For any leave year starting on or after 1 April 2024, a term-time only worker on a part-year contract accrues holiday at 12.07% of the hours they actually work in each pay period, capped at 28 days a year. So a teaching assistant working 32 hours a week for 39 weeks accrues about 150 hours of paid leave a year. Salaried term-time workers paid evenly across 12 months are treated differently.
What counts as a term-time only worker
The legal phrase is "part-year worker". ACAS defines it as someone whose contract:
- says they are required to work only part of the year
- has at least one week each year when they are not required to work and are not paid
- is in place all year round, including the weeks when they are not working
Term-time only contracts almost always fit. The contract sits on the books across school holidays, but the worker is only paid for the weeks they actually work in term. Common roles include teaching assistants, lunchtime supervisors, school cleaners and caretakers, peripatetic music tutors, exam invigilators, school office staff, and after-school club workers.
Salaried term-time workers are different. If pay is smoothed evenly across all 12 months (a common arrangement in maintained schools), the worker is technically paid in every week of the year and may not meet the "not paid" leg of the part-year definition. The new 12.07% rules do not always apply. We cover this in the salaried section below.
The Brazel ruling and the April 2024 reforms
For nearly two decades, employers calculated holiday for term-time workers using 12.07% of hours worked. Then came the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Harpur Trust v Brazel. Mrs Brazel was a music teacher employed on a permanent zero-hours term-time contract. The Supreme Court ruled that her entitlement to 5.6 weeks of paid leave could not be pro-rated to reflect the weeks she did not work. Her holiday pay had to be the average of her pay in the preceding 12 worked weeks (now 52), multiplied by 5.6.
The result was a strange anomaly: term-time workers ended up with a more generous holiday entitlement (proportionally) than colleagues who worked the same hours spread evenly across the year. After consultation, the government introduced new rules through the Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023.
The cut-off matters. The new 12.07% accrual method only applies to leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024. If your school's leave year runs January to December, the new rules did not start until 1 January 2025. If your leave year matches the academic year (1 September), the rules took effect from 1 September 2024.
The Department for Business and Trade later wrote to legal firms (in response to representations from Browne Jacobson, Stone King and the Confederation of School Trusts) to clarify that term-time only workers paid only for weeks worked are within the new part-year worker definition.
How to calculate entitlement
The new method is mechanical. At the end of each pay period (usually monthly), you take the hours the worker actually worked, multiply by 12.07%, and that is the holiday they have built up that period.
The 28-day cap still applies. Even if 12.07% of total hours worked would give more, statutory holiday tops out at 28 days a year for a worker on the minimum entitlement.
Step by step
Add up the hours worked in the pay period
If they work 32 hours one week and 28 the next, and the pay period is monthly, total all the hours from that month. Include any overtime hours that count as working time, but not unpaid breaks.
Multiply by 12.07%
Divide the total by 100 then multiply by 12.07. So 120 hours worked ÷ 100 × 12.07 = 14.48 hours accrued.
Round to the nearest hour
ACAS guidance: round down if the part hour is under 30 minutes, round up if 30 minutes or more. So 14.48 rounds to 14 hours.
Add to the running balance
The accrual happens on the last day of the pay period. The worker can use what has accrued (or the employer can allow them to use leave they have not yet accrued, before the end of the leave year).
Term-time worker holiday calculator
Enter weekly hours and weeks worked per year. Assumes the part-year accrual rules apply.
Salaried versus hourly term-time workers
The new rules apply to part-year workers. The legal definition needs at least one week per year when the worker is "not required to work and not paid". Two arrangements need different treatment.
Hourly TTOs (paid only for term weeks)
These workers fit the part-year definition cleanly. The 12.07% method applies for any leave year starting on or after 1 April 2024.
Salaried TTOs (annual salary smoothed across 12 months)
Many maintained schools pay term-time staff a smaller monthly salary across all 12 months instead of stopping pay during the holidays. The annual salary is calculated to reflect 38 or 39 working weeks plus their statutory holiday entitlement, and divided by 12.
Whether these workers are part-year workers under the new definition is genuinely uncertain. The technical position is that they are still paid in every week (the smoothed monthly salary). The DBT clarification suggests intent was to include all term-time staff, but the legal wording about "weeks not paid for" creates ambiguity. Many local authorities continue to use a fixed salary-based approach, with paid leave taken as part of the annual salary deal. If you operate a smoothed salary model and want certainty, take legal advice on your specific contracts.
Practical position for most schools. Hourly term-time workers (often invigilators, peripatetic tutors, temporary cover): use the 12.07% accrual method. Salaried teaching assistants and admin staff on permanent term-time contracts: continue with the existing fixed salary calculation, often built around the Burgundy Book formula in maintained schools. Review at the next contract refresh.
Holiday pay: rolled-up or 52-week average
Once you know how much holiday a worker has accrued, you have two options for paying it.
Option 1: rolled-up holiday pay
Re-legalised in April 2024 for irregular hours and part-year workers (and only those workers). Add 12.07% on top of every pay packet, clearly itemised on the payslip as holiday pay. The worker still gets the time off but no extra payment when they actually take leave.
This is by far the simplest method for term-time hourly workers. It also means the worker has the cash through the year rather than waiting for paid summer holidays.
Option 2: pay when leave is taken
Calculate the holiday hours as above, but pay them at the time the leave is actually taken. The pay rate is the average pay over the previous 52 worked weeks, ignoring any week with no pay. If you cannot find 52 worked weeks in the last 52 calendar weeks, look back up to 104 weeks.
