Free tool
Zero-hours holiday pay calculator
A week's pay for irregular-hours staff is the average over the last 52 PAID weeks, skipping weeks with no pay and looking back no further than 104. Paste a pay history straight from a spreadsheet and this does the rest, including the 12.07% rolled-up alternative.
Pay history, most recent week first
0 of 52 paid weeks countedPaste from a spreadsheet or payroll exporttwo columns: pay, hours
Most recent week first. Copy two columns straight out of Excel or Google Sheets.
Their working pattern
Used to turn a week's holiday pay into a day rate.
What this booking will cost at the reference-period rate.
Holiday pay rate
Averaged over 0 paid weeks
A week's holiday pay
£0.00
What one week of leave must be paid at
A day's holiday pay
£0.00
Over a 4-day week
5 days would cost
£0.00
Gross, before tax and NI
- Paid weeks counted
- 0 of 52
- Unpaid weeks skipped
- 0
- Total pay across those weeks
- £0.00
- Total hours across those weeks
- 0 hrs
- Average hours a week
- 0 hrs
- Average hourly rateMinimum wage is £12.71 for the 21-and-over band
- £0.00
- A week's pay for holiday purposes
- £0.00
Or pay it rolled up, at 12.07%
For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024 you may pay irregular-hours and part-year staff rolled-up holiday pay instead: 12.07% added to every pay packet and itemised separately on the payslip. Pick one method or the other: doing both pays for the same holiday twice.
WagePilot keeps all 52 weeks for every person, and rolls them forward each payday.
Based on Employment Rights Act 1996 s.221 to s.224 as amended, and the GOV.UK guidance on calculating holiday pay for workers without fixed hours or pay. The reference period has been 52 weeks since 6 April 2020, not 12: weeks with no pay are skipped and earlier paid weeks used instead, looking back no further than 104 weeks. Include overtime, commission and other pay that is intrinsically linked to the job. Not legal advice.
Do it once here, or never again
The reference period moves every single week
Which is the problem with doing it in a spreadsheet. Today's answer is wrong by next Friday, and it is wrong again the week after that.
52 wks
Kept, not rebuilt
Every week of pay and hours is already stored per person, so the reference period exists before anyone asks for it.
Unpaid weeks handled correctly
Weeks with no pay are skipped and earlier paid weeks pulled in, the way the regulations require, without anyone remembering the rule.
The right rate on the day it is booked
When leave is approved, the pay attached to it is the current 52-week average, not last quarter's spreadsheet.
Rolled-up pay, itemised
If you use the 12.07% method instead, the uplift is calculated per pay period and shown as its own line, which is what the law requires.
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The rules
How a week's pay is worked out for irregular hours
Three rules, in this order. Get the order wrong and the answer is wrong in the worker's disfavour, which is the direction tribunals notice.
Rule one: 52 weeks, not 12
For a worker without fixed hours or pay, a week's pay is the average over the last 52 weeks in which they were paid. The reference period was extended from 12 weeks to 52 on 6 April 2020 by the Employment Rights (Employment Particulars and Paid Annual Leave) Regulations 2018.
This matters more than it sounds. A 12-week window taken in February for a seasonal business captures the quietest weeks of the year. A 52-week window captures the summer too. For genuinely seasonal staff the two methods can differ by a third or more, and always in the same direction.
Rule two: skip the unpaid weeks
Weeks in which the worker earned nothing are excluded, and an earlier paid week is pulled in to take the place of each one. This is the rule that a hand-built spreadsheet almost always misses, because averaging a column is the obvious thing to do and it silently includes every zero.
A casual worker with 30 paid weeks and 22 unpaid weeks in the year has a reference period built from those 30 paid weeks, not an average diluted by the 22 they did not work.
Rule three: stop at 104 weeks
The search for those 52 paid weeks stops 104 weeks before the first day of the leave. If a worker has only been paid in 18 weeks inside that window, the average is over 18 weeks. You do not reach further back to make the number up, and you do not pad it with zeroes to get to 52.
The rolled-up alternative
Since leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours and part-year workers can be paid rolled-up holiday pay instead: an uplift of at least 12.07% on the pay for each pay period, itemised separately on the payslip. It is simpler, and it is legitimate, but it is an alternative rather than an addition. Paying it and then paying leave again when it is taken pays for the same holiday twice.
What belongs in the average
Normal remuneration: basic pay, overtime worked regularly enough to be normal, commission that forms part of normal pay, and shift or unsocial-hours premiums. Out: pure expense reimbursements, and genuinely one-off discretionary bonuses. If a payment is intrinsically linked to the work the person is required to do, it belongs in.
Common traps
What employers get wrong
None of these are careless. Every one of them is a reasonable assumption that happens to be untrue.
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Averaging over the last 12 weeks.
The reference period has been 52 weeks since 6 April 2020. Twelve weeks was the rule before that, and using it usually underpays.
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Including weeks where the worker earned nothing.
Unpaid weeks are skipped and replaced by earlier paid weeks. Averaging the zeroes in is the fastest way to underpay a seasonal worker.
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Looking back further than 104 weeks to find 52 paid weeks.
The look-back stops at 104 weeks. If there are only 30 paid weeks in that window, the average is over 30.
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Using basic pay only.
Regular overtime, commission and shift premiums that form part of normal pay all belong in the average.
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Paying rolled-up 12.07% and paying leave when it is taken.
They are alternatives. Doing both pays holiday twice, and doing neither properly is a tribunal claim.
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Rebuilding the spreadsheet each time somebody books a day off.
The reference period changes every week. It is a rolling record, not a one-off calculation.
Holiday pay questions
Is the holiday pay reference period 12 weeks or 52 weeks?
What happens to weeks where the worker earned nothing?
How far back can I look for those 52 paid weeks?
What if the worker has been employed for less than a year?
What counts as pay in the average?
Can I just pay 12.07% rolled up instead?
Does this apply to agency workers?
What did Harpur Trust v Brazel change?
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Open toolWagePilot keeps the 52 weeks for you
Pay and hours stored week by week for every irregular-hours worker, so the right holiday pay is attached to the booking the moment it is approved.
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