Discover the UK Bank Holidays for 2023
As an employer, it is important to be aware of all of the 2022 Bank Holidays in the UK, including the extra bank holiday 2022. You also need to stay up to date on all employment laws relating to UK public holidays. This will help you understand whether or not your employees are entitled to time off on bank holidays and if they should be paid.
In this article, we will outline the upcoming UK bank holidays in 2022 (including the extra one) to help your HR and people team understand how many UK bank holidays there are in 2022, when they are and how they can prepare. We will look at employee statutory holiday rights, the rights of part-time workers, and bank holiday pay. We will also discuss how our HR software can help you manage your employee’s holidays and absences effectively.
- Bank Holidays in the UK 2022: England and Wales
- How many UK bank holidays are there in 2022?
- Employee Statutory Rights
- Is It Double Pay on Bank Holidays?
- Part-Time Workers and Bank Holidays
- Working on a Bank Holiday in the UK
- Increase in Statutory Minimum Leave
- Is there an extra UK bank holiday in 2022?
- When is the Extra UK Bank Holiday in 2022?
- UK Employee Holiday Entitlement in 2022
- ✅ Holiday and Absence Management Software
Bank Holidays in the UK 2022: England and Wales
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a bank holiday is a public and/or religious holiday. Banks and many other businesses close on specific days to celebrate or mark an occasion, although these days restaurants, pubs and shops tend to remain open.
Bank holidays were first introduced by the Bank Holidays Act of 1871. They were named bank holidays because banks would traditionally close on these days. As other companies were dependent on the banks to conduct their business, they would close too, rendering the day an official national holiday.
Check the Bank Holidays in the UK for 2023 here
How many UK bank holidays are there in 2022?
Each year there are 8 permanent UK bank holidays. And there are 9 UK bank holidays in 2022:
- New Year’s Day
- Good Friday
- Easter Monday
- May Day
- Spring Bank Holiday
- Queens Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday (The Extra UK Bank Holiday in 2022)
- Summer Bank Holiday
- Christmas Day
- Boxing Day
In the UK, if a bank holiday in 2022 is on a weekend, a ‘substitute’ weekday becomes a bank holiday, normally the following Monday.
In Scotland, there is an extra bank holiday on November 30th for St Andrew’s Day. Scotland will also celebrate its summer bank holiday on Aug 1st this year instead of late August. Additionally, Easter Monday is not a bank holiday in Scotland.
In Northern Ireland, there are 2 extra bank holidays on March 17th 2022 for St Patrick’s Day and July 12th 2022 for The Battle of the Boyne.
Employee Statutory Rights
According to UK employment law, almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year (known as statutory leave entitlement or annual leave). This includes agency workers, workers with irregular hours, and workers on zero-hour contracts.
However, employees have no bank holiday statutory rights. Whether or not you offer your employees time off for bank holidays will depend on your employee’s terms of employment. This is covered by section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
You might choose to include all bank holidays in the UK 2022 as part of your employee’s annual leave, or you may decide to offer it as unpaid time off. If your employees work on a bank holiday, you must specify in their contracts whether they will have a right to extra pay, such as time and a half or double time,
Failure to comply with the terms of an employee’s contract will result in a fundamental breach of contract. If an employee resigns as an effect of this then they could file a claim for constructive unfair dismissal if they have been employed for one year or more (two years where the employment began on or after 6 April 2012).
Is It Double Pay on Bank Holidays?
As we stated above, employees have no statutory right to extra bank holiday pay. Bank holidays are usually included in an employee’s annual holiday leave. Any additional payments will depend on the terms of their employment contract. Time off in lieu of working on bank holidays must be offered if holiday entitlement is limited to the statutory minimum. This is so that their total paid leave amounts to 28 days per year (if they work a five-day week). Employees can only be paid in lieu of statutory minimum holiday entitlement in the event of employment termination.
Those employees working in essential services such as utilities, fire, ambulance, police, and healthcare workers usually receive extra pay for working on these days.