Common scenarios
The numbers below assume a leave year starting on or after 1 April 2024 and the worker is on a part-year contract paid only for weeks worked.
Teaching assistant: 32 hours, 39 weeks
Annual hours: 32 × 39 = 1,248. Holiday accrued: 1,248 × 12.07% = 150.6 hours. Rounded to 151 hours per year (just over 4 weeks at 32 hours per week).
Lunchtime supervisor: 7.5 hours, 38 weeks
Annual hours: 7.5 × 38 = 285. Holiday accrued: 285 × 12.07% = 34.4 hours. Rounded to 34 hours per year.
Peripatetic music tutor: variable hours, 36 weeks
If they teach 12 hours one week, 16 the next, 8 the next and so on, calculate at the end of each pay period. A monthly total of 50 hours gives 50 × 12.07% = 6 hours of holiday accrued that month.
Exam invigilator: a few weeks a year
Often only 2-3 weeks of work in a year. If they invigilate for 60 hours total, that is 60 × 12.07% = 7.2 hours, rounded to 7 hours of paid holiday for the year. This is one of the cleanest examples of how the April 2024 reform reverses Brazel · under Brazel the entitlement would have been 5.6 weeks of average pay, far higher.
For the underlying entitlement rules, our main UK holiday entitlement guide covers the 5.6 weeks calculation in full. If your worker has very irregular hours rather than a strict term-time pattern, the irregular hours pay guide goes deeper on the rolled-up option.
Bank holidays for term-time workers
Three things to know.
First, there is no automatic right to paid bank holidays in UK law. The 5.6 weeks statutory minimum can include bank holidays, and the contract decides.
Second, most UK bank holidays fall during school holidays anyway. May Day, late May, August bank holiday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, and Easter all sit outside term. So term-time workers usually wouldn't have been working those days.
Third, bank holidays falling during term (the May Day Monday, May late bank holiday, Easter Monday in some years) are typically school closure days. Whether the worker is paid depends on the contract. Salaried term-time staff usually are; hourly TTOs paid only for hours worked usually are not, but the school can choose to pay them.
Our UK bank holidays guide lists every date for the next two years, including the regional differences for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sources
Every calculation and rule cited in this guide draws on official UK government and ACAS sources.
| Source | What it covers |
|---|---|
| ACAS · Irregular hours and part-year workers | Definitions of part-year worker, the 12.07% accrual method, rounding rules, the 28-day cap, record-keeping from April 2026. |
| GOV.UK · Holiday pay and entitlement reforms from 1 January 2024 | Department for Business and Trade guidance on the new holiday entitlement and pay rules for irregular hours and part-year workers, including worked examples. |
| Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 | The statutory instrument that introduced the 12.07% accrual rule (Reg 15B of WTR 1998) and rolled-up holiday pay for irregular hours and part-year workers. |
| Working Time Regulations 1998 | The underlying statutory framework for paid annual leave in the UK, as amended. |
| Harpur Trust v Brazel [2022] UKSC 21 | The Supreme Court ruling that established the calendar-week method for part-year workers, now superseded for leave years from 1 April 2024. |
| GOV.UK · Holiday entitlement | General employer guidance on the 5.6 weeks statutory entitlement, accrual, and how to handle leave on termination. |
Frequently asked questions
How much holiday is a term-time only worker entitled to?
For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, a term-time only worker on a part-year contract accrues holiday at 12.07% of the hours they actually work in each pay period, up to a maximum of 28 days. So a teaching assistant who works 32 hours a week for 39 weeks of the year accrues 32 × 39 × 12.07% = about 150 hours of paid holiday over the year.
Does the Harpur Trust v Brazel ruling still apply?
For leave years that started before 1 April 2024 the Brazel calendar-week method still applies. For any leave year starting on or after 1 April 2024, the Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2023 reverse Brazel for irregular hours and part-year workers and allow the 12.07% accrual method instead. Term-time only workers fall within the part-year worker definition, so the new rules apply to them.
Are term-time only workers part-year workers?
Yes, in most cases. The Department for Business and Trade has confirmed that workers paid only for the weeks they work during term time fall within the legal definition of part-year worker. The contract has to be in place all year, and there must be at least one week per year when the worker is not required to work and is not paid. Salaried term-time workers whose pay is smoothed across all twelve months are treated differently.
Can a term-time worker take holiday during term time?
Legally yes, but most term-time contracts say leave must be taken outside term time. That is enforceable provided the worker still has the chance to take their full statutory entitlement during the unworked weeks. If the contract is silent, the employer can give counter-notice under Reg 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 and refuse a request to take leave during term.
Do term-time workers get bank holidays?
There is no automatic right to paid bank holidays. The 5.6 weeks statutory minimum can include bank holidays. For term-time workers, bank holidays that fall during school holidays are usually counted within the unworked period and not paid separately. If a bank holiday falls during a working week, whether it is paid depends on the contract.
How is holiday pay calculated for a term-time worker?
Two options exist. The first is to pay rolled-up holiday pay at 12.07% of pay in each payslip, clearly itemised. The second is to pay holiday at the time it is taken, calculated as the average weekly pay over the previous 52 worked weeks (ignoring unworked weeks, going back up to 104 weeks if needed). Salaried term-time workers paid evenly across the year receive their normal monthly salary during leave.