Unused Holiday Entitlement

Hi Newbie2021

Thank you for contacting us here at Macmillan.  My name is Rachel and I am a Work Support Advisor on Macmillan’s National Support Line.

In answer to your question regarding carrying over unused annual leave entitlement, I can confirm that if a worker does not use their statutory annual leave entitlement due to illness and is still off work on sick leave at the end of the holiday year, a maximum of 4 weeks (20 days), pro-rata for part time workers, can be carried over. They would then have another 18 months from the end of the leave year to use their annual leave or be paid for it. If this leave is not used or the worker is not paid for it during this time, it will be lost.  So an employer may ask for a worker to use their carried over leave as soon as they return to work, to ensure that it is not lost.

It might be useful for me to explain that there are two types of annual leave; statutory and contractual. Workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave per year, which known as statutory annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998.

This includes:

• agency workers
• workers with irregular hours
• workers on zero-hours contracts

Bank holidays can be classed as part of statutory leave if not worked.

For part-time staff, annual leave would be pro-rata to the hours they work, but their entitlement cannot be less than full-time staff.  Employers can also ask their staff to accrue leave before they can take it.  This is often the case for workers with irregular hours.

If an employer chooses to give an employee more than statutory annual leave this would be classed as contractual leave. This entitlement should be detailed in their employment contract.  If the annual leave the worker wishes to carry over is contractual (any amount over the statutory minimum), their contract should say whether they will be able to carry that leave over.

I do hope this has helped but please do contact us again if there is anything further we can help you with. You can either reply to this message, email us, or contact us on the Macmillan Support Line directly. We are available on webchat or via phone from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday. To call us, our number is 0808 808 0000 option 1, then 2, then 3.

Best regards

Thanks very much.  Very helpful.