NHS annual leave

Your employer may call this your holiday allowance, your annual leave allowance or just your AL; the handbook calls it entitlement, and calls bank holidays “general public holidays”. They are the same things, and the same figures apply.

What the four nations actually get

The same table in the handbook, and four different answers. Two of the three differences live in prose rather than in the table, which is why they are so often published wrong.

Total is annual leave plus public holidays, converted at that nation's own working day. The spread between Scotland and Northern Ireland is 25.5 hours — over three working days a year.

Your leave in hours, days and weeks

Rosters keep leave in hours, so the figure on your record is often something like 277.5. To turn it back into days, divide by a standard day: 277.5 ÷ 7.5 is 37 days — 29 days’ annual leave plus 8 bank holidays in England after 5 years. The same 277.5 hours is also Wales after 5 years and Northern Ireland on appointment.

Full time, for a whole leave year, before anything is taken. Days are annual leave plus bank holidays, shown in brackets. A week is that nation’s full-time week: 37.5 hours in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; 36 hours in Scotland. Part time, or on longer shifts? Use the calculator above — it converts the same total into your own days.

Why Northern Ireland is two days ahead

Table 6 gives everyone eight general public holidays. Paragraph 13.3 then says that in Northern Ireland the entitlement "contains the two extra statutory days, however there are ten general public holidays" — the two being St Patrick's Day and the Twelfth of July. The number is in a sentence about extra-statutory days rather than in the table, so a reader who takes the table at face value is short by two days a year, every year.

Why Wales is only ahead at the start

Paragraph 13.1.1 gives NHS Wales staff one additional day on appointment, from the 2021/2022 leave year. It applies to that tier alone: at five years' service Wales and England are identical at 29 days, and at ten both are 33. Adding a day to every tier — which is the obvious mistake — overstates leave for most Welsh staff.

Why Scotland's day is shorter

The handbook's own worked example converts eight public holidays to "60 hours (8×7.5 hours)". That 7.5 is a 37.5-hour week over five days, which is England, Wales and Northern Ireland. NHS Scotland moved to a 36-hour week on 1 April 2026, making a Scottish working day 7.2 hours. Scottish staff get the same number of days and fewer hours — and a calculator that used 7.5 for everyone would credit them about four per cent too much.

If you work part time

Annual leave scales straight down with your hours. Public holidays do not, quite: paragraph 13.6 gives part-time staff "no less than pro-rata ... rounded up to the nearest half day", so the fraction is rounded in your favour before it is converted to hours.

Paragraph 13.7 then adds that entitlement to your annual leave. Part-time staff do not get public holidays off as such — you book the ones you would have worked as leave, out of a balance that already includes them.

Questions people ask

Does NHS annual leave include bank holidays?

Not if you work full time. Table 6 writes it as two numbers — “27 days + 8 days” on appointment — and the second is your bank holidays, on top of your annual leave. Northern Ireland has 10. Part time is different: paragraph 13.7 adds your share of the bank holidays into your annual leave, and you book the ones you would have worked as leave. Some employers fold bank holidays into annual leave for everyone, which 13.2 allows by local agreement.

When does my annual leave go up?

It steps up twice with reckonable service: to 29 days after 5 years, then to 33 days after 10 years. Table 6 does not say whether the higher amount starts on the day you reach it or from your next leave year, so that is in your employer’s leave policy. The years count across NHS employers, not just your current one — see below.

Can I carry annual leave over?

The national handbook leaves that to your employer. Annex 15 lists carry-over of annual leave among the terms set locally, with existing arrangements continuing until new ones are agreed. So how much you can carry, and whether a manager has to agree, is in your trust’s or board’s leave policy. The handbook says nothing about buying or selling leave; where that exists, it is a local scheme.

What if I work on a bank holiday?

You get the time back as well as the pay. Paragraph 13.4 gives time off in lieu at plain time — hour for hour — on top of the payment for the work itself, which is set by the unsocial hours rules. Annex 28 says this keeps your bank holidays whole rather than adding to them. It also draws a line at 60 hours (8 × 7.5) of bank holiday work in your leave year, pro rata if you are part time: if you were required to work more, you get time back for all of it; if you volunteered for more, the hours past the line are paid but not given back.

Do I build up leave on maternity leave?

Yes. Paragraph 15.94 keeps your annual leave and bank holidays building up through paid and unpaid maternity, adoption and shared parental leave. That can come to more than your employer lets you carry over, so 15.95 suggests taking some before or after the leave, and allows payment instead where that would not breach the Working Time Regulations. NHS maternity pay has the rest of that section.

What happens to my leave if I am off sick, or leave my job?

The NHS handbook does not say; the law does. GOV.UK sets out that workers build up holiday while off sick, and that leaving a job is the only time you can be paid instead of taking legal-minimum leave. How leave above that minimum is treated is in your employer’s policy. Enter your last day in the calculator to see your share of the year and what is left of it.

Is this my trust’s annual leave policy?

It is what that policy is built on. Section 13 is the national agreement for Agenda for Change staff in all four nations, and sets the entitlement itself. Your employer’s policy adds the local parts: carry-over, how leave is booked, whether bank holidays are folded in, and any scheme to buy or sell leave.

The same service decides more than your leave

The years that put you on a tier here are reckonable service under Section 12, and paragraph 12.1 says continuous previous service with any NHS employer counts — for “redundancy, maternity, sick pay and annual leave”, in one sentence. So the figure that moved you to 29 days is the same figure that sets your sick pay step, your maternity qualifying service, and your redundancy months. Getting it wrong is wrong four times.

Moving trusts does not restart it, and neither does leaving and coming back. Paragraph 12.4 counts earlier NHS service towards annual leave when you return, and sets no limit on the gap — unlike sick pay, where 12.5 only counts it if the break was twelve months or less. Annex 28 says an employer must add up every period of reckonable service, not just the latest. Work outside the NHS can count too, but only at your employer’s discretion (12.2).

What you are paid during leave is a separate rule: 13.9 puts regularly paid supplements, payments for work outside normal hours and high cost area supplements into holiday pay, worked out on what you would have received had you been at work. Leave is not paid at bare basic. If your hours are regular, that is based on your last three months at work, or another period agreed locally; if they are irregular, on your last 52 weeks of pay, looking back no further than 104 weeks.

What this does not cover

A full leave year's entitlement, before anything taken, carried over, bought or sold — and, if you enter them, what is left after hours taken and carried over. It does not handle bought or sold leave, or local agreements that consolidate public holidays into annual leave — paragraph 13.2 makes that expressly a local matter, so your employer's own scheme governs it. The handbook sets no method for starting or leaving part way through a leave year, so that is a straight share by calendar days; your employer's policy may round it or count it differently. Pay during leave is a different question: 13.9 includes regularly paid supplements, unsocial hours and high cost area supplements, and that is handled by the take-home calculator.

An estimate from the published handbook, not a statement of your employer's records. Check it against your roster system and ask them if the two disagree by more than rounding.