Ask Marina: I work three days a week. How many days holiday am I entitled to a year and can I take Bank Holidays?

By law, full-time workers are entitled to take 28 days holiday per year, but this entitlement can include Bank Holidays.

If you have a contract which says you are entitled to take 20 days holiday per year plus Bank Holidays, that gives you your 28-day entitlement.

Even if your contract says you are entitled to less than 28 days, by law you are still entitled to that number.

The law provides that a full-time worker has 5.6 weeks holiday entitlement a year and the 28 days is calculated by multiplying a 5 day week by 5.6 weeks – 5 x 5.6 = 28. If your contract gives you more days holiday, the calculation would reflect that.

Working part time, as you do, means that your holiday entitlement is on a pro rata basis. Assuming your full time colleagues have a 28-day entitlement, including the Bank Holidays, working a three-day week you go through the same process and therefore calculate 3 x 5.6 which gives you a holiday entitlement of 16.8 days.

Most employers will round up or down to half days or full days, and therefore you should have 17 days holiday. Of those 17 days, if any of your normal working days fall on a Bank Holiday, that Bank Holiday day will be one of your holiday days if your employer closes on the Bank Holiday.

If they do not close, and you work on the Bank Holiday, it will not count as one of your holiday days, unless you book it as holiday.

If a Bank Holiday falls on a day when you do not usually work, this makes no difference to your holiday entitlement as it is not one of your normal working days.

Employers are not obliged to give holiday on Bank Holidays unless they have made it a specific term of your contract of employment.

Accordingly, if your employer stays open on Bank Holidays, you can only take that day off if you take it as one of your holiday days.

There are calculations you can carry out relating to casual or irregular working patterns and shift workers and if you go to the Directgov website, www.directgov.uk and click on the “employment” link you can find additional information there.

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