Managing bank holiday entitlements for part-time employees: a structured approach for STEM workforces

It is getting to that time of year where bank holidays are approaching.

Professionals across STEM fields – including engineering, technology, and scientific research – must ensure equitable leave distribution.

Unlike industries with fixed operating schedules, many STEM-based workplaces often feature varied working patterns, including part-time and flexible arrangements.  Managing bank holidays for part-time workers in STEM roles, such as lab technicians, software developers, and research analysts, can be challenging for employers who must ensure that they treat their workforce fairly and equally. This short guide provides some insight into the complexities of calculating bank holiday entitlements for part-time members of staff and explains the legal rules you need to follow.

Legal Framework

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, all workers, including those in STEM industries, are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid leave per year. For full-time workers (i.e. those who work five or more days per week), this equates to 28 days leave, which may include bank holidays. While there is no statutory requirement to grant paid leave on a bank holiday, employers must ensure that the overall annual leave entitlement given to staff meets this minimum legal requirement.

Although recognising public or bank holidays is not legally required, many employers incorporate these holidays into their workers’ annual leave entitlement. However, some employers mistakenly believe that part-time workers should only receive bank holiday benefits if the holiday falls on one of their usual working days. This approach is incorrect and can disadvantage part-time workers—especially those who do not work on Mondays, which is when most bank holidays occur.

The Working Time Regulations 1998 do not explicitly address whether part-time workers should receive time off in lieu of missed bank holidays. However, the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 ensure that part-time workers are not treated unfairly compared to their full-time counterparts. This means that part-time workers must receive their holiday entitlement on a pro rata basis, so that if a bank holiday falls on one of their non-working days, they must be allowed to take their entitlement at another time.

For example, if a full-time member of staff works 5 days per week and receive 8 paid bank holidays per year, a part-time worker who works 3 days per week would be entitled to three-fifths of the 8 days, i.e. 4.8 days’ holiday, in addition to their pro rata entitlement to general annual leave.

The employer would then need to consider how many bank holidays the part-time worker will actually benefit from—i.e. which ones will actually fall on their regular working days—and adjust their 4.8-days entitlement accordingly.  If the worker will benefit from 3 bank holidays during the leave year, they will have an additional 1.8 days’ holiday to take at another time of their choosing.  If however they will benefit from 6 bank holidays (meaning 6 days will fall on their normal working days), their pro rata entitlement to “general” annual leave will need to be reduced, in this example by 1.2 days.

Often, a mathematical approach is more straightforward. Rather than isolating bank holidays, some STEM employers integrate them into annual leave calculations. For example, if a full-time worker is entitled to 30 days annual leave (including bank holidays) and a part-time worker’s pro rata entitlement is 18 days (including any bank holidays that fall on their working days), the employer can determine how many days holiday the part-time worker has left by subtracting the number of bank holidays taken from their total 18 day entitlement.

Conclusion

There are several ways to manage bank holiday entitlement for part-time workers, but the principle remains clear—part-time STEM workers must receive a pro rata amount of annual leave (including to bank/ public holidays) that is equal to (or more than) the amount of annual leave (including to bank/public holidays) to which their full-time counterpart is entitled. Employers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics must align policies with the  the Working Time Regulations 1998 and the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, ensuring  all staff receive equal and lawful leave entitlements.

If you have any questions about this topic, please get in touch with one of BTO’s employment law specialists.