Part-Time Workers and Bank Holidays
Part-time workers have the same rights as full-time employees when it comes to bank holiday entitlements. This is in line with the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, under which part-time workers are entitled to the same terms as comparable full-time workers, but on a pro-rata basis.
To protect yourself from any potential claims of unfair treatment, the UK government advises offering your part-time employees a prorated allowance of paid bank holidays, irrespective of whether or not they normally work on the days on which a bank holiday falls.
Working on a Bank Holiday in the UK
If you require your employees to work on one of the UK bank holidays in 2022 (in line with the terms of their employment) then employees cannot refuse to work. You should, however, be aware of the following:
- Refusal to grant Christian employees time off for any of the bank holidays with religious significance could amount to indirect religious discrimination.
- There is no requirement for employers to allow additional time off in lieu of employees who practise religions other than Christianity as this could be interpreted as unlawful direct discrimination. Instead, employees should use their annual holiday allowance.
- Make sure you are aware of your obligations under the Equality Act 2010, which protects workers against direct and indirect discrimination.
Increase in Statutory Minimum Leave
In line with the Working Time Regulations 1998, statutory minimum leave rights changed in 2009, rising from 4 to 5.6 weeks. This entitles full-time employees to 28 days’ holiday plus 8 UK bank holidays. Make sure your employment contracts reflect this change. You should be extra vigilant if your holiday year runs from April to March. This is because depending on when Easter falls, it could result in your employees receiving as much as 10, or as little as 6, bank holidays in a given calendar year.
Is there an extra UK bank holiday in 2022?
Yes, there is an extra bank holiday in 2022 for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Her majesty’s jubilee will take place on 6th February 2022, marking a significant 70 years on the throne, becoming the UK’s longest-serving monarch.
When is the Extra UK Bank Holiday in 2022?
The extra holiday will take place from Thursday 2nd June and Friday 3rd June until Sunday 4th June 2022. Delaying the May Day Bank Holiday by one week and extending it from 3 to 4 days. The UK Government have confirmed that this extra bank holiday will apply to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The queen will be celebrating this extra UK bank holiday with a variety of national events across an extended bank holiday weekend:
- Thursday 2nd June: The Queens Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour) & Platinum Jubilee Beacons
- Friday 3rd June: Service of Thanksgiving
- Saturday 4th June: Platinum Party at the Palace (A televised concert) & The Derby at Epsom Downs
- Sunday 5th June: The Big Jubilee Lunch (Nationwide street parties) & The Platinum Jubilee Pageant:
UK Employee Holiday Entitlement in 2022
Are UK employees entitled to this extra day off? Whether your employees are entitled to this additional holiday, depends on what is stated within their employment contract. UK employees are not automatically entitled to paid time off during bank holidays. Therefore, you should check the contracts of employment and the wording that has been used.
If you have not specified the number of UK bank holidays offered in your employee holiday entitlement clause then your employees will automatically have the right to paid time off for this extra bank holiday.
For example, “20 days holidays per annum plus bank holidays”. However, if you have specified the number of bank holidays an employee is entitled to (i.e. “plus 8 bank holidays”) then your employees will not be entitled to an additional day’s leave. You might, however, choose to offer this as a gesture of goodwill.
Factorial HR: Holiday and Absence Management Software
Once you are clear on all rights and obligations relating to the upcoming UK bank holidays in 2022, you need to establish how you will manage them as an employer. A good solution for this is using holiday and absence software to keep track of your employees’ time off.
With Factorials’ annual leave management software solution you can:
- Centralise and automate all time-off requests.
- Accept or deny time-off requests in one click.
- Check the number of holidays remaining for each employee easily.
- Create charts for the total days used and the total days available.
- Gain visibility of all absences at a glance.
- Define the number of holidays employees can carry over from one year to the next.
- Create and customise as many leave types as you need.
- Download annual and monthly summaries of your employees’ absences.
- Allow your employees to request and manage holidays from their mobile.
Book a demo by clicking here.
Related Video: ✅ UK bank holidays: All the days off we’ll get in 2022 as an extra one is thrown in to celebrate the Queen’s birthday.
