NHS Careers

NHS Term-Time Only Contracts Explained

FP FrontlinePay Editorial

Updated September 2026

Independent guidance — not affiliated with NHS England or DHSC

Short answer

A term-time only (TTO) contract means you're contracted to work only during school term weeks — commonly around 38 to 40 weeks a year — rather than the full year, with your full-time-equivalent salary pro-rated down to reflect that reduced working pattern and then spread evenly across all 12 months of pay, rather than paid only in the months you actually work. It's a genuinely useful arrangement for staff with school-age children, but it's important to be realistic: it isn't a universal right — only the right to request flexible working is a statutory entitlement, and whether TTO can actually be accommodated depends heavily on your specific role and service, with round-the-clock rota-dependent roles generally much harder to fit it into than office-based or non-24/7 clinical roles.

What a term-time only contract actually is

A term-time only (TTO) contract restructures your working year around local school term dates, rather than the standard full 52-week pattern most NHS contracts run on. You work your normal contracted hours during term weeks, but aren't contracted to work — and aren't expected to — during school holiday periods.

✓ Working weeks are aligned to school term dates, commonly totalling roughly 38-40 weeks a year depending on the specific arrangement and local school calendar
✓ You can work full-time or part-time hours during the weeks you are contracted, alongside the reduced number of weeks worked across the year
✓ It's a genuine, permanent (or agreed fixed-term) change to your contract, not an informal arrangement — the details should be documented clearly
✓ It's most commonly used to help staff who are parents or carers of school-age children align their working pattern with school holidays

How the pay calculation actually works

This is the part that trips people up most often, so it's worth walking through carefully. Your salary isn't simply "the weeks you work, divided by 52, times your normal salary, paid only in those months." It's pro-rated down from your full-time-equivalent Agenda for Change salary to reflect your reduced annual working pattern, and that pro-rated annual figure is then paid out evenly across all 12 months of the year — including the school holiday months you're not actually working.

Pay spread

12 equal monthly instalments

Your pro-rated annual salary is paid evenly all year, not only during the weeks you actually work.

Unpaid leave during school holidays

Working a normal full-year contract but taking unpaid leave during school holidays means genuinely no pay at all during those specific months — a harder budgeting problem even if the total annual pay ends up similar.

A proper term-time only contract

Your reduced-hours annual salary is smoothed across all 12 months, so you receive a consistent, predictable monthly income year-round — including during the school holiday months you're not working.

⚠Ask exactly how your specific trust calculates the pro-rated figure

Different trusts can structure the underlying calculation slightly differently — for example, in how precisely they fold your pro-rated annual leave entitlement into the weeks-worked fraction used to reduce your full-time-equivalent salary. Don't assume a simple "weeks worked ÷ 52" fraction is exactly how your own trust calculates it — ask HR or payroll to show you the specific calculation used for your individual TTO agreement so you know exactly what your reduced salary is based on.

How annual leave fits into a term-time only contract

Your annual leave entitlement under Agenda for Change is pro-rated for reduced working weeks in the same way it would be for any part-time or part-year arrangement, reflecting the legal requirement that part-time and part-year workers receive leave proportionate to full-time staff. In a TTO contract, that pro-rated leave entitlement is normally scheduled to fall within the school holiday weeks you're not contracted to work, rather than booked separately during term time — see our NHS Annual Leave Entitlement Explained guide for how pro-rated leave is generally calculated for part-time and part-year staff more broadly.

Why this is discretionary and role-dependent, not a universal right

It would be misleading to present term-time working as something any NHS parent can simply request and expect to receive. What's actually a statutory right is the right to request flexible working — a day-one entitlement for eligible employees to ask, and to have that request properly considered by their employer within a set timeframe. Your employer can refuse a request, including for term-time working specifically, for a set of permitted business reasons (such as a genuine inability to reorganise work among existing staff, or a detrimental effect on quality or performance), provided the refusal is handled through a fair, proper process.

