Holiday pay calculator

A week's pay depends on the pattern

Statutory holiday in the United Kingdom is 5.6 weeks. Holiday pay is what those weeks are worth. GOV.UK sets that figure from the working pattern, not from a single national day rate. Someone with regular hours and fixed pay gets a week's pay: the amount payable for their normal week. A part-time week uses that shorter week. It does not use a full-time salary cut in half unless that is what they are actually paid.

Shift work with regular hours is a different row in the same GOV.UK table. A week's pay is the average number of weekly fixed hours in the previous 52 weeks, at the average hourly rate. A fixed Monday-to-Friday wage and a rota that moves between early and late shifts are not the same sum. This calculator's fixed-week method is only the first row. If you type one ordinary week into it while the year contains short weeks and long weeks, the result describes the week you typed, not the year.

Irregular hours and part-year work use the average pay from the previous 52 weeks in which the person was actually paid. Weeks with no pay are left out. If a week was unpaid because they did not work, or because they were off sick or on family leave and no pay was due, skip it and take an earlier paid week so the average is still built from paid weeks. You can look back at most 104 weeks. If 104 weeks contain only 40 paid weeks, those 40 are the average. If they have been employed for fewer than 52 weeks, use the complete weeks they have. A leave request in the first few days, before one complete week of pay, has no reference period. GOV.UK says to pay a fair amount for that leave, looking at the rate for the job, any pay already received, and comparable workers. This page cannot invent that fair amount.

What you type into the average

The average method on this page divides a total by a number of paid weeks, then turns that week's pay into the days of leave you enter. It trusts you to have excluded the unpaid weeks already. It does not open a payroll history, and it does not stop at 104 weeks, because it never sees the dates. Enter at most 52 as the count of paid weeks. If you only have 26, enter 26 and the total for those 26. Dividing a full year by 52 when twelve of those weeks were unpaid will understate the week's pay.

A week usually runs Sunday to Saturday. Use a different seven-day period only if that is how the person is paid. The days-per-week field then splits the week's pay across the days they work. Three days of leave against a five-day week is three fifths of the week's pay. A half day is allowed. The page does not know which of the 5.6 weeks is being taken.

Four weeks at the normal rate, and 1.6 that can differ

GOV.UK still describes two pots. Four weeks are paid at the normal rate. Normal remuneration can include payments that are regular, such as overtime that is regular, regular bonuses and commission. The other 1.6 weeks can be paid at basic pay. Basic pay is the wage they would have earned if they had been at work, without those extras. A premium that is part of the shift itself, because of when the shift falls, belongs in that basic pay. It is not an optional extra you can drop because the day is booked as leave.

The regulations do not say that the four weeks must be used before the 1.6 weeks. Many employers pay the whole 5.6 weeks at the normal rate and do not keep two balances. If you do pay two rates, GOV.UK says to explain that clearly, for example in the contract or the handbook. This calculator will not choose a pot for you. The week's pay you enter is the rate that gets multiplied. Enter the normal week's pay if that is what you pay for every day of leave. Enter basic pay only when you are deliberately pricing the 1.6 weeks, and say so in the record you keep.

Rolled-up holiday pay, and who it is not for

Rolled-up holiday pay adds an amount on top of pay for work, instead of paying holiday when the person takes the day. For a regular-hours worker, full-time or part-time, an employer cannot fold holiday pay into the hourly rate. GOV.UK says that in those words. Using it for a fixed three-day week is not a shortcut. It is the wrong method.

For irregular-hours workers and part-year workers, rolled-up holiday pay is allowed for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. The rate is 12.07% of total pay in the pay period. That percentage is 5.6 divided by 46.4, the same figure as the accrual rate. This page multiplies by 5.6 ÷ 46.4 and labels it 12.07%. It does not round to a flat 12.07 pence in the pound before the multiplication. Pay it at the same time as the pay for the work done. The itemised pay statement has to show the holiday-pay amount for that period on its own, not buried in a single hourly figure. Tell the person before you start, and check whether the contract has to change. Agency workers need the same fact in the Key Information Document.

Rolled-up holiday pay does not remove the right to take the leave. It changes when the pay arrives. If the person is later off sick or on family-related statutory leave, and they had been on rolled-up holiday pay, the holiday they accrue during that absence is paid as the average holiday pay from the relevant period, up to 52 weeks. This calculator does not work out that absence average. A contract that gives more than 5.6 weeks needs its own percentage. This page does not invent one. Nothing here is tax advice. The figure is before tax and other deductions.

What Shiftbrook does with the hours

The product records the leave you approve and the hours on an approved timesheet. It does not calculate a week's pay, and it does not pay holiday. A regular allowance starts from 5.6 weeks. Irregular hours accrue at 12.07% of approved timesheet hours in the holiday year. Approved hours download as a CSV. The pay run stays in payroll.

Use the holiday entitlement calculator when the question is how many days or hours are owed. Use this page when the question is what those days are worth from the numbers you already have. Both are estimates. Neither one reads the contract, and neither one is legal advice. Last checked against GOV.UK in October 2026.

A fixed week, one of those weeks taken as leave

1. Method: fixed week's pay. Week's pay: £500. Days worked each week: 5. Days of leave: 5.
2. A week's pay stays £500. Five days of leave against a five-day week is that whole week.
3. The page does not add bank holidays, and it does not decide whether this week is from the four or the 1.6.

Twenty-six paid weeks, then two days of leave

1. Method: average of paid weeks. Total pay: £6,500. Paid weeks: 26. Days each week: 5. Days of leave: 2.
2. A week's pay is £6,500 ÷ 26 = £250. Two fifths of that week is £100.
3. Those 26 weeks must already be weeks in which they were paid. Do not include empty weeks in the 26.

Rolled-up holiday pay on £1,000 of pay for work

1. Method: rolled-up. Pay for work done in the period: £1,000.
2. The uplift is £1,000 × (5.6 ÷ 46.4), which is £120.69 to the penny this page rounds to.
3. Use this only for an irregular-hours or part-year worker whose leave year began on or after 1 April 2024, and show the amount separately.