NHS Annual Leave Calculator
Estimate your Agenda for Change annual leave entitlement by length of service.
Short answer
NHS Agenda for Change annual leave runs on a three-tier, length-of-service system: commonly cited as 27 days under 5 years' service, 29 days at 5–10 years, and 33 days at 10+ years, for a full-time 37.5-hour week, plus a separate bank holiday allowance on top — and it's pro-rated for part-time hours rather than cut by a flat number of days. These are the commonly-cited national figures, not a guarantee of your own entitlement, so always verify the exact number against your contract or your trust's HR team before relying on it.
How NHS annual leave scales with service, explained
Agenda for Change annual leave is commonly described as a tiered system: a base number of days for staff earlier in their NHS career, rising at set length-of-service milestones, most often cited as roughly 27 days under 5 years' service, 29 days between 5 and 10 years, and 33 days at 10 or more years — for a full-time, 37.5 hour week, before bank holidays are added on top. These are the figures this calculator uses as its default tiers.
That said, Section 13 of the AfC Terms and Conditions Handbook can be revised by national negotiation, and your own entitlement can also be affected by whether you work full or part time and by your specific trust's local policy. Treat the numbers here as a useful estimate for planning, not a substitute for the figure on your contract or confirmed by your trust's HR team.
| Length of service | Commonly-cited base days (full-time) |
|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 27 days |
| 5 to 10 years | 29 days |
| 10+ years | 33 days |
On top of these base days, most staff also receive a separate bank/public holiday entitlement, commonly cited as around 8 days a year for a full-time member of staff — this calculator lets you include or exclude that from your total.
Worked example: full-time vs a 22.5-hour part-time pattern
The table above shows full-time figures. In practice, most people using this calculator aren't full-time, so here's the same tiers pro-rated for someone contracted to 22.5 hours a week — a common three-day, three-shifts-of-7.5-hours pattern — set side by side with the full-time figure so you can see exactly how the pro-rata factor (22.5 ÷ 37.5 = 0.6) is applied to both the day-count and the hours it's worth.
| Service tier | Full-time (37.5 hrs/week) base days | Part-time (22.5 hrs/week) base days | Part-time (22.5 hrs/week) hours equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 27 days | 16.2 days | 72.9 hours |
| 5 to 10 years | 29 days | 17.4 days | 78.3 hours |
| 10+ years | 33 days | 19.8 days | 89.1 hours |
Add the pro-rated bank holiday allowance on top if your trust presents it separately: 8 days full-time becomes 4.8 days (21.6 hours) at 22.5 hours a week, using the same 0.6 pro-rata factor. Note the hours figure in the table assumes an even 5-day spread of the 22.5 contracted hours (4.5 hours/day) purely to express a comparable "hours" total — if you actually work fewer, longer shifts (say, three 7.5-hour days), your own shift length is what determines how many actual shifts that hours total buys you, which is exactly why this calculator shows both units rather than days alone.
Common annual leave mistakes and misunderstandings
Most of the confusion around NHS annual leave doesn't come from the tiers themselves — it comes from a handful of recurring assumptions that don't always hold. Here are the ones we see most often, held to the same standard of honesty as the rest of this page: stated plainly where the general rule is well established, and hedged where local trust policy genuinely varies.
1. Assuming the leave year starts on your join date or the calendar year
Most NHS trusts run the annual leave year on a fixed 1 April to 31 March cycle for every member of staff, regardless of when they individually joined — not the calendar year, and not your personal start-date anniversary. This trips up new starters most often: if you join partway through the cycle, your first year's entitlement is normally pro-rated for the months remaining, not a full year's allowance from day one. This is common but not universal, so confirm your own trust's cycle rather than assuming April–March applies everywhere.
2. Double-counting (or under-counting) bank holidays
Because base annual leave and bank holiday entitlement are technically two separate figures that get added together, it's easy to misread a total. Some rotas and staff handbooks show a single combined number that already includes bank holidays; others list them as separate lines you're expected to add yourself. Assuming the wrong version — adding 8 days to a figure that already includes them, or forgetting to add them to a figure that doesn't — is one of the most common sources of "my leave doesn't match what the calculator says" queries. Always check which presentation your trust's rota or payslip system uses before comparing it to a total from this page.
3. How leave accrues during maternity, paternity or adoption leave
NHS staff generally continue to accrue their full contractual annual leave entitlement while on paid and unpaid statutory family leave — this reflects a UK-wide legal minimum under employment law, not just NHS-specific policy, so it isn't something that varies by trust in principle. Where it does get genuinely complicated is in the practical mechanics: how that accrued leave is booked around a leave year that straddles the period of family leave, and whether it needs to be taken before or after you return, can differ by trust and by individual circumstance. If you're planning family leave, ask your line manager or HR early how your specific annual leave will be handled around it, rather than assuming a single standard approach.
4. How leave accrues during long-term sickness absence
Similarly, statutory minimum leave generally continues to accrue during sickness absence, and many NHS trusts apply the same principle to the fuller AfC entitlement — but we're deliberately hedging here rather than stating it as an absolute rule, because local sickness-absence and leave-carryover policies genuinely do vary, particularly on how much leave you're allowed to carry into the next leave year if long-term illness prevented you taking it within the year it accrued. If you're on or returning from long-term sickness absence, check your trust's specific policy or ask occupational health/HR directly rather than relying on a general rule.
