-up holiday pay is a 12.07% uplift paid with the pay for the work done, instead of paying holiday when the person takes the day. GOV.UK allows it only for irregular-hours and part-year workers, and only for a leave year beginning on or after 1 April 2024. A regular week, including a regular part-time week, cannot have holiday folded into the hourly rate.
The uplift is paid at the same time as the pay for the work. The itemised pay statement has to show the holiday amount on its own. Paying it does not cancel the right to take the leave. If you would rather pay holiday when it is taken, the 52 paid weeks are the other method: average the weeks in which they were paid, skip unpaid weeks, and do not look back more than 104 weeks. The holiday pay calculator will divide a total you type. It will not read a payroll history.
What is not the law yet
An exclusivity clause in a zero-hours contract is unenforceable. They can work for someone else. Rest breaks and the 48-hour average still apply to the hours they actually work. Statutory Sick Pay has its own rules, including payment from the first full day for a spell in the 2026/27 tax year. None of that is new in 2026.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 contains later duties on guaranteed hours, notice of shifts, and payment when a shift is cancelled or cut short. Those duties are not in force. A commencement order in January 2026 switched on powers to consult and make regulations. It did not switch on the duties. Do not write a notice period or a cancellation payment into the rota as if a figure had already been set. The zero-hours guide keeps that distinction, and it is not legal advice.
Shiftbrook can mark irregular hours and accrue 12.07% of approved timesheet hours. It does not pay the uplift, and it does not calculate a week’s pay.