• Term-time working tends to be considerably easier to accommodate in administrative, community, some outpatient, and other non-24/7 roles
• It's typically much harder to accommodate in ward nursing and other posts that are part of a continuous, round-the-clock rota, where a third of the year without you needs covering by colleagues
• Even within a similar role, availability can differ trust to trust and service to service, depending on local staffing levels and how many staff are already on non-standard working patterns
• A refusal isn't necessarily unreasonable just because a request feels personally important — the legal test is about your employer following a fair process and having a genuine permitted business reason, not about whether your reasons for wanting TTO are sympathetic

See our Flexible Working for Childcare: Your Day-One Right Explained guide for the full detail on how a flexible working request actually works, what counts as a valid business reason for refusal, and what to do if you think a request wasn't handled fairly.

How this fits alongside existing childcare content on this site

It's worth being clear about how this page relates to two other guides already on FrontlinePay that touch on similar ground, since they cover genuinely different things.

School Holidays and NHS Rota Planning

For staff on a normal, full-year contract, covering the practical challenge of school holiday weeks within their existing rota — swaps, annual leave timing, and coordinating with childcare providers around a pattern that doesn't itself change.

Term-Time Only Contracts (this page)

A different, structural solution: changing your actual contracted working pattern so you aren't rostered to work school holiday weeks at all, rather than working a normal year and managing cover around it.

If a full TTO arrangement genuinely isn't available in your role, our School Holidays and NHS Rota Planning guide covers the more common reality for most NHS parents — planning around school holidays within a standard contract — and is worth reading as a realistic fallback rather than treating TTO as the only solution worth considering.

How to actually request a term-time only arrangement

✓ Check whether your specific trust has an existing term-time working policy, since many do formalise this as one of several recognised flexible working options
✓ Put in a formal flexible working request in writing, specifically proposing term-time only working and the term dates you're proposing to align to
✓ Be realistic about your role's compatibility with TTO before applying — a role tied to continuous 24/7 cover is a harder case to make than an office-based or non-rota-dependent post
✓ Ask HR to confirm, in writing, exactly how your pro-rated salary would be calculated and paid before you commit to the change
✓ Get the arrangement's status confirmed clearly — permanent, reviewable after a trial period, or time-limited — so there's no ambiguity later about whether or how it can be changed

Why you can rely on this page

✓ Verified the general TTO pay-smoothing mechanism and typical 38-40 week structure against NHS Employers flexible working guidance and trust-level term-time working policies
✓ Explicit that only the right to request flexible working is statutory, not term-time working itself, rather than overstating it as a guaranteed entitlement
✓ Clearly differentiated from our existing School Holidays and NHS Rota Planning guide rather than duplicating it
✓ Honest that availability is genuinely role- and service-dependent, with round-the-clock rota roles harder to accommodate than others

Related NHS guides

Flexible Working for Childcare: Your Day-One Right Explained

The statutory request mechanism that a TTO request would actually go through.

School Holidays and NHS Rota Planning

The more common reality for parents on a standard, full-year contract.

NHS Annual Leave Entitlement Explained

How pro-rated leave works for part-time and part-year staff.

NHS Annualised Hours Contracts Explained

A different flexible working pattern, built around a variable weekly total rather than fixed term weeks.

Childcare on a Part-Time NHS Contract

How reduced hours more generally interact with childcare planning.

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Frequently asked questions

Is a term-time only contract a statutory right for parents of school-age children? +

No — this is worth being clear about from the outset, because it's a common and understandable assumption. What is a statutory, day-one right for eligible employees is the right to request flexible working (which term-time only working is one possible form of), not a right to term-time working itself. Your employer has to consider a flexible working request reasonably and respond within a set timeframe, but can refuse it for specified business reasons if the role or service genuinely can't accommodate it. See our guide to flexible working for childcare for the request mechanism itself.