The common thread across all four mistakes above is the same: the national AfC tiers set a consistent floor, but the day-to-day mechanics of booking, converting and carrying leave are implemented locally, trust by trust. That's a deliberate feature of Agenda for Change, not a gap in this page — it lets trusts fit the rules around real rotas and real staffing gaps — but it also means a colleague's answer from a different trust, or a forum post about "how it works at my old trust", isn't a reliable substitute for checking your own trust's written policy or asking HR directly when a specific situation (a new baby, a long illness, a transfer) actually comes up.
Read the full explainer: NHS Annual Leave Entitlement Explained.
Why this calculator is worth trusting
- ✓ Built on the commonly-cited AfC Section 13 service tiers, not a private or invented estimate.
- ✓ Every result is shown in both days AND hours, so part-time and irregular shift patterns are represented fairly.
- ✓ Bank holiday entitlement is modelled as a separate, toggleable figure — never silently folded into the base days.
- ✓ 100% calculated in your browser. No account, no leave dates or service history stored anywhere.
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Frequently asked questions
Does annual leave entitlement include bank holidays, or is it separate? +
Under Agenda for Change, your base annual leave allowance and your bank/public holiday entitlement are two separate figures that are usually added together to give you a total. Some trusts and rotas express this as a single combined number, while others show them as separate lines — and some staff (particularly those who regularly work bank holidays as part of a shift pattern) take time off in lieu instead of the bank holiday itself. This calculator lets you toggle bank holidays on or off so you can see both figures.
How does part-time work affect my leave? +
Part-time annual leave is pro-rated based on your contracted hours compared to a full-time 37.5-hour week — not simply reduced by a flat number of days. Because a 'day' is worth fewer hours for someone contracted to fewer hours a week, the fairest way to compare part-time and full-time entitlement is often in hours rather than days. This calculator shows both.
Where do these day-count figures come from? +
They reflect the tiers commonly cited from Section 13 of the NHS Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook. Exact figures can be revised by national negotiation, and your own entitlement can also depend on your specific trust's local policy, so always check your contract or trust HR for your confirmed figure rather than relying solely on this calculator.
Does the leave year run from January to December? +
Not usually. Most NHS trusts run their annual leave year from 1 April to 31 March, not the calendar year and not your personal start-date anniversary — though this can vary by trust, so it's worth checking your own trust's policy, especially if you're newly starting.
What counts towards 'years of service' for leave purposes? +
Generally, continuous service with the NHS counts, which can sometimes include time at a previous NHS employer if your service transferred without a break (this is often referred to as 'continuous service' rather than just time at your current trust). The exact rules can vary, so check with your trust's HR or your contract if you've moved employers within the NHS.
Do part-time staff get fewer bank holidays too? +
Yes, in the same pro-rated way as base annual leave. Because bank holidays fall on fixed calendar dates rather than your specific working days, many trusts convert bank holiday entitlement into an equivalent number of days or hours added to your annual leave allowance for part-time staff, rather than expecting you to take the actual bank holiday date off.
Do NHS bank-only staff (no substantive contract) get paid annual leave the same way? +
Usually not in the same accrual form. Staff who only pick up NHS staff bank shifts, without a substantive contracted post, typically receive 'rolled-up' holiday pay — an uplift added to their hourly or shift rate — rather than accruing a separate day-count entitlement, because they don't have a fixed weekly working pattern for a tiered system to apply to. This calculator models the substantive-contract, service-tiered system described above; check your specific bank's terms if you're bank-only, as rolled-up pay works differently.
What happens to unused annual leave if I leave a trust or move elsewhere in the NHS? +
When you leave a trust, you're normally paid in lieu for any leave you've accrued but not taken, calculated pro-rata for the portion of the leave year you actually worked. If you're moving directly to another NHS trust with continuous service, any outstanding leave arrangements — already-booked leave, or how much you've accrued versus taken — are usually agreed locally between the two trusts' HR teams rather than following one fixed national rule, so confirm the details with HR before your move date.
Does long-term sickness absence affect how much leave I build up? +
Statutory minimum leave under the Working Time Regulations generally continues to accrue during sickness absence, and many NHS trusts extend the same principle to the fuller AfC contractual entitlement — but this isn't something we can state with complete certainty applies identically everywhere, since local sickness-absence and leave-carryover policies do vary, particularly around how much accrued-but-untaken leave can be carried into the next leave year if illness prevented you taking it. Check your trust's sickness absence and annual leave policies directly, or ask occupational health/HR, rather than assuming a single UK-wide rule.
I've transferred from a different NHS trust — do I restart on the lowest leave tier? +
Generally no, provided your service transferred continuously without a disqualifying break — in which case your previous NHS service normally counts towards your leave tier at your new trust, rather than resetting you to the 'under 5 years' band. What exactly counts as a disqualifying break, and how continuous service is evidenced, can vary, so it's worth proactively flagging your prior NHS service to your new trust's HR or payroll team when you start rather than assuming it's applied automatically.
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