Guidance Note for Part Time Employees
To ensure fair and equitable treatment of all staff and in accordance with statutory requirements, leave
entitlements for part time employees, including Public Holidays and University/Floating Days, is
proportionate to the number of hours you are contracted to work
Annual leave entitlement is detailed in your terms and conditions of employment and whilst this is
straightforward for full time staff, it can be more complicated for part time staff, particularly where the
work pattern includes different numbers of hours worked on different days.
For Part-time staff working a standard 5 day working pattern (working Monday to Friday, and the same
number of hours each day) will not need their pro rata entitlement calculating, as with full-time staff,
they work on each day therefore are entitled to each of the bank holidays/Floating days as they fall.
Part-time staff not working a 5 day standard pattern will require their pro rata entitlement to be
calculated.
Where someone works full days but less than 5 days per week, holidays can be pro-rata and worked out
in days.
However, where part-time employees spread their work over several days with a different number of
hours being worked on different days it can be difficult to establish what should be deducted for a day’s
leave as the length of each working day can vary significantly. In these situations it is fairer to calculate
and express leave for part time employees in hours. For each day/half day taken as leave, the number of
hours deducted from the total entitlement should be the equivalent of how many hours the employee was
contracted to work on that day.
Where a member of staff is entitled to more hours for public holiday and floating day entitlement than is
needed because of the way his/her working days fall with the public holidays and floating days, then the
extra hours may be used as annual leave but only if there are an excess number of hours. Where a
member of staff is entitled to less public holiday and floating day hours than are required for the number
of public holidays and floating days that fall on his/her working days they will be required to use some
annual leave.
How to calculate Part time employees annual leave entitlement including Public Holidays/Floating
Days
Part time employees should be given a pro rata amount of the overall number of public holidays, even if
the public holiday does not fall on their usual working day.
How to calculate the pro rata entitlement
At the start of each holiday leave;
 Calculate total leave entitlement in days/hours (including Public Holidays and University
Holiday) for the annual leave year
 Deduct from this the days/hours that would have been worked on the Public Holidays and
University Holiday which fall on a working day.
 The remaining days/hours of leave are then free for the employee to arrange annual leave subject
to the usual requirement to seek approval.
Each holiday year this varies as the Public Holidays and University Holiday will fall on different days of
the week.
If you have any part-time new starts, or if any of your staff change their hours of work to part-time (not
working a standard five day pattern) you will need to calculate their pro rata Public Holidays and
University Holiday entitlement.
Guidelines follow for the following different situations to assist you in these calculations;
 Part-time (with specified hours)
 Term time Only
 Reduced days over a standard working period (e.g. 9 day fortnight)
 Compressed Hours
 New Starts/Employees changing their hours part way through a year
Part-time Staff (with specified hours)
Example 1 (pro rata bank holidays and closure days)
Staff working the same number of hours each day can have their leave calculated in days
The calculation:
Contracted days x annual leave entitlement for full time staff =
5
PLUS Contracted days x Public Holidays and University/Floating day =
5
Example:
Fred Bloggs works (Grade 3) works 3 days a week (Mon 7.2 hrs, Tues 7.2 hrs and Wed 7.2 hrs)
3
5
x 25 days = 15 days
PLUS
3 x 14 = 8.5 days
5
TOTAL LEAVE = 15+8.5 = 23.5 Days
Fred will need to take leave on the Public Holidays and University/Floating days which fall on his
normal working days. Remember these must be deducted from his total leave allowance.
Example 2 (pro rata bank holidays and closure days)
Staff who do not work the same number of hours each day must have their leave calculated in
hours
The calculation is the same in example 1 but using contracted hours per week rather than number of
days worked per week.
