[UK] Is this a fair amount of annual leave?

[Daedroth]

I think they mean that you would have 20 days + 8 bank holidays, as bank holidays are mandatory closed days for the business, thus is cannot be counted towards a persons' annual leave count.

 

The minimum that I have come across is 20 days + 8 bank holidays (totaling 28 days). Currently I have 24 days + 8 bank holidays and some of my annual leave must be used over Christmas and I can only take annual leave during the school holidays (as I work in a school).

[MikeChipshop Member]

The other choice though is for the business to stop you a days pay for every bank holiday.

 

I did work for a company once that remained open during bank holidays, paid us for a full day but opened only for four hours. So basically doubled your wage for the day. Then your 5.6 weeks holiday could be taken when you pleased. Most chose to take it when the business was closed over Christmas rather than lose a couple of weeks pay.

[Stonkwell Bogtrotter]

Wish I had 14 days paid leave at Christmas. Wish I had any paid leave all year round! Hey OP at least you get paid when you're on leave.

Try being self-employed ;)

[lt8480]

As I said above your post, my contract states:

 

"In addition to your holiday entitlement you may take and be paid for the bank/public holidays each year."

 

So doesn't that mean bank holidays don't come out of my A/L?

 

It depends what your "holiday entitlement" is stated as earlier in the contract... but "addition" implies that you get the bank holidays of as extra to this.

 

You implied in your first post that "holiday entitlement" was said to be 27... in which case this suggests that you get 27+8 days (which would mean you are well over the minimum entitlement).

 

I would go on the wording of the contract and not what someone says. With contracts wording, consistency and terminology are everything.

 

If at a later date they say you can't have time off nd they got the wording of the contract wrong you could ask for a pay rise to compensate for the extra days then might then ask/expect you to work. The fact it says 27 could be used to reinforce the suggestion that the 8 days are additional as they can't give you a total of just 27 - so there must be something extra somewhere!!!

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

I'm with what a few others have said. If the contract states that the Bank Holidays are in addition to, then you have 27 + 8. 

 

If you're still unsure, surely you can get in touch with the company and ask for clarification, better to be safe than sorry in this case. A quick phone call is all it would take :)

[lt8480]

Wish I had 14 days paid leave at Christmas. Wish I had any paid leave all year round! Hey OP at least you get paid when you're on leave.

Try being self-employed ;)

 

Paid leave doesn't make sense if you are self employed, but there's nothing stopping you paying yourself even when you are not at work - if you take a fixed monthly pay regardless to amount worked then you are in fact already paying yourself for leave!

 

Any business (including those who are self employed) should set its profit margin to account for paid leave and non productive time. So from a business point of view if a business is operating without leave to make the business stay afloat then either the business isn't charging enough, or they are not efficient enough.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

In my line of (UK) work, I get 30 days (starting) plus a day for every year I work at the company up to 35 days.

I can take them however I like but Christmas Day and Boxing Day must be included.  Bank holidays are like any other day.

 

In some areas of the business, four weeks (so 20 days) must be taken as a complete week, but that gives you 10+ days to have whenever and however.

 

I find employers are getting increasingly hard with annual leave these days, but compared with others, we do get it easy.