The UK has two bank holidays in May, often only three weeks apart. For most office teams it is a non event. For anyone running a shift pattern, a part-time rota or zero-hours staff, it is the moment small payroll mistakes turn into awkward conversations.
Bank holiday pay for shift workers, part-timers and zero-hours staff is not as obvious as it looks, and the rules changed for irregular-hours staff in 2024. Here is what the law actually says, and what to check before the next long weekend.
First, the bit most owners get wrong
There is no automatic legal right to take a bank holiday off. There is also no automatic right to extra pay for working one.
Bank holidays are not a separate category of statutory leave. Every worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week. An employer can choose whether the eight bank holidays sit inside that 28 days or on top of it. What decides the answer is the contract, not the calendar.
So it all comes down to the contract
This is why the contract wording matters more than anything else here. Three common phrasings give three very different outcomes:
- “28 days including bank holidays”: the eight bank holidays come out of the 28. Staff who work a bank holiday simply use the day elsewhere.
- “20 days plus bank holidays”: bank holidays are on top, so the real entitlement is 28 days.
- Silent or vague: this is where disputes start. If your contracts do not spell it out, you are relying on custom and practice, which is hard to prove and easy to challenge.
If you are not sure which version your contracts use, that is worth fixing before the next bank holiday rather than after.
Part-timers and the pro-rata trap
Part-time staff are entitled to the same holiday as full-time staff on a pro-rata basis. Bank holidays are part of that.
The trap is that most bank holidays fall on a Monday. If a part-timer never works Mondays, and bank holidays are added on top of leave, they can quietly end up with more or fewer days off than a colleague depending purely on their working pattern. To keep it fair, give part-timers a pro-rata bank holiday allowance based on their contracted hours, not on which days happen to be bank holidays.
For example, someone working three days a week gets three fifths of the eight bank holidays, which is 4.8 days, added to their pro-rata leave. They then book time off against that pot like anyone else.
Zero-hours and irregular-hours staff: this changed in 2024
This is the area that catches people out most, partly because the rules were rewritten.
For holiday years starting on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue holiday at 12.07% of the hours they actually work in each pay period. The figure comes from the fact that 5.6 weeks of leave is 12.07% of the 46.4 working weeks in a year.
You can also now use rolled-up holiday pay for these workers. That means paying an extra 12.07% on top of their normal pay each period, instead of paying separately when they take leave. This was not allowed for years, so if your payroll still runs on the old assumption, it is worth a review. Rolled-up pay must be shown as a clear, separate line on the payslip.
One more thing on the horizon: from 6 April 2026, employers must keep records of annual leave and holiday pay, including anything carried over. Loose record keeping stops being a quiet risk and becomes a compliance gap.
Do you have to pay extra for working a bank holiday?
No. Time and a half or double time on bank holidays is a contractual or goodwill arrangement, not a legal requirement. Plenty of small employers offer an enhanced rate to make shifts easier to fill. If you do, put it in writing and apply it consistently. An enhancement you pay some staff and not others, for the same work, is exactly the kind of inconsistency that turns into a grievance.
Three quick scenarios
The cafe open on the May bank holiday. Contracts say “28 days including bank holidays.” Staff who work the Monday are paid their normal rate and take the day in lieu later, unless the contract promises an enhanced rate. No automatic premium applies.
The part-timer who never works Mondays. Give them a pro-rata bank holiday allowance up front, rather than letting Monday closures decide it. That keeps them level with full-time colleagues and heads off the “it is not fair” conversation.
The zero-hours weekend worker. Holiday accrues at 12.07% of hours worked. If you have moved to rolled-up holiday pay, check the payslip shows it as a separate, clearly labelled amount.
What to do before the next bank holiday
- Pull a sample contract and confirm whether bank holidays are included in or added to the 28 days.
- Check part-timers have a pro-rata allowance, not a “whatever falls on their day” arrangement.
- Confirm your payroll uses the 12.07% method for irregular-hours staff for this leave year.
- If you pay an enhanced bank holiday rate, make sure it is written down and applied to everyone equally.
- Get your holiday records in order ahead of the April 2026 record-keeping duty.
If you want to sense-check any of this against your own contracts, our holiday calculator is a quick way to pressure-test entitlements, and our guidance on contracts and policies covers the wording that prevents most of these disputes.
Bank holiday pay looks simple until you have full-timers, part-timers and zero-hours staff all working the same Monday. If that is your business, we can review your holiday clauses and rota set-up before the next long weekend, so you are paying people correctly and consistently. Book a free holiday policy review and we will tell you where you stand.