The calculation:
Contracted hours x annual leave entitlement for full time staff =
5
PLUS Contracted hours x Bank Holidays/Floating Days =
5
Example:
Jane Smith worked (Grade 8) works 27 hours a week over 5 days (Mon 6 hrs, Tues 6hrs, Thurs 6 hrs and
Fri 3 hrs)
27 x 30 = 162 hours
PLUS 27 x 14 = 12.6 hours
5
5
TOTAL LEAVE = 174.6 Hours
Every time Jane takes a day off for annual leave, a Bank holiday or a Floating day when she would
normally work, remember to deduct the number of contracted hours she would have worked that day
from her total leave allowance.
Reduced days over a standard working period (e.g. employees working a 9 day fortnight)
Example 3
Example:
Diane’s (Grade 8) work pattern rolls over two weeks.
She works 5 full days (7.2 hrs) on week 1 then 4 days (7.2 hrs) on week 2. Her FTE is 90%.
To work out her annual leave you will need to look at her hours in a fortnight period.
64.8hrs (hours worked in a fortnight) x 30 days = 194.4 hrs/27 days
10
PLUS
64.8hrs x 14 = 90.72 hrs/12.6 days
10
TOTAL LEAVE = 39.6 Days
Compressed Hours
Staff who work a flexible working arrangement where their total number of contracted weekly
hours (36 or less) is worked over a shorter period, either 4 rather than 5 days per week, or 9
rather than 10 days per fortnight.
Annual leave entitlement for staff working compressed hours will be calculated in hours.
Example 4
Example:
A member of staff (Grade 4) on working a standard working week, i.e. 36 hours over 5 days per week, is
entitled to 25 days annual leave.
The standard working day is 7.2 hours (7 hours 12 minutes)
25 x 7.2 = 180 hours holiday entitlement (excluding public holidays/Floating days).
If you work 36 hours over 4 days per week your normal daily working hours will be 9 hours.
The employee will be entitled to 20 days annual leave (180hrs/9 hrs)
In this case for each leave day taken you should deduct 9 hours from the total entitlement.
Alternatively you can use the full time entitlement figure of 180 hours however when the employee
takes one days holiday, deduct 9 hrs rather than 7.2 hours.
Term-time Staff
Example 5
In this case leave entitlement is calculated on the basis of the hours to be worked to the end of the
leave year
If you only work term-time your holiday arrangements will depend on your contract of employment. If
you work a reduced number of weeks during the year, you accrue a pro-rata entitlement to paid
leave. You need to calculate how many hours a week you work on average over the whole year, then
multiply this by the holiday allowance.
For example: your contract is for 30 hours a week for 30 weeks of the year, 30 x 30
Step one: multiply your weekly contracted hours by the number of weeks you work:
30 hours x 30 weeks = 900 working hours for the year
Step two: calculate the average hours you work each week by dividing your hours for the year by 43.2
(which is 52 weeks in the year minus the 8.8 weeks you would be on holiday and so not working to
accrue annual leave):
900 hours divided by 43.2 weeks = 20.83 average hours a week
Step three: multiply your average working week by the holiday allowance:
20.83 hours x 8.8 weeks = 183.3 working hours' holiday allowance a year
Step four: if you want to convert this into holiday days, then divide again by the number of hours per
day that you work.
This example is for academic – for support staff please use the below number of weeks holiday;
Employee Group
Academic
Support (Grade 1-5)
Support (Grade 1-5) 3+
Years Service
Support (Grade 1-5) 5
Years service
Annual holiday entitlement in weeks
8.8 weeks
7.8 weeks
8 weeks
8.2 weeks
Taking your leave
You must determine whether you:


can take annual leave within your working hours
must take annual leave outside your normal working hours
Staff changing their hours part way through a year/New Starts
Example 6 (pro rata bank holidays and closure days)
Example:
If Fred started on 19 January
He would be entitled to a proportion of annual leave for Feb-Sept = 8 months
PLUS a proportion of the Bank Holidays and University/Floating Days which fall into that period
3
5
x 25 days = 15 days
PLUS
x 8 = 10 days annual leave days
12
3 x 5 = 3 days Bank holiday/University Days
5
Total Leave = 13 days