How many weeks a year does a term-time only contract typically cover? +

Most term-time only (TTO) contracts are built around local school term dates, commonly totalling somewhere in the region of 38 to 40 working weeks a year, though the exact figure depends on the specific school year(s) the arrangement is aligned to and any additional weeks your trust's policy builds in around the terms themselves (for example, to cover INSET days or a short settling-in period). There's no single fixed national figure — check your own agreement for the exact weeks it actually covers.

If I only physically work part of the year, why is my pay spread over 12 months instead of just the weeks I work? +

Because that's specifically the point of how a TTO contract is structured, and it's worth understanding why rather than just accepting it. Your full-time-equivalent salary for your band and pay point is pro-rated down to reflect the proportion of the year you actually work, but that pro-rated annual figure is then paid out in 12 equal monthly instalments across the whole year — including the school holiday months when you're not actually working. This smooths your income so you're not left with several months of little or no pay during the school holidays, which is one of the main practical benefits of the arrangement over simply taking unpaid leave during school breaks.

Does my annual leave get folded into the school holidays automatically? +

Generally, yes — your annual leave entitlement (pro-rated for your reduced working weeks, in line with the legal requirement that part-time and part-year workers get leave on a proportionate basis to full-time staff) is normally taken during the school holiday weeks you're not contracted to work, rather than booked separately during term time on top of them. The exact mechanics of how your specific trust calculates and schedules this should be set out clearly in your individual TTO agreement — ask HR to walk through the specific numbers for your contract if it isn't clear from the paperwork.

Is term-time working available in every NHS role, including ward nursing? +

No, and it's important to be realistic about this rather than implying it's universally available. Term-time working is fundamentally easier to accommodate in roles and services that don't require continuous, round-the-clock cover — administrative, community, some outpatient, and office-based clinical roles are generally more compatible with a TTO pattern than a ward nursing post that's part of a 24/7 rota, where your absence for a third of the year would need to be covered by colleagues in a way that's often much harder to plan around. Whether it's genuinely available to you depends heavily on your specific role and service's staffing model — it's discretionary and role-dependent, not a guaranteed option across the NHS.

How is this different from the content already on FrontlinePay's Childcare hub about school holidays? +

Our existing School Holidays and NHS Rota Planning guide is about how NHS parents on ordinary, full-year contracts navigate covering school holiday weeks around their normal rota — swaps, annual leave planning, and coordinating with childcare providers. This page is about a genuinely different thing: a distinct contractual arrangement where your actual working weeks are structurally reduced to match term time in the first place, rather than working a normal full-year pattern and separately managing holiday cover around it. Read both if you're considering whether to request a change to TTO, since the rota-planning guide is still relevant background on how school holiday cover generally works across NHS services.

Can my employer end a term-time only arrangement once it's agreed? +

A flexible working arrangement agreed through a formal request generally becomes a permanent change to your contract unless you and your employer specifically agree otherwise (for example, a fixed trial period with a review date). Ending or changing it afterwards would normally need to go through a fresh discussion and agreement, or a further flexible working request process, rather than being withdrawn unilaterally without any process — though the exact position depends on how the original agreement was documented, so it's worth getting the terms (including whether it's permanent, reviewable, or time-limited) confirmed clearly in writing when you first agree to move onto TTO.

Does moving to a term-time only contract affect my NHS Pension or continuous service? +

Generally, no, in the sense that a TTO contract is still a substantive, continuous contract of employment with pro-rated pay and hours, not a break in employment — continuous service should carry on unaffected by the change. Your NHS Pension contributions and accrual are based on your actual pensionable pay, so a lower TTO salary (reflecting your reduced annual hours) will generally mean correspondingly lower pension accrual for the years you're on that pattern, in the same way it would for any part-time or part-year working pattern, rather than because of anything specific to TTO itself.

This guide is independent, general information only and is not affiliated with NHS England, the DHSC, or any individual NHS trust, and is not legal advice. Term-time working policies and pay calculation methods are set locally and vary by trust — always check your own trust's current policy before relying on a figure from this page.

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