Holiday Pay

In the UK, full-time employees are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks’ (28 days) paid leave per year. A part-time employee is entitled to 28 days’ paid leave reduced pro rata, according to the number of days they work each week.

If you are a worker, paid leave is not normally offered and you must be given holiday pay instead. Self-employed music teachers are not entitled to paid leave or holiday pay.

Holiday pay for music teachers

Music teachers should expect their employers to demonstrate how they calculate their holiday pay.

If you are a full-time employed teacher – for example a classroom teacher – you will get paid leave in the school holidays, so you won’t have additional holiday pay. Part-time classroom teachers are usually treated similarly.

If you are a teacher employed by a music service or hub, you are likely to be on a variable-hours contract – sometimes described as ‘atypical work’ – without paid leave. Instead you will get holiday pay calculated as a percentage of your wage and (usually) added to your monthly pay.

If you find that your holiday pay is not itemised, and your employers are instead claiming that it is included in your wage (often referred to as ‘rolling up’), this is unlawful and we advise that if you are a member of the MU you should contact the MU for guidance.

Self-employed music teachers are not entitled to paid leave or holiday pay.

Calculating holiday pay for atypical work and part-year workers

Before Harpur Trust v Brazel, a July 2022 Supreme Court ruling, holiday pay for atypical work and part-year work was based on the current statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks a year. An employer would typically calculate holiday pay as an additional 12.07% on top of the hourly wage, which was a way of converting the 5.6 weeks’ entitlement into a simple percentage which could then be added to hourly pay.

Following the ruling, a new calculation method should be applied as follows. Employers should first identify an average week’s pay earned by the worker. For part-year workers, this is calculated over a 52-week reference period before the calculation date.

When calculating the average week’s pay, employers must consider all pay earned over the 52-week period. Any weeks where no pay was earned must be ignored. Instead, earlier weeks up to 104 weeks before the calculation date must be brought into the calculation to make up 52 remunerated weeks.

Once the average week’s pay is identified, the formula to calculate holiday pay is: the average week’s pay x 5.6 = statutory holiday pay

This new calculation method may mean that you are now entitled to more than 12.07%.

Holiday pay may fluctuate under the new calculation. Employers should now calculate the worker’s 52 remunerated work weeks each time the holiday calculation is performed.

If employers are paying their atypical and part-year workers under a holiday calculation that is more favourable than the new calculation method, they may continue to pay as they have been until now, provided that the part-year worker is receiving the equivalent of a minimum 5.6 weeks’ paid leave.

Holiday pay calculation formula

The government website gives advice on calculating holiday pay. The following table, taken from its page on holiday pay, explains how to calculate a week’s pay, which is the basis of all holiday pay calculations.

Working pattern	How a week’s pay is calculated
Fixed hours and fixed pay (full or part-time)	How much a worker gets for a week’s work
Shift work with fixed hours (full or part-time)	The average number of weekly fixed hours a worker has worked in the previous 52 weeks, at their average hourly rate
No fixed hours (casual work, including zero-hours contracts)	A worker’s average pay from the previous 52 weeks (only counting weeks in which they were paid)

Calculating an average hourly rate

Because some music teachers work at different rates within their roles, it can be necessary to calculate an average hourly rate. To do this:

• Count the hours worked and how much was paid for these over the last 12 weeks, excluding weeks where no work was done, e.g. during school holidays.
• A ‘week’ usually runs from Sunday to Saturday – another seven-day period (e.g. Thursday to Wednesday) should only be used if this is how a worker’s pay is calculated.
• Statutory pay (e.g. sick pay or maternity pay) should be included in the average.
• If a worker has less than 52 weeks’ pay, the average pay rate for the full weeks worked should be used.
• To calculate a week’s pay for someone who is paid monthly, calculate the average hourly pay for the last month, and then calculate weekly pay.

Holiday pay claims

Holiday pay can be a complex area and members are encouraged to get in touch if they have any concerns.

The majority of holiday pay claims processed by the MU are where atypical workers are not being paid holiday pay at all, rather than where the amount has been miscalculated.

Employers who have not been paying holiday pay sometimes try to introduce an itemisation of the previously agreed rate into wage plus holiday pay. This is reasonable if the rate was understood to include holiday pay, but it can be an unlawful deduction from wages if not.

If your employer changes how they process holiday pay, there is a three-month legal window to challenge it.

This means that if an employer introduces itemisation, for example, three months later it will be assumed that the employee has given consent to this. It is therefore best to contact the MU straight away if your employer makes any changes you are unsure about.

If you are not being paid holiday pay and you should be, there is normally a two-year cap on the amount of back holiday pay that can be claimed, although legal developments suggest that this cap may no longer apply in the future.

The MU supports many members through holiday pay claims. Contact your regional office, who will explain the process to you.