NHS annual leave calculator

For staff on Agenda for Change contracts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Enter your reckonable service and contracted hours to see your annual leave and public holiday allowance in hours — the way NHS rosters and ESR usually express it.

How much annual leave do NHS staff get?

On Agenda for Change: 27 days on appointment, 29 days after five years and 33 days after ten years of reckonable service, plus 8 general public holidays (Handbook amendment 62, paragraph 13.1 and Table 6). Northern Ireland has the same leave bands but 10 general public holidays (13.3). NHS Wales gets one additional day of annual leave, so 28 days on appointment (13.1.1).

A full-time week is 37.5 hours and a standard day is 7.5 hours, so 27 days is 202.5 hours of annual leave plus 60 hours of public holidays. Part-time staff get the same proportion of those hours, and take public holidays falling on their working days out of that total.

Choose your nation, service and contracted hours, then press Calculate. Everything is worked out in your browser.

Who this covers

Staff directly employed on Agenda for Change terms — nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, healthcare assistants, scientific, administrative and estates staff. The Handbook itself says its terms apply to all directly employed NHS staff except very senior managers and staff within the remit of the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body.

Doctors and dentists, including doctors in training, have their own terms and conditions with different leave bands. This calculator does not cover them.
Very senior managers sit outside Agenda for Change.
Bank-only workers usually accrue statutory leave at 12.07% of the hours they work rather than a fixed band — use the irregular hours calculator instead.
NHS Scotland is not calculated here. Scotland keeps its own copy of the Handbook and a shorter standard week (37 hours, reducing to 36 from 1 April 2026), so a figure based on the 37.5-hour week would be wrong. Selecting Scotland shows that explanation and a link to the NHS Scotland calculator rather than a number.

Entitlement by nation

Agenda for Change annual leave days and public holidays by UK nation
Nation	On appointment	After 5 years	After 10 years	Public holidays
England	27 days	29 days	33 days	8
Wales	28 days	30 days	34 days	8
Northern Ireland	27 days	29 days	33 days	10
Scotlandnot calculated here	—	—	—	—

Rules checked 2026-09-17 against the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook, amendment 62, published 1 June 2026.

Where each rule comes from

Source for each rule used by this calculator
Rule	Applies to	Source
27, 29 and 33 days by reckonable service	England, Wales, Northern Ireland	Handbook amendment 62, para 13.1, Table 6
8 general public holidays	England and Wales	Handbook para 13.1, Table 6 and para 13.3
10 general public holidays	Northern Ireland	Handbook para 13.3: “in Northern Ireland … there are ten general public holidays”
One additional annual leave day	NHS Wales, from the 2021/22 leave year	Handbook para 13.1.1, and the Welsh Government written statement of 17 December 2021
37.5-hour standard week	All Agenda for Change staff	Handbook para 10.1
Leave calculated in hours where shifts are not 7.5 hours	All Agenda for Change staff	Handbook para 13.5
Public holidays pro rata for part-time staff	All Agenda for Change staff	Handbook paras 13.6 and 13.7
Reckonable service counts previous NHS employment	All Agenda for Change staff	Handbook paras 12.1 and 12.4
Part-year pro-rating by calendar days	This calculator's own convention	Not a Handbook rule. Disclosed below and in every part-year result.

What the extra Welsh day means

Handbook paragraph 13.1.1 says NHS Wales annual leave is “increased by one additional day on appointment” from the 2021/22 leave year. It is a day of annual leave, not an extra public holiday, and it is pro-rated for part-time staff. So a new starter in Wales has 28 days plus 8 general public holidays, and that is the figure this calculator gives.

Above the starting band the official wording does not settle the answer. The Handbook clause names only “on appointment”, while the Welsh Government's written statement of 17 December 2021 says all NHS staff receive an additional day in their contractual entitlement. That leaves 29 or 30 days after five years, and 33 or 34 after ten, and no official table we could find resolves it. Rather than pick one, this calculator gives no figure for Wales above the starting band and says so on screen. Your ESR record or your health board's policy is the authority.

Worked examples

Each example below is arithmetic on the Handbook figures in the table above: days from Table 6, 7.5 hours a day from paragraph 13.5, and part-time proportions from the 37.5-hour week in paragraph 10.1. The last one is the exception and is marked as such.

Full time, three years' service, England

27 days x 7.5 = 202.5 hours annual leave, plus 8 x 7.5 = 60 hours of public holidays. Total 262.5 hours, which is 35 working days of 7.5 hours.

22.5 hours a week, six years' service, England

0.6 of full time. 29 x 7.5 x 0.6 = 130.5 hours annual leave, plus 36 hours for public holidays. Their own working day is 4.5 hours, so that is 37 days of their pattern.

Full time, twelve years, Northern Ireland

33 x 7.5 = 247.5 hours, plus 10 public holidays at 7.5 = 75 hours. Total 322.5 hours.

Starting half way through the leave year

182 days of a 365-day leave year: 262.5 x 182 / 365 = 130.89 hours. This one is not a Handbook figure — it applies this page's own calendar-day convention. Employers who count working days instead will land on a slightly different number.

Common questions

What counts as reckonable service?: Continuous previous service with any NHS employer counts towards annual leave, and service counts again if you return to the NHS after a break (Handbook 12.1 and 12.4). Employment outside the NHS counts only where your employer decides it is relevant (12.2) — that is a discretion, not a right, so check before relying on it.
Why is my entitlement shown in hours, not days?: Because the Handbook requires it for anyone whose shifts are not 7.5 hours (13.5). Booking in hours stops someone on 12-hour shifts getting more or less leave than a colleague doing the same contracted hours in shorter shifts.
How do bank holidays work if I am part time?: Your public holiday allowance is added to your annual leave as hours, and you book any public holiday you would normally have worked out of that total (13.6 and 13.7). Employers must give at least the pro-rata amount, rounded up to the nearest half day when expressed in days.
Does this include my local trust's policy?: No. Your leave year dates, carry-over limits, any leave purchase scheme, and whether public holidays are consolidated into annual leave (permitted by 13.2) are all set locally. Your trust's policy or ESR record is the authority on those.

What this calculator does not decide

There is no single national method for pro-rating a starter or leaver. NHS Employers' own guidance records two methods in live use (1/260 of a year's pay per day, or 1/365 calendar days). This page uses calendar days and says so.
Rounding of part-time figures is a local convention. Wales rounds hours to the nearest half hour; other employers publish their own ready reckoners.
Part-year and irregular-hours staff accrue the statutory minimum at 12.07% of hours worked; how contractual leave above the statutory floor is handled for them is decided locally.
An extra Easter falling inside one leave year is resolved by local partnership agreement, not a national rule.
This is general information, not legal or HR advice.

Official sources

Related calculators

UK holiday entitlement calculator — the statutory 5.6 weeks that applies to every worker, NHS or not.
Holiday pay calculator — what a week of leave is worth when your pay varies.
All UK calculators