About This Site and Our Editorial Policy

What this site is for

HolidayEntitlementCalculator.co.uk exists to answer one narrow, frequently misunderstood question: how much paid holiday is a worker in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland actually entitled to, and what should they be paid for it. The statutory rule is short — 5.6 weeks, capped at 28 days for a five-day week — but the practical calculation changes with working pattern, contract wording, the leave year, and the pay reference period.

The site provides a calculator for the number, a second calculator for holiday pay under variable earnings, and written guides that show the arithmetic rather than asserting a result. It is aimed at two audiences: workers checking their own position, and small employers or payroll staff who need a calculation they can defend.

How the figures are sourced

Every statutory figure on this site is derived from primary UK sources:

• The Working Time Regulations 1998 — the statutory entitlement, accrual and carry-over rules.
• GOV.UK holiday entitlement guidance — the government's worked examples for part-time, irregular-hours and part-year workers.
• ACAS holiday entitlement guidance — practical interpretation and dispute routes.
• The April 2024 reforms affecting irregular-hours and part-year workers, as reflected in current GOV.UK guidance.

Guides state explicitly whether a figure is the statutory minimum or a contractual entitlement, because the two are frequently different and most underpayments hide in the gap.

Editorial policy

• Plain English over hedging, but no false certainty. Where a point is settled by regulation or case law, we say so. Where it is genuinely arguable, it is described as arguable.
• Dates are shown. Legal position changes; each guide reflects guidance in force at its last review date rather than blending old and new rules.
• No invented authority. We do not cite case law or advisers we have not checked, and we do not present commentary as statute.
• Corrections are welcome and acted on. Errors are corrected at the page level, not buried.
• This is information, not legal advice. It cannot account for the terms of your contract or the facts of a particular dispute.

How the tools work

Both calculators run entirely in the browser. No salary, hours or personal details are submitted to a server, stored or logged. The entitlement calculator applies 5.6 × contracted days per week, capped at 28, and offers the 12.07% accrual method for irregular hours. The holiday pay calculator applies normal weekly earnings for fixed pay, and a 52-week average for variable pay. Neither tool guesses whether your bank holidays are inclusive or additional — that is a contract question, and the pages explain how to check it.

Who it is for

Employees and workers checking an entitlement before raising it; part-time, variable-hours, zero-hours and agency staff whose calculations are most often wrong; small employers and payroll administrators who need the statutory floor stated clearly; and advisers or union representatives looking for a plain-English starting point with sources attached.

The site does not sell payroll services, does not require an account, and does not gate the calculators behind a signup.

How the calculators are built and checked

The tools are deliberately small pieces of code rather than black boxes. The entitlement calculator applies 5.6 × contracted days per week, capped at 28, and offers the 12.07% accrual method for irregular hours. The holiday pay calculator applies normal weekly earnings for fixed pay and a 52-week average for variable pay.

Each release is checked against worked examples drawn from GOV.UK guidance — a five-day week at 28 days, a four-day week at 22.4, a term-time worker under the 12.07% method — so a change to the code that alters a result is noticed before it reaches the site. All arithmetic runs in the browser, which means a calculator works even if our server does not.

Review schedule

Pages are reviewed when the underlying guidance changes and otherwise at least once a year. The About page states the current review date, and each guide carries its own; where the law shifted mid-year — as it did in April 2024 for irregular-hours and part-year workers — guides separate the position before and after rather than merging them into a single undated statement.

If a page has not been reviewed since a relevant change, that is a fault we want to hear about. Corrections are made at the page level and the review date is updated, rather than a new page being published alongside the old one.

Funding and independence

The site is supported by advertising. Adverts are served programmatically and are not selected by us; no advertiser reviews, approves or influences any page. We do not sell payroll or HR services, do not accept paid placements in guides, and do not operate affiliate links inside advice content.

Where a page links to GOV.UK, ACAS, legislation.gov.uk or another public body, the link is there because the source is authoritative, not because of any commercial arrangement.

What this site does not do

• It does not give legal advice on a specific situation, and it cannot read your contract.
• It does not represent anyone in a dispute or correspond with an employer on your behalf.
• It does not guarantee that a figure applies to your case — contractual terms and unusual working patterns can change the answer.
• It does not sell or share calculator inputs, because those inputs never leave your browser.

Why there is no named author page

The site is produced and maintained editorially, and every page is signed with a review date instead of an individual byline. We would rather state how the figures are sourced and checked than attach a name that implies a qualification we cannot evidence. If a named reviewer is added in future, their role and the scope of what they review will be stated plainly here.

That is a deliberate choice, not an omission: the accountability sits with the published sourcing and correction process, both of which are described above and open to challenge.

Corrections and contact

If a figure looks wrong, a rule has changed, or a page is unclear, please say so through the contact page — include the URL and, if possible, the source you are relying on. Corrections are reviewed against the primary sources above before a page is changed.

Last reviewed: October 2026. Pages are re-checked when the underlying guidance changes and at least annually.