An employee who works part-time is still entitled to 5.6 weeks’ annual leave, the same as the entitlement for a full time employee. Unfortunately “week’s leave” is not defined in the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016. Nevertheless, the established position is that a week's leave means that an employee or worker must be away from work for a week. For example, if an employee works part-time two days per week, a week's leave would be two days.

If an employee works part time hours across five days a week, an employer may find it more convenient to calculate their holiday entitlement by reference to hours rather than days. For example, if an employee works 20 hours per week, their annual statutory holiday entitlement would be 112 hours (20 hours x 5.6 weeks). This entitlement would amount to 16 days (112 / 7 (days of the week)).

In light of the above, if an employee’s hours have remained the same, but they are just spread across different days, their holiday entitlement should not be affected.