All employees in the UK are entitled by law to 5.6 weeks holiday per annum. For a full-time employee that is 28 paid days off per year, of which 4 weeks is standard leave and 1.6 (or 160% of the working week) is 8 of the bank holidays.

The entitlement to 8 bank holidays as paid days off is a new law, which was introduced in April 2009. Previously it was only those actually worked in a bank who were legally entitled to the bank holidays as paid days off.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Many families have been giving their nannies all bank holidays as paid days off well before the introduction of the new law, and if this is the case the nanny’s statutory entitlement will remain at 5.6 weeks. Not 5.6 weeks plus 8 bank holidays.

If you work part-time and wish to calculate your pro-rata holiday entitlement, you simply multiply the number of days you work per week by 5.6. So, for example if you work 3 days per week, you would multiply 3 by 5.6 which means you are entitled to a total of 16.8 days per year. 

In addition to holiday entitlement, the Working Time Regulations, the UK interpretation of the European Working Time Directive, also grants all employees the following statutory rights:

• Rest breaks
• Nannies and all other domestic employees are however exempt from the measures concerning